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Lesson 1

We will use foundational texts along with a text from each pathway to make comparisons and draw conclusions.

Lesson Goals

  • Can I integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information to expand or refine my original response?

  • Can I produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization and style are appropriate to my task, purpose, and audience?

  • Can I gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, assess the strengths and limitations of each source, integrate information into my text to develop my ideas, and expand or refine my original response?

  • Can I draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support my thesis statement and supporting points?

Texts

Core

  • Unit Reader
    • “A Quilt of a Country,” Anna Quindlen, Newsweek, 2001
    • “What Makes an American,” Raoul de Roussy de Sales, The Atlantic Media Co., 1939

Materials

Tools

Question Sets

Editable Google Docs

Activity 1: Read

We will review previously read texts in order to create meaningful and constructive connections across the texts.

Step 1

Consider one of the pairs of quotes from the Text Synthesis Handout.

Individually, respond to the following questions:

  1. What ideas do these quotes share?

  2. What is the fundamental difference between the quotes?

With your group, discuss the quote pair you chose and the two questions.

Collaboratively, create a list of similarities and differences between the quotes. Review the list and identify trends or categories in your list.

Step 2

Participate in a whole-class discussion about the similarities and differences of ideas in each pair of quotes.

After each group has shared, choose one of the pairs of quotes and individually work to respond to the following question:

  1. How do the ideas in the quotes relate to one another?

Activity 2: Read

We will continue using our foundational texts along with a pathway text to continue making comparisons and drawing conclusions.

Step 1

We will use the Extending Understanding Tool in this activity.

The Extending Understanding Tool supports and guides a process for analyzing relationships among texts or sections of text, making text-based comparisons and developing a claim or posing a new text-specific question. Often, you will use it with a new text that you want to relate or compare to a previous text you have analyzed. As with the other Reading Closely Tools, it is usually used with a guiding or text-specific question that involves comparing texts or extending understanding from one text to another.

Step 2

Use the tool in the following way:

  1. Write down the guiding question in the space provided at the top. You might be assigned the guiding question by your teacher, it might come from a question set, or you might think of your own question. This question can help you focus your reading, or it might give your reading a specific purpose. It will usually be a question that builds on other questions you have considered and involves more than one text.

  2. The first row on the tool can serve two purposes:

    1. If you are working with one text, this is a space to compare ideas in the text or track how an idea or claim is developed within the text.

    2. If you are working with two or more texts, this is a space to compare ideas among them. The space can be used to compare how different authors convey similar themes, or how different authors develop arguments. Notice the directions state to explain and not just identify. This means you might have to include relevant facts or details to support your comparisons.

  3. The Analyze Relationships row asks you to identify how your thinking about the topic, texts, or claims has changed or expanded as a result of new information you read. This is not just a space to write the new information you gathered; it is a space to identify how or why this new information has shifted, refined, or confirmed your perspective.

  4. The final row invites you to synthesize this new information. When you synthesize something, you are putting all the pieces together and considering all of your information, then developing a new claim or question. You can write the claim or question in the space provided.

  5. You might repeat this process several times as you gather new information.

Step 3

Select an article from your pathway text set in the Foundation Unit Pathway Texts that all group members have previously read.

Review claims made by Anna Quindlen’s and de Roussy de Sales, respectively:

“Out of many, one. That is the ideal. The reality is often quite different, a great national striving consistently frequently of failure.”

“The American consciousness gives an impression of growth. It is not static, and one feels that it still contains tremendous possibilities of expression.”

Review main ideas from your pathway article. Use the Extending Understanding Tool to individually answer both questions. You will complete a tool for each question:

  1. What do your article and either Quindlen’s or de Roussy de Sales’s claims have in common?

  2. What are fundamental differences between your article, Quindlen, and de Roussy de Sales?

Step 4

Share your tools with your group members, and work to create a collaborative list that combines all noted similarities and differences.

As a group, work to synthesize your similarities and differences into one statement each, such as these examples:

  • The main similarity among these texts is _____.

  • The main difference among these texts is _____.

Activity 3: Read

We will include an additional pathway text in order to practice the type of synthesis and conclusions that will be necessary in our Culminating Task.

Individually, in pairs of two, or as a whole group, choose another pathway text read by all group members and compare it to the pathway text you just compared to the Quindlen and de Roussy de Sales texts.

Once again, identify central ideas from each text and respond to the following questions. You might use a copy of the Extending Understanding Tool to help you analyze the texts:

  1. What do these texts have in common?

  2. What is their fundamental difference?

If working individually or in pairs, share responses with the whole group until all ideas have been accounted for and wrote down.

Synthesize findings into the following summation statements:

  • The main similarity among these texts is _____.

  • The main difference among these texts is _____.

Reflecting on all rounds of this activity, discuss with group members the following questions:

  1. Why does it matter that these texts have similarities?

  2. Why does it matter that these texts have differences?

If time is an issue, this lesson might be expanded over two class periods.

Activity 4: Read

We will culminate our process of making connections and drawing conclusions by looking beyond the texts we have read in order to determine Future needs for reading, research, and revision of ideas.

Review the notes taken on each of the texts under examination:

  • Quindlen’s quotes

  • de Roussy de Sales’s quotes

  • Pathway Text 1

  • Pathway Text 2

Reflecting on all texts read, consider what questions remain, using the following questions as a guide for your thinking (answer at least two questions using textual evidence as support):

  1. How does this group of texts inform my current understanding of what makes an American, overall, and my pathway, specifically?

  2. Does one text provide more information than others? Why is that?

  3. What questions arise from these texts? How can I answer them?

  4. How will these texts help my pathway group be successful on our Culminating Task?

Share findings with your pathway members and discuss ways to help each other answer any remaining questions.