Lesson 2

Lesson Goals

Texts

Materials

Tools

• Who Changes the World?: Culminating Task Checklist

• Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool

• Foundation Unit Research and Presentation Guide

• Organizing Evidence Tool

• Potential Sources Tool

Question Sets

• Who Changes the World?: Section 3 Question Set

Editable Google Docs

• Who Changes the World?: Culminating Task Checklist

• Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool

• Organizing Evidence Tool

• Potential Sources Tool

• Who Changes the World?: Section 3 Question Set

Activity 1: Read – Discuss

We will confirm our understanding of the task, audience, and purpose for the Culminating Task.

You have been working with your team to develop key skills and research techniques and to learn more information about your pathway topic. Now, your team will begin the process of synthesizing your research and planning a presentation that you will go on to create and deliver to your learning community. Group presentations are exciting for both the presenters and the audience because they allow you to express a variety of perspectives, styles, and approaches within a single project. You will work together to plan for an interesting, relevant, rich, clear, and accessible presentation, and each team member will play an integral role in your presentation, bringing their own unique contributions at every stage.

Review the Culminating Task Checklist and section 3 of the Foundation Unit Research and Presentation Guide: Creating and Delivering Your Presentation. Discuss the following questions with your research group:

1. Do you fully understand what is expected for the presentation you will be creating and delivering for the Culminating Task?

2. Thinking about your purpose for the task, what information for your pathway is the most important for your audience to know? What does your audience already know about change agents, and how can you build on that information?

Activity 2: Write

We will use the Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool to form an overarching claim addressing the Culminating Task question.

At this point, you have analyzed several key sources. You will now begin to think about what you want and need to communicate to your audience in your presentation. You do not need to focus on the format of your presentation just yet. Right now, you are thinking about your central message.

To begin, you will form claims, or evidence-based conclusions, you have come to after having analyzed several sources with respect to your pathway topic.

Examine the Culminating Task question:

What are the conditions that caused or allowed change to occur in your pathway topic, and who were change agents?

Using a Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool, work with your research team to draft an overarching claim based on your research that responds to this prompt.

Activity 3: Write

We will use the Organizing Evidence Tool to develop an outline for our presentation.

Step 1

Now that you have established your overarching claim, you will draft a series of supporting claims. This will serve as the outline for the content for your presentation.

Access the Organizing Evidence Tool. The Organizing Evidence Tool can be used to develop a plan for supporting a central claim, or thesis through a series of supporting claims, each of which has evidence to support it. Once you have formed a central claim, you can use this tool to develop a logical sequence of supporting claims, be it for an argument, expository essay, or presentation. The tool provides spaces in which you can write down a series of supporting claims or counterclaims, then write down and explain supporting evidence, noting the source from which it comes.

Step 2

Use the space at the top of the tool to write down your central claim from the Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool. The rest of the content in the document will connect back directly to it. This central claim can also be considered your thesis or position statement if you are crafting an argument. The remainder of the document provides a series of claim-based sections for you to lay out the support for your central claim, using the following process:

1. Develop your supporting claims. A supporting claim is a statement about an issue, topic, text, event, or idea that develops and supports the central claim or an argument’s thesis. Write down the supporting claims or counterclaims you develop in the rows labeled Supporting Claim 1, 2, etc.

   1. For example, imagine your claim is, “Steve Jobs was a highly impactful change agent in the field of technology.” Your supporting claims might include, “Jobs took other people’s ideas and made them better, down to the last detail,” and “Many of the technologies we use every day sprang from Jobs’ work in technology.” Each of these supporting claims fit under the umbrella of the central claim.

2. Provide evidence you can use to support each of your supporting claims. Beneath each claim statement is a space in which you can make notes about the evidence you will use when developing that claim. Use your annotations from your pathway and research texts as well as your Potential Sources Tools to assist you.

3. Analyze the evidence. In the space below the evidence you have noted, explain how that evidence supports the supporting claim and the central claim. There are two steps to this part of the process. First, connect the supporting claim to the evidence through one or two sentences that explain that connection. Then, connect the supporting claim back to the central claim.

   1. In the Jobs example, a sentence that connects the second supporting claim to the central claim might be, “As the chairman and CEO of Apple, Jobs was responsible for advancements in not only computers but also devices like the iPhone.

4. In the final text row, identify the text you got the evidence from, including a page citation, because you might need to go back to clarify your notes, find additional evidence, or use a quotation.

Work with your group to complete the tool and develop an outline for the content of your presentation.

Activity 4: Write – Discuss

We will reflect on our work to determine our progress toward the Culminating Task.

Respond to the following questions on your tracker with your group:

1. How did you, specifically, contribute to your group?

2. On a scale from one to four, how well do you understand the topic, your research, the texts you read, and the expectations of the Culminating Task?

Activity 5: Read – Write

For homework, we will carefully reread and take notes on section 3 of the foundation research and Presentation Guide.

For homework, reread section 3 the Foundation Research and Presentation Guide: Creating and Delivering Your Presentation.

Respond to the following questions in your Learning Log:

1. What do you think is the best format to present your information to make it both interesting and meaningful in regard to furthering your audience’s understanding of your research pathway?

2. Do you have ideas on how to present in a way that will impact your audience for the long term rather than just fulfilling the requirements of the assignment? Can your group be change agents by presenting this information in a specific way?

Be prepared to share your ideas with your research team in the following lesson.