Lesson 3

Lesson Goals

Texts

Core

• • Texas A&M University Writing Center: Memos, The University Writing Center, Texas A&M University, 2021

Materials

Tools

• Potential Sources Tool

• What Does It Mean to Live a Life Well-Lived?: Supplemental Texts Handout

Reference Guides

• Questioning Reference Guide

Editable Google Docs

• Potential Sources Tool

Activity 1: Discuss – Read

We will discuss how each of us will conduct supplemental reading and research related to the topics, key words, themes, and compasses we are interested in.

Step 1

Follow along as your teacher discusses what you will be doing from this point forward in the unit. Briefly review the expectations for the Culminating Task and the Section 2 and 3 Diagnostics.

To prepare yourself to meet the expectations in each of these tasks, you will need to do some additional supplemental reading, research, discussion, and reflection. You will be trying to focus your thinking around a topic, key words, themes, or life compasses that you have begun to investigate and that you think might influence your responses to the unit’s Central Questions:

1. What does it mean to live a life well-lived?

2. What compass might you carry as you undertake your journey in the world?

Based on how you narrow and focus your supplemental reading, you will join a new seminar team, with whom you will have discussions about texts you and your teammates choose to read. While you will often be reading texts on your own, you will present summaries and progress reports to your team (and your teacher) to keep them informed about your research. You will also work with them to compare and synthesize what you are learning from your supplemental reading and to prepare an evocative team presentation for in the Section 3 Diagnostic.

Ask any questions of your teacher to clarify what this will mean for your work in the rest of the unit.

Step 2

Consider the various ways in which you might now focus your additional reading, research, and discussions by choosing a pathway, as explained by your teacher:

Topical Connections: If your thinking seems connected to life in the world around you, consider any of these possibilities, which might have emerged from your reading so far:

• personal identity, self-awareness, and growth

• family and friendship

• culture and community

• learning and education

• purpose and career

• the natural world

Qualities, Virtues, and Themes: If your thinking has begun to focus on one or more of the human qualities, virtues, or life themes you have encountered, consider possibilities such as the following:

• the examined life

• kindness and empathy

• tolerance and respect

• necessity

• determination and commitment

• curiosity and exploration

• interdependence

• fatih

Life Compasses: If you have found that certain genres, texts, metaphors, or authors seem to provide a guiding compass for you, consider possibilities such as the following:

• reading additional personal essays with a theme that is meaningful to you

• reading additional poems with a theme that is meaningful to you

• reading other texts (e.g., informational, argumentative, fictional) that are related to a meaningful theme or compass you have begun to discover

• reading additional texts by an author whose work and thinking you admire

• reading philosophical or religious texts that might serve as compasses for you

Step 3

Individually, review the Learning Log entries you made in response to the texts you have read so far in the unit. Look for connections, patterns, and ideas that stand out to you that might suggest how you want to narrow and focus your additional reading.

Connect your Learning Log entries to one or more of the pathways from the previous segment (Topical Connections; Qualities, Virtues and Themes; or Life Compasses) to try to answer the following question:

1. How might you narrow and focus your future reading, research, and discussions so that you have a plan to write a personal response to the Central and Culminating Task Questions?

Central Questions

1. What does it mean to live a life well-lived?

2. What compass might you carry as you undertake your journey in the world?

Task Questions

1. What have you discovered about living a life well-lived from the stories, metaphors, and potential compasses you have encountered in this unit?

2. How might you express your discoveries through personal writing?

Activity 2: Discuss – Write

We will discuss our options for narrowing and focusing our supplemental reading with a learning partner, then generate a list of pathways and inquiry questions we might use to organize further reading and research.

Step 1

With a learning partner, discuss what you have considered so far about the pathways for further reading and research (Topical Connections; Qualities, Virtues, and Themes; and Life Compasses) and the reasons for and against considering each pathway.

Compare your thinking with that of your partner and refine the options and possibilities you are thinking about.

Step 2

Throughout the unit, you have been thinking about and responding to questions posed by others: the Central Questions of the unit, the lesson-specific questions related to the texts you have read, and the question sets that have guided your reading of those texts. Now it is time for you to generate your own questions to guide your further inquiry, research, reading, and discussion.

As a class, access the Questioning Reference Guide—specifically the Posing Inquiry Questions for Research section. Discuss the guidelines and processes used to generate inquiry questions, select and refine inquiry questions, and use inquiry questions to look for sources.

Discuss the context in which you will be generating, refining, and using inquiry questions to narrow and focus your supplemental reading as you develop your responses to the unit’s Central Questions and prepare to write a reflective narrative, personal essay, or personal narrative that expresses your responses:

1. What does it mean to live a life well-lived?

2. What compass might you carry as you undertake your journey in the world?

Step 3

Follow along as your teacher demonstrates examples of possible inquiry questions related to various topics, themes, or compasses you might be considering:

On the topic of family:

• How do parents and other family members shape a person’s development in the world?

• How have various writers depicted families and the challenges and rewards of family membership?

On the theme of kindness and empathy:

• Why aren’t more people kind? What has caused kindness to be in short supply in our current world?

• How is empathy defined and developed? What is its opposite?

On compasses suggested in a writer’s work:

• What other works about encounters with nature has Annie Dillard written? What do they suggest about living a life well-lived?

• How did Annie Dillard develop her interest in and relationship with the natural world? What other writers was she influenced by?

As a class, generate additional examples of possible inquiry questions. Record ones you find interesting or meaningful in your Learning Log.

Activity 3: Write – Discuss

Individually, we will determine the pathways in which we want to do further reading and discussion. We will develop preliminary inquiry questions to guide our initial research into supplemental texts we might read.

Step 1

For one or more focus topics, themes, or compasses you are interested in, generate a list of preliminary inquiry questions you can use to begin your supplemental reading and research.

Consider this advice and reflective question set from the Questioning Reference Guide as you develop your list of questions:

Good inquiry questions are rich enough to support wide-ranging investigations that can lead to multiple answers and more questions. As you become more knowledgeable about the topic, your questions should become more specific. When selecting and refining inquiry questions about a topic or Central Research Question, reflect on questions such as the following:

1. Are you genuinely interested in answering your question?

2. Can your question be answered through research (and/or further reading)?

3. Is your question clear and specific?

4. Are there multiple possible answers to your question?

Step 2

In light of the pathway in which you want to do further reading, and the preliminary inquiry questions you have drafted, review the Supplemental Texts Handout for this unit. This handout organizes preapproved texts or websites that you might choose in two tables: Supplemental Texts and Website Research Portals.

Each supplemental text provides bibliographic information you can use to identify and locate the text on a web search. Use the information in Themes/Topics/Keywords/Genre and Summary Notes columns to help you identify texts you might want to review for your research objective and interest. Among other considerations, these columns contain information pertaining to Topical Connections; Qualities, Virtues, and Themes; and Life Compasses.

The Website Research Portals table contains websites you can use to begin your research. Each website contains a search feature to peruse and locate texts. You can use keywords from your inquiry questions to begin your search for texts relevant to your research objective and interest.

Based on the information about the texts in the handout, identify five texts or research portals that you think you might want to examine in relation to your focus topic or theme, your inquiry questions, and your developing sense of what it means to live a life well-lived.

Activity 4: Read – Discuss

We will learn how to develop a research proposal in a memo format that resembles professional correspondence, which we will submit to our teacher for review.

Step 1

Follow along as your teacher explains the format in which you will be communicating your proposed plan and your progress in completing it, which will combine elements of a research proposal with the structure and guidelines for business memos.

Formal research proposals, especially ones that involve extensive literature searches and hypotheses, have multiple components and requirements. You will not be doing that kind of research, but you can learn from guidelines for writing a research proposal. Use these three questions to determine what to address in a proposal:

1. What do you plan to accomplish?

2. Why do you want to do the research?

3. How are you going to conduct the research?

Step 2

Now discuss the purpose and format for writing a memo, which you will need to do in many professions.

First, read the following description of a memo:

A memo—short for "memorandum"—is a document used by people within an organization or business to communicate with one another. Memos are less formal than letters, and, like most business documents, should be brief and direct. Although memos have largely been replaced by email, there are times when a paper memo may be useful, such as if you need a hard copy record of an action or need recipients to initial a document. You can also use the memo format as the basis for an email message.

(Texas A&M University Writing Center: Memos)

Several sites, including universities, provide guides for writing memos. As suggested from your teacher, search for a webpage that provides guidelines for how to write a memo.

For example, the Texas A&M University Writing Center provides the following considerations when writing a memo:

• audience

• purpose

• style

• format

• heading

• body

• closing

• references

You will compose your memo as an email to your teacher using this format, then organize the body of the memo under the research proposal questions.

Activity 5: Write

We will write a business memo to our teacher that presents our research proposal for review and approval, as a preliminary step to beginning our extended research and reading.

Step 1

Considering the guidelines for informal research proposals and business memos discussed in the previous activity, compose a memo to your teacher in the prescribed format. Organize the content of your memo as follows (or in another format suggested by your teacher):

• What do you plan to accomplish? Succinctly explain the goals for your research, including the following:

1. what you hope to learn

2. how you will work with a seminar team to produce a presentation

3. your current ideas about what you will write in response to the texts you read

• Why do you want to do the research? Succinctly explain what it is you intend to focus on and why. Include the following:

1. the pathway you currently think you want to investigate

2. the reasons you have become interested in this pathway

3. what you hope to learn through your research, reading, and seminar discussions

• How are you going to conduct the research? Succinctly present the questions you want to address and the texts, key words, or research portals you intend to use. Do the following:

1. List your current inquiry questions, including the unit’s Central Questions and any lesson questions that you intend to investigate further.

2. List the three most promising texts (including their genres) from the Supplemental Text Handout that you intend to access and read first.

3. List any research sources, websites, and key words you might use to find additional texts, videos, or information.

Step 2

As you compose your memo, remember the guidelines to be brief, to the point, and professional. Consider using clear headings and bullets to make the information easier to follow.

Submit your memo to your teacher via email for review and approval.

Activity 6: Read

For homework, we will access and preview the first text we listed in our research proposal memo and at least one research source we might use to conduct additional searches for texts or information.

For homework, access and preview the first text you listed on your research proposal memo and at least one research source you might use to conduct additional searches for texts or information.