Lesson 5

We will join our seminar teams and conduct our first seminar, sharing what we have learned from the first supplemental text we each read. We will synthesize ideas from and about our initial reading, then consider where to go next in our individual and team research.

Lesson Goals

Can I participate collaboratively, offering ideas or judgments that are purposeful in moving the team toward goals, asking relevant and insightful questions, tolerating a range of positions and ambiguity in decision making, and evaluating the work of the group based on agreed-upon criteria while working in my seminar discussion team?
Can I make connections to personal experiences and ideas in my research texts?
Can I describe personal connections to a variety of sources, including self-selected research texts?
Can I synthesize information from a variety of sources read and analyzed by members of the seminar team?

Texts

There are no texts for this Lesson.

Materials

Tools

Reference Guides

Academic Discussion Reference Guide

Editable Google Docs

Activity 1: Discuss

We will join a new seminar team, as directed by our teacher, with students who have similar interests and research topics or themes. We will introduce ourselves to our team, discuss our focus topics or themes, and review our inquiry questions.

Step 1

Join a new seminar discussion team, as directed by your teacher, based on the topics and inquiry questions you submitted. You will work with this team for the rest of the unit.

Introduce yourself to your new seminar team by doing the following:

Identify the first name you prefer to be called by and something about you that you think is interesting in relation to this unit and its questions.
Explain what you listed in your research proposal memo about what you hope to learn and accomplish, why, and how you are thinking about conducting further research and reading.
Share something interesting you think about what it means to live a life well-lived and a text that has particularly influenced your thinking.
Share the inquiry questions you have developed and how you think the seminar team might help you investigate them.
Share your initial thinking about how you might respond to the questions for the Culminating Task by writing a personal reflection, a personal essay, or a personal narrative.

Compare your thinking, interests, and questions, and make a list of the team’s initial, common questions about ideas, topics, and key words you want to investigate further through individual reading and team discussion. Refer to the notes and personal writing you have recorded in your Learning Log.

Step 2

As a team, discuss your current thinking about the unit’s two Central Questions and how that thinking will be used as you do supplemental research and reading.

What does it mean to live a life well-lived?
What compass might you carry as you undertake your journey in the world?

Review the texts from Sections 1 and 2 that you have read and discussed. Compare your impressions of and responses to those texts, using notes and tools you developed when working with them.

Identify several of those texts that your team sees as foundations for future research and reading or that can act as key compasses in your common interest areas.

Individually, review the tools and notes you previously developed for these texts. Share with your team what you notice about the texts as foundations for future research and reading.

Step 3

On your own, go back through your Learning Log notes and the Discussion Checklists you completed when working on academic discussion skills and processes. Share the goals you set based on your self-assessments with the checklist.

Make a team list of goals you have individually identified, then designate three skill areas that your team will focus on as you engage in research and academic discussions in this section of the unit.

Step 4

Following this preliminary discussion, identify a facilitator for the next few lessons, a monitor to track the team’s processes and progress, and a recorder to keep notes. You will shift these roles to new team members in Sections 3 and 4.

Activity 2: Discuss

In a seminar discussion format, we will present our impressions and summaries of the first supplemental texts we read.

Step 1

Identify the texts from the Supplemental Texts Handout or individual researchthat team members read individually during the previous lesson. Note any texts that were read in common, and also related keywords that might connect the set of texts. Determine an order for discussing those texts as a seminar team.

Step 2

Individually, use the summaries and explications you developed, as well as selected questions from the Section 2 Question Set,to present what you have discovered in and learned from the text you read.

Share your reasons for being interested in and reading the text, and your initial impressions of it (Questions 1 and 2).
Briefly summarize the topic and key ideas or themes addressed in the text (what it is about), and characterize the author’s perspective (Question 3).
If the text has used stories to convey its ideas, summarize the narrative and how it is used (Question 4).
Share observations about how figurative language has been used in the text, and read a few examples of figurative language that you find interesting (Question 5).
Explain the meaning you have found in the text and how its central claims or ideas are developed (Questions 6 and 7).
Present your thinking about how the text relates to the unit’s Central Questions (Questions 8 and 9).

After presenting your summary and analysis, respond to any questions and observations from the team that might help you relate your text to others that teammates have read.

Step 3

Repeat the presentation and discussion process for all of the texts that team members have read.

Activity 3: Discuss – Read

As a team, we will discuss connections and common themes among the texts we have read and use them to develop initial claims in response to the Central Questions of the unit.

Step 1

Having presented and discussed all of the texts that members of the seminar team have read, now discuss connections and common themes you have found among the texts.

First, make a team list of central ideas or themes that members have identified in their reports. Look for connections among the texts and their meanings.

Then, consider not only the central ideas and themes of the texts, but also the stories they may be built around, their use of figurative language, their genres, and their authors.

Make a list of similarities and differences among the texts.

Step 2

In light of the previous comparative discussion, reconsider the two Central Questions of the unit:

What does it mean to live a life well-lived?
What compass might you carry as you undertake your journey in the world?

Review the Section 3 Diagnostic Checklist to review the presentation you will be delivering as a seminar team in the upcoming section.

With your seminar team, develop and deliver a 5-7 minute presentation that synthesizes what you have discovered about living a life-well lived through reading and discussion. Design an evocative experience for your audience that pulls together the meaningful texts, stories, images, and metaphors you have encountered in the unit.

Discuss the various ways in which the texts relate to or present an idea that connects to the first Central Question about a life well-lived. As you do so, develop an emerging team definition of what a life well-lived might involve, based on the texts you have read and the ideas of members of the team. Begin to think about how your ideas might be developed into a team presentation later in the unit.

Step 3

Form a team claim in response to the first Central Question. This is a first draft of a claim you will continue to reconsider throughout your team’s research, reading, and discussion process. Determine if using a Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool will help you form your claim. If so, consider the central ideas from the texts you have read and discussed in this lesson as the details you will analyze and connect to form your claim.

In addition, make a list of any new inquiry questions that came up during your seminar discussion.

Step 4

Record the draft team claim and new inquiry questions in your Learning Log. Then write a personal response to the claim, reflecting on what you have learned from the text you read, the seminar discussion, and the process of comparing texts and what they say about living a life well-lived. Explain whether you might now see the text you have read as a guiding compass, and explain why.

Activity 4: Read

We will review the Supplemental Texts Handout and plan our next steps for individual reading and team research and discussion.

Step 1

As a team, review again the Supplemental Texts Handout in light of this seminar discussion and the claim and questions it has generated.

Identify new texts from the list that do the following:

relate closely to the team claim and the questions you have generated
relate to individual members’ topics and themes of interest or that have been previously listed as texts they want to read
are texts already read by one team member that a different member now wants to read

Step 2

As a team and as individuals, determine the next texts you will read for homework and discuss in the next seminar.

Activity 5: Read

For homework, we will read our next supplemental text.

Do a first reading of the text you were selected or been assigned by your seminar team. As you read, consider these questions:

Why were you initially interested in this text as one you wanted to read and discuss? What about its key words or summary drew you to it?
What are your first impressions of the text, the perspective of its author, and the central ideas it seems to be about?
What do key words and details in the first section of the text suggest about its author’s perspective on life and view of the world?
What stories does the author present to illustrate the central ideas of the text?