Nancy Disenhaus High School Global Issues

Writing For Understanding
Teacher Plan

Teacher: Nancy Disenhaus June 2009 School: U-32 Course: Gender Studies
Global Issues Unit
Writing Genre: Response to Text

CENTRAL IDEAS

Content: Global Issues collection of news articles concerning gender-related situations of violence and oppression. As young men and women soon to be of voting age, students will understand that it is important to become informed about situations around the world and think in terms of effective action individuals and groups can take. Many of these situations involve oppression and violence based on gender.

Reading: I want kids to first develop the habit of keeping track of many different readings by using a system of brief journal entries, then learn to draw connections among related articles to help form the structure of their final piece of writing. I want them to learn to use webs, color coding, and other techniques to clarify relationships among readings from the perspective of the focus question, to give them tools to use when dealing with large amounts of information in future courses.

Writing: I want kids to understand that to grasp a big picture, it’s necessary to put together the pieces of the mosaic. In order to put together a meaningful response to this collection of disparate articles, each student must first achieve an understanding of the various pieces, then find the connections among them, and finally look for the Big Picture. These students generally have the skills needed to use the format of the Response to ‘Text genre, so their biggest need will be to learn to manage a wide range of informational text in a cohesive and meaningful way.

Focusing Question

How are people being oppressed based on their gender around the world, and how have informed, courageous people responded?

Focus

In many situations around the globe, people are experiencing violence and oppression based on their gender. There are many ways informed and courageous people, both within and outside these situations, have taken action to bring about positive change in people’s lives.

Building and Processing Working Knowledge

Frayer model for working with key terms like “oppression” and other terms that will recur in the articles and in our discussions

Notes sheets for the more complex articles, including paraphrasing, vocab., mini-summaries so far, and 2-column notes; groups can work on these in class, then use in their presentations. After this, kids will transition to creating their own marginal notes after several guided models, using sticky notes to annotate several spots in each article themselves.

Guided model of notes on article: Do one article in landscape format, with side notes directives: e.g., “Write a paraphrase of this paragraph.” “Summarize paragraphs 3 + 4.” “Define and explain this term in sentence 4.” (NOTE TO MYSELF: How to set this up: copy the article, paste onto new document, use Page Set-up to shift to landscape orientation, then make shorter right margin to leave room on right for notes directions.) Then on subsequent articles, give kids 4 sticky notes to use in the right margin in similar ways, as they see fit. So—model how to take meaningful notes, then have kids practice it.

Journals (loose-leaf) for writing brief summaries of and responses to each article, with regular feedback from me.

Start class with think/pair/share on articles, switching kids to different partners so that one kid in a pair doesn’t do all the heavy lifting while the other hitchhikes.

Maps for locating each country the articles refer to.

On-going webs/clusters graphic organizers, for kids to make connections between articles.

Small group or pair presentations on articles, including a visual accompaniment, using large Post-it poster sheets to be placed around class after presentation.

Whole-class sharing of web / clusters to see relationships among the situations described in the various articles.

In small groups, generate potential topic sentences that could be used in the longer essay, to develop particular aspects of the response; share and discuss strengths of each in shaping a paragraph.

Short paragraphs along the way to begin shaping the thinking for the final paper.

Introduce unit with the movie Water, using the focusing question as a way to begin responding as a group, using journal-writes each night for homework after the day’s viewing, then sharing and discussing before continuing the movie.

Structures

• Painted Essay/Narrative Icons
• Hamburg paragraph
• Teacher –written models
• Student –written models
• Other

Review quote sandwich approach to using textual evidence; then give each student one piece of a quote sandwich, and tell them to find the other two pieces so they can as a group write down their complete quote sandwich; share on overhead transparencies.

Show models of good journal entries when journals are assigned, showing use of overall summary, specific details, and a quote to remind writer of what was powerful in the article. Also do simple journal-entry rubric.

Review response to text genre, using benchmark, student samples, and graphic organizers.
Teach madman, architect, carpenter, judge paradigm, and assign madman draft.

Review thesis and topic sentence structure (keystone and arch visual).

Writing/Revising

Peer writing groups help each member decide on best ideas for topic sentences; then fill in a graphic organizer to plan architect draft, including which specific details they’ll use to elaborate their main paragraph ideas.


Teach “so-what”concept, and have kids figure out what they want the “so-what” of their essay to be.

Architect draft gets teacher feedback.

Use samples from their drafts to work on common problem areas + share good bits (topic sentences, details, thesis statements).

Carpenter draft gets group time, then teacher feedback to help with issues like transitions, flow of ideas, etc.

Use overheads from drafts to note recurring GUMS issues so kids can do good final self-editing.

Lesson Sequence

Introduce unit with the movie Water, using the focusing question as a way to begin responding as a group, using journal-writes each night for homework after the day’s viewing, then sharing and discussing before continuing the movie.

Introduce articles collection; give overview of what they’ll be doing: readings, journals, presentations, short writings, and final writing.

Go back to focusing question and do Frayer model vocab. work on idea of oppression.

Post large map of the world/ mark location of Water,and continue doing this for each article they’ll read.

Introduce journal-entry format, including a rubric. Show model journal entries; relate to entries they wrote while viewing Water.

Introduce notes system for readings; show model, give first article with notes directives, then distribute sticky notes for kids to use on subsequent articles. For longer articles, we’ll do notes sheets in class: 2-column notes sheets, etc. Kids will do notes on shorter articles as they read (homework).

Set up the task (with sticky notes) of kids devising their own notes directives. Share their sticky-notes in class as they work on the articles; next day, share again. Then they can put the sticky notes in their journals to turn in (we are conserving paper by re-using articles rather than marking them p directly). When I collect the journal entries, I can give feedback on their note-taking directives.

After first night’s readings, do think-pair-share on articles, switching kids to a different partner for each article so they will definitely be accountable for having read, rather than relying on one partner who will do all the work and end up feeling exploited. Then call on kids to share with class their conversations, article by article.

After about 1/3 of the articles have been read over several days, begin working on cluster /web for beginning to draw connections among articles, related to different aspects of the focusing question. Whole-class sharing of webs to discuss connections kids are finding among articles.

Review the quote sandwich approach, show model paragraph, and write short paragraphs on articles read so far. Do activity with “qote sandwich pieces”: kids each get one piece, e.g. just the idea-intro sentence or just the quotation, and need to find the 2 matching parts to build a good quote sandwich. Share results.

Practice generating topic sentences (small groups) based on their quote sandwiches; share on overhead. Discuss strengths/qualities of a good topic sentence to shape a paragraph.

Individually, write short paragraphs (including good topic sentence + quote sandwich and further discussion) based on one topic on their webs; share aloud and discuss. Emphasize deep elaboration and thoughtful discussion.

Review Response to Text genre, including thesis statement/topic sentence framework of ideas (keystone/arch graphic).

Teach madman/architect/carpenter/judge paradigm, and assign madman draft.

Peer writing groups will help each member go through his/her madman draft, deciding on best ideas to use for topic sentences, best details they have so far, etc. Each writer will then fill in a graphic organizer to plan the architect draft, including which specific details will be used to elaborate the main paragraph ideas/topic sentences.

Teach “so-what” concept, and have kids figure out what they want the “so-what” of their essay to be. Go back to focusing question. Look oat all parts of the questions to devise thesis statements that will fully address the question and cover what they want their essay to include. Assign architect draft.

Architect drafts get group time (with accompanying group guidelines for what to look at in the drafts) + teacher feedback.

Use samples from drafts to work on common problem areas at architect stage + share good bits: topic sentences, details, thesis statements that are already looking good. Assign carpenter draft.

Carpenter draft gets group time (with guidelines sheet), then teacher feedback to help with carpenter-stage issues like transitions, flow of ideas, etc.

Use overheads to note recurring GUMS issues so kids can do good final self-editing. Assign final draft.

Final draft—share some in class, having kids tell what areas they covered and the understanding they reached as they worked through their essays.





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