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Lesson 2

Analyze Key Sources

We will closely read the four key sources we chose in the previous lesson. We will quote and paraphrase sections that are relevant to our research, take detailed notes, and share our findings with our team.

Lesson Goals

  • Can I engage deeply with my sources by reading closely and taking detailed notes that will help me organize my work for our final presentation?

  • Can I find, cite, and reference information in multiple texts to form substantiated, evidence-based claims?

  • Do I contribute meaningfully to my team’s discussions, helping my peers evaluate and revise our work?

Texts

There are no texts for this Lesson.

Materials

Tools

Question Sets

Editable Google Docs

Activity 1: Read – Write

Each member of our team will continue to read and annotate each of the four key sources, recording key information and personal impressions.

Individually, continue reading each of your team’s four key sources, using the Research Note-Taking Tool to write down ideas, information, and details that you find in the text that help answer your team’s inquiry question or yield conclusions about your research problem.

Also write down detailed, personal comments about why you think these references from the text are valuable or useful. Your notes will be guided by your inquiry questions or your Central Research Question, but the following might also be helpful in guiding your reading and annotation:

  1. How does the text relate or contribute to answering the Central Research Question or inquiry question?

  2. What perspective is being conveyed here about the topic?

  3. How does this text relate to other perspectives conveyed in other sources? Is it balanced by another text?

Activity 2: Read – Write – Discuss

We will read each other’s notes on our key sources, thinking carefully about how they fit with our research so far.

In pairs within your team, exchange your Research Note-Taking Tools to review your partner’s notes for the first key source. Write down your own comments, questions, and impressions of their notes on the texts.

Review the notes you receive from your partner and make any revisions or additions to your notes based on their feedback.

Discuss your observations on the sources and the differences and similarities among your notes.

Activity 3: Write

Each member of our team will complete a Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool for one of the key sources we closely analyzed.

Individually, complete the Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool for the first key source that you analyzed and annotated, using the following question:

  1. How does the source help you answer your team’s relevant inquiry questions or the Central Research Question?

As you work, review your team’s Research Frame Tool and take notes about any changes you’d like to make to the names or questions for each inquiry path. You might decide to cross out certain paths that seem less relevant after your more recent strategic searches and reflections. You might refine or revise your keywords, subtopics, or inquiry questions, or even create new ones. Be prepared to also share these notes with your team in the next lesson when you work collaboratively to revise your Research Frame Tool.

Activity 4: Read – Write

For homework, we will complete tools for our remaining key sources.

For homework, complete the Research Note-Taking Tool for the other key sources, if not already completed. Then, for each of the three remaining key sources, replicate the process of forming claims by either completing a Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool, like you did for the one key source in the previous activity, or by writing on paper or in your Learning Log, using the format and questions of the tool to guide your thinking.

Your team will use each team member’s notes and claims as you synthesize your findings and move toward creating a persuasive, evidence-based presentation for your learning community in the next lessons.