Teachers College Reading and Writing Project
Reading Curricular Calendar, Seventh Grade, 2013-2014
Unit Three – Nonfiction Research Across Text Sets
Unit Three – Nonfiction Research Across Text Sets
Overview
Essential Question:
How can we read in such a way that we develop more nuanced understandings of an issue,
learning to weigh and evaluate evidence, compare perspectives, and analzye arguments?
Bends in the Unit:
• Bend I: Reading Across Texts to Develop and Compare Ideas and Information
• Bend II: Becoming Argument-Debaters: Researchers Investigate Issues,
Recognize Sides
• Bend III: Employing close, critical, interpretive reading to notice how authors
craft their arguments
Anchor Texts:
• “Listening to Wisdom From a 10-Year-Old Son About His Head Injury” (2009)
from New York Times
• “Unique study explores cumulative effect of hits in high school football” (2011)
from Sports Illustrated
• “Section V: Increasing Physical Activity” (2010) from White House Task Force on
Childhood Obesity Report to the President
CCSS/LS Standards Addressed in this Unit
7.1
7.2
7.4
7.6
Cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says
explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
Determine two or more central ideas in a text and analyze their development over
the course of the text; provide an objective summary of the text.
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including
figurative, connotative, and technical meanings; analyze the impact of specific word
choice on meaning and tone.
Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how the author
distinguishes his or her position from that of others.
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Unit Three – Nonfiction Research Across Text Sets
7.8
7.9
Trace and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the
reasoning is sound and the evidence is relevant and sufficient to support the claims.
Analyze how two or more authors writing about the same topic shape their
presentations of key information by emphasizing different evidence or advancing
different interpretations of facts.
Assessment
Before you begin this unit, you will want to carefully consider your students’ initial
assessments. A quick on-demand of summarizing nonfiction and drafting part of an
argument essay will give you some insight into these skills. Remember that your ondemand data will help you to make some choices among these teaching points. If you are
doing a formal performance assessment, either before or after the unit of study you may
find text sets, Common Core aligned performance assessment tasks for information reading
and argument writing, and rubrics, at http://www.readingandwritingproject.com under
the banner ‘assessments.’
The argument checklist, available to TCRWP schools, will let your student self-assess and
set writing goals across the unit of study.
Welcome to the Unit
In this unit, you’ll group students into research clubs around a shared class study. In these
clubs, they’ll read either extensions of a class study, or they’ll read subtopics of that study,
or you could choose to open clubs to choice topics, depending on how much quality
nonfiction you have available. Right away, you’ll be teaching students to move from topic to
issue to sides to claims to evidence, really delving into the issues within bigger topics, and
then investigating how authors present those issues. Assuming your students are able to
synthesize and summarize complex nonfiction, this unit moves them forward to carrying
that work across texts and into deeper interpretation, teaching students to read not only
for ideas and evidence, but also to evaluate point of view, perspective, and warrant (the
reasoning evident in a text).
This unit parallels the research-based essay unit. Many teachers have paired these units
very closely together, using reading workshop to take part in deep analysis and
information gathering that then feeds students writing in writing workshop. If, however,
you are not pairing those units together and students will not use their research in essays,
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Reading Curricular Calendar, Seventh Grade, 2013-2014
Unit Three – Nonfiction Research Across Text Sets
you can stage a series of informal debates across the reading unit, and teach students to
rehearse their ideas, gather and harness evidence, and argue in an increasingly compelling,
researched manner across the unit of study.
The unit supports high levels of DOK—with a tremendous emphasis on teaching for
transference, on applying skills, and on building on prior learning to tackle new challenges.
You’ll want to make sure that students get opportunities to transfer this work to their
content studies. We have always asked students to support their ideas with details and
example, identify research questions for their research topics, and to determine the
author’s purpose and how it affects a reader’s interpretation of the information, all DOK
level three activities. Additionally, this much of this unit is formed around DOK level three
and four activities, such as analyzing and synthesizing information from multiple sources,
teaching students how to prove that their own claims, which build on these multiple
sources, are well-founded, and then applying what they have learned to debate and teach
others. You will also see that we have especially added further lessons to help students
undertake the work of analyzing authorial intent and interpreting the effect of author’s
craft.
The work of this unit should build on the work students did in RWP units in sixth grade. If,
however, your assessment of students before this unit begins or during the early stages
indicates that they need some foundational work in informational texts, then do turn to the
2012-13 nonfiction units from lower grades to enhance your planning. All of the shifts in
expectations for students in reading complex informational text will need to continue to be
taught into and practiced, particularly the work around summarizing, layering information,
discerning central ideas and supporting details, gleaning author’s perspective. Special
attention will also be need to be paid to supporting students as they continue to notice how
authors support implicit ideas in the text with particular reasons and evidence (CCSS RI
7.8). However, now as students gain repeated practice in looking across texts covering the
same content, in the company of others, it should become habitual to discern different
authorial decisions. This is work that we believe will be especially useful when preparing
students for various new standardized exams (such as the PARCC and Smarter Balanced
Assessments).
The focus on clubs means that students will be co-authoring understanding, comparing
ideas, and debating. Questions for clubs to consistently consider include:
•
•
What do these authors have to say about this topic?
How does what they say fit with what we already think we know about this
topic? How can we map all the parts of it and the different possible points of view
that we could take?
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Teachers College Reading and Writing Project
Reading Curricular Calendar, Seventh Grade, 2013-2014
Unit Three – Nonfiction Research Across Text Sets
•
•
•
•
•
What are the issues within this topic and what “stance” or position is this text
taking?
What is the evidence for this stance and how is that evidence presented?
Who has a voice in this text and who doesn’t? Why did the author include/not
include particular voices or perspectives? What effect does that have?
Who benefits from the topic being presented in this way?
What gives the author of this text credibility on this topic? Why should we trust
what he/she is saying? What craft does the author use to forward his/her claims?
You’ll undoubtedly want to turn to some professional texts to support your planning for
this unit. Chris Lehman’s Energize Research Reading and Writing Grades 4-8 (2012), his new
book co-authored with Kate Roberts Falling in Love with Close Reading: Lessons for
Analyzing Texts--and Life (out in late 2013) as well as Stephanie Harvey and Harvey
Daniel’s Comprehension and Collaboration: Inquiry Circles in Action.
What Will Students Read?
You’ll need text sets for your students, in order for them to weigh various perspectives on a
subject. If you gather some starter sets, students may add texts to these sets as well. It’s
often helpful if a text set includes print texts at various levels, some digital texts, and texts
that represent diverse points of view. A bibliography of some accessible text sets on high
interest and academic subjects is available under ‘resources’ at
www.readingandwritingproject.com. If you’d like to share resources with other teachers,
please email them to [email protected], and we’ll get them up on the
website as well. Also available at the same link is a list of online sites and journals that
provide information-dense, print-rich, high quality nonfiction for teens.
If you struggle to find enough texts, one option is for the class to become immersed in a
study, and everyone will work through read aloud, viewing of digital texts, and partner
reading of a few print texts. The main thing is to ensure that your students get to practice
higher level interpretation and that they get a sense of what it means to not only read for
ideas and information, but to weigh, evaluate, and compare author’s perspective, craft, and
warrant.
Bend I: Reading Across Texts to Develop and Compare Ideas and
Information
Session One: Anchor Experience
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Reading Curricular Calendar, Seventh Grade, 2013-2014
Unit Three – Nonfiction Research Across Text Sets
The text we chose to anchor this initial experience is from the New York Times (a
newspaper according to one source with an average Lexile of 1380L) titled “Listening to
Wisdom From a 10-Year-Old Son About His Head Injury” from 2009. It portrays multiple
perspectives (R.7.6) around this topic and includes arguments for and against these ideas
(R.7.8). Incidentally, the online version of the article includes many hyperlinks to other
texts that you could add to this text set. To get students started doing some of the reading
work you’ll be highlighting across the unit, we suggest that you start not so much by
modeling your thinking, but by lightly prompting students to focus on something they
would not otherwise have noticed. For example, you might preface a reading by suggesting
that as readers look for the issue or issues being discussed and begin to understand how
various sides support their arguments, they should be mindful of the subtle details the
author uses to suggest how the setting is unusual. As students talk about their noticings in
partnerships, you’ll listen for ways to give a bit of instant and specific instructional
feedback. To give feedback, you might demonstrate by showing them how you would read
a few lines and notice the choices the author has made (in this instance, pertaining to the
setting), or you might simply coach them to try something.
For instance, after just the first few paragraphs, you might prompt students to talk about
the arguments the article appears to already be raising. Listen for students to talk about
more than one point and provide some evidence to back-up their thinking. If students need
some feedback on this you could briefly demonstrate, then have them try talking again,
saying: “One debate in the world of sports that this article is illuminating is if playing
football is worth the risk of concussions. I notice that this author brings this up both
through the example of his son and through the list of tragic stories: ‘N.F.L. veterans
exhibiting Alzheimer’s-like symptoms in their 40s, teenagers dying after playing too soon
after a concussion.’” Point out what is transferable in what you have just done, say: “See
how I was looking for a debate this article brings up and then detailed what in the text led
me to that thinking? Can you talk with your partner once more and be sure to do this same
work carefully?”
At the end of this first session you will mostly likely arrange your students into research
clubs and for this first round distribute the same “sports” text set to all clubs, as the sets
hold a range of reading levels of points of view.
Your brief midworkshop teaching point for research clubs might sound like: “Readers set
plans of how to use NF texts for our research, both alone and in groups. These plans
include: who will read which texts in our club, what ideas we may want to tackle and even
early on, imagining the ways we could organize our notes. It sometimes helps to choose
texts, first, that give more background and seem to give us a general sense of this topic.”
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Unit Three – Nonfiction Research Across Text Sets
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Session Two- Comparing and Contrasting Ideas on a Subject
In session two, you might want to say, “Today I want to teach you
“Today I want to teach you that
that when readers read more than one text on a subject, they
when readers read more than
compare the ideas that authors forward and readers notice the
one text on a subject, they
similarities and differences.” Note for students that in complex
compare the ideas that authors
put forward and notice the
nonfiction sides aren’t always so crystal clear--texts tend to be less
similarities and differences.”
about “I completely agree with this topic” or “I completely disagree”
and instead tend to raise multiple issues and mostly, but not totally,
lean towards one. Often we discuss those with a partner, and we may begin to organize our
notes more carefully. In Energize Research Reading and Writing Chris Lehman suggests
students create “return to” pages in their notebooks, pages that become categories that
they write a large heard on the top of that students can continue to return to and insert
new information, understandings, and quotes from various sources--realizing that any one
text can potentially produce evidence for more than one claim.
Bring in another text for your demonstration. Your demonstration teaching might sound
like: “When we read that article yesterday from The New York Times we noticed that the
father grappled with a desire to have his son be an active football player with worry that
his son could be harmed by it. We found it interesting that in the end he allowed his son to
continue playing, thinking the risks were not worth stopping. I want to show you this
example of how you might set up your notebook. We could actually make a few pages
places to return to with new information, from that first article I’m going to write ‘Sports
Feel Important to People to Play” on the top of one page, then I’ll skip a few and write on
the top of another ‘Sports Can Be Too Dangerous to Play.’ Then I could add in some notes
and ideas from that source. As we read new articles, we read thinking about how authors
bring up sides of an issue and how they support those various arguments. I’d like you to try
this, I’m going to read a bit of the beginning of a new article, ‘Unique study explores
cumulative effect of hits in high school football’(2011) from Sports Illustrated, pay attention
to which arguments this article supports and how it is similar and different from the
previous one. Get ready to tell your partner how you would use these pages I set-up or if
you would add a new one.”
Today you could have students return to the texts sets you put together, if your students
have access to the internet you might instead have them explore PBS Frontline’s website
for their documentary “Football High School” which collects a wide range of video, articles,
and data on various perspectives around the draw of high school sports as well as the risks.
A possible small group may include teaching some of your students that readers read for
ideas and evidence rather than random bits of information. Just as we have to read
between the lines of our fiction, asking ourselves what this story is really about, we have to
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Unit Three – Nonfiction Research Across Text Sets
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read between the lines of nonfiction, trying to determine some big ideas the author
suggests and gathering evidence for those big ideas. In an expository text, we know to look
for places where the author is explicitly or implicitly teaching us ideas about the topic, and
to look across the text and any text features for key details that help us envision or
understand the central ideas.
Additional Sessions
In additional sessions you will teach students skills for reading complex nonfiction and
considering sides of an argument, you will also continue to teach into the ways clubs work
together. These may be whole group or small group lessons with an aim of helping students
become grounded in the various perspectives and evidence
You might teach that as readers become
around topics.
experts on a topic, they pick up expert
Additional teaching might include: As readers read more than one
text on a subject, they begin to organize their thinking,
conversation, and notes, as ideas that are supported by evidence
from more than one text. You might also teach that as readers
become experts on a topic, they pick up expert vocabulary that
increases their own authority. Readers are careful to not just use
their own words, when talking and writing, instead they
purposefully use precise vocabulary. Additionally, teach students
that as readers read and figure out what the authors and texts are
suggesting in terms of big ideas, they begin to develop their own
ideas on the subject. Careful researchers create systems to keep
these differences clear. They may use a different color pen for
their thinking in their notes, or use the margins, or put boxes
around their own thinking, or have special sections marked ‘my
current thinking.’ In another session, you’ll teach your students to
carefully keep track of resources, by jotting down the author,
title, and page number, or the URL/source of a digital source.
Remind them that researchers try to use quotation marks when
they are writing down or quoting directly, so that they give credit
to their sources.
vocabulary that increases their own
authority. Readers are careful to not
just use their own words, when talking
and writing, instead they purposefully
use precise vocabulary.
Additionally, teach students that as
readers read and figure out what the
authors and texts are suggesting in
terms of big ideas, they begin to
develop their own ideas on the subject.
Careful researchers create systems to
keep these differences clear.
In another session, you’ll teach your
students to carefully keep track of
resources, by jotting down the author,
title, and page number, or the
URL/source of a digital source. Remind
them that researchers try to use
quotation marks when they are writing
down or quoting directly, so that they
give credit to their sources.
Club work might include: Clubs can talk off of visuals (photos, graphics, etc.) when
discussing points. This helps us synthesize our thinking and tests what we are clear about
and not (For example, in my club I might hold up a chart showing data on high school
sports injuries and another showing the amount of calories burned in various physical
activities including sports.) Also, support clubs in not just talking about small facts but
repeatedly aiming to place those smaller facts in larger containers. Help club members
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summarize major point they hear and verbally organize them for their group: “It sounds
like we are saying two big things here... should we take up one of those and talk more about
what we have been learning?”
Bend II: Becoming Argument-Debaters: Researchers Investigate
Issues, Recognize Sides
During this bend, students might be in the same text set/topic, or they might rotate and
begin a second topic. You’ll want to remind them to use all they have learned so far about
synthesizing and comparing ideas and evidence, as they now begin to investigate issues
and perspectives more critically. Continue to listen to how clubs use their texts and talk
about them, while it is important to support students in having high leverage conversations
(SL.7.1), clubs conversations can also reveal how students are processing texts when they
read individually. Keep thinking about what reading instruction can lead to better talk.
Session One- Investigating the Multiple Perspectives of an Issue
Teach students that researchers begin to investigate the issues
“Today I want to teach you that
that are hiding in their topic – that is, the parts of the topic
readers develop a mental map or chart
of the topic they are studying and they
that are disputed. As they gain a better sense of the sides of an
push themselves to think about as
issue, they dig into really researching those sides. You might
many possible aspects of the topic as
say: “Today I want to teach you that readers develop a mental
they can. They ask, ‘What are the
different positions or perspectives that
map or chart of the topic they are studying and they push
we can imagine existing inside of this
themselves to think about as many possible aspects of the
topic?’ Then readers reread familiar
topic as they can. They ask, ‘What are the different positions or
texts or seek out new ones to help
them learn more about these sides.”
perspectives that we can imagine existing inside of this topic?’
Then readers reread familiar texts or seek out new ones to
help them learn more about these sides.” You might also add, “Readers might also ask,
‘What are the extremes of this topic? Are there pros/cons? For/against? Causes and
effects? Are there people or others who are likely to benefit from some aspect of this, or
people who are likely to suffer or who are likely to be upset about some part of
this?” Choose a new text from the text set (see the end of this write-up) to demonstrate
this.
Your brief midworkshop teaching point for research clubs might sound like: Researchers
come together to chart our thinking on paper. We can create an organizer to help envision
the multiple sides and perspectives of a topic and to locate the evidence for the various
sides.
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Unit Three – Nonfiction Research Across Text Sets
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Session Two- Reading to Prepare for Debate
You may choose at this point to teach clubs to take on a new role, not just to grow ideas and
clarify understandings, but to practice quick debates. At first these debates may be a bit
unwieldy, yet incredibly fun--harness students’ excitement and channel it towards being
better prepared with evidence, facts, sources. This can make their reading more focused
and thoughtful. If your students are working on the writing unit that goes with this study,
then make explicit connections between how students write an argument essay and how
they verbally “speak an essay” in a debate. Our Vimeo video collection
(www.vimeo.com/tcrwp) includes some examples of working with students on these skills,
including an argument protocol that has been a great first step for students moving into
this type of thoughtful debate.
You might say: “Debating the sides of an issue lets us rehearse and argue the important
ideas and harness the evidence we’ve researched to support our claims. Often debaters
even push ourselves to switch sides of a debate, and re-examine
our evidence from the lens of the other side.”
“Today I want to teach you that when
Your teaching point might be: “Today I want to teach you that
when readers are preparing for a debate, they read with a
different stance. They read as if they’re debating the text,
thinking, ‘Oh yea? You claim that is true? Tell me why you think
that.’ and then they see how well the author has supported their
points. Readers can also read aiming to refute other ideas.”
readers are preparing for a debate, they
read with a different stance. They read
as if they’re debating the text, thinking,
‘Oh yea? You claim that is true? Tell me
why you think that.’ and then they see
how well the author has supported
their points. Readers can also read
aiming to refute other ideas.”
Then your demonstration might sound like: “For example, several articles I have been
reading claim that the dangers of sports should make kids and parents question if it’s
worth the involvement. So I am going to seek out ways of refuting those points. For
example, here are some articles and reports I printed from the First Lady Michelle Obama’s
“Let’s Move” campaign (letsmove.gov). Watch how I read a bit of this report, “Section V:
Increasing Physical Activity” from the White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity Report
to the President (2010), and how as I read I am not just aiming to understand the text but I
am looking critically at points I can use to refute the other side.”
Your brief midworkshop teaching point for research clubs might sound like: To get ready to
debate a side of an issue, debaters often make cheat-sheets in which they jot the major
evidence, and the sources that this evidence came from.
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Unit Three – Nonfiction Research Across Text Sets
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Additional Sessions
Your additional teaching during this bend will stem from the work
you see your students doing. This would be a good time to refer back
to the RWP informational reading continuum and even the argument
writing checklists to make data-based decisions about next steps.
Additional teaching might include: Researchers look for nuance, even
in articles that appear to agree--they look for evidence that overlaps
and particularly for evidence that separates similar points of view.
You might also teach that researchers have to be careful that over
time they don’t just go seeking information that already agrees with
their arguments, but instead they remain open to new
ideas. Additionally, you’ll teach that note-taking is most powerful
when you make connections between old notes and new, previous
thinking to new ideas, and not just summarize.
“Researchers look for nuance, even
in articles that appear to agree--they
look for evidence that overlaps and
particularly for evidence that
separates similar points of view.”
You might also teach that
researchers have to be careful that
over time they don’t just go seeking
information that already agrees with
their arguments, but instead they
remain open to new ideas.
Additionally, you’ll teach that notetaking is most powerful when you
make connections between old notes
and new, previous thinking to new
ideas, and not just summarize.
Club work might include: Teaching students that debaters not only
refer to evidence, we also refer to the source our evidence when it strengthens an
argument, and as we do so, we try to establish the authority of that source, saying, for
instance, “there is an obesity issue in the United States that physical activity can correct.
For instance, the White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity, that developed a report
directly for the President of the United States, found that…” Also teach clubs that it is
important to listen to each other just as we are reading our books, to find the speaker’s
main points, their reasoning, and what evidence they are using (or missing) to support
their points (SL.7.3).
Bend III: Employing close, critical, interpretive reading to notice how
authors craft their arguments
This bend moves our students from learning about sides in critical topics (bend one), to
researching and debating the merits of opposing perspectives (bend two), to now a closer
study of how authors craft their arguments.
Session One - Understanding the Author’s Angle
Experienced researchers realize that nonfiction is not the truth, it is someone’s perspective
on the truth. That means we need to be alert to author’s biases, the validity of texts, and
how authors might manipulate our emotions as well as our thinking.
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Unit Three – Nonfiction Research Across Text Sets
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You might say: “Readers, just because a text is nonfiction doesn’t
“Today I want to teach you that as
mean it offers some sacred truth about a subject. Nonfiction is just
you read, you must pay attention to
someone’s perspective on the truth. That means, as readers read,
how your emotions are being
they want to stay highly alert to the fact that different people will
manipulated, and ask yourself not
just what view you are more
offer very different perspectives on the same subject, issue, or idea.
sympathetic to, but also why are you
The texts you’re reading will also reflect the different perspectives of
more sympathetic to that view.”
the authors, but in those texts, these perspectives may be more
hidden. Today I want to teach you that as you read, you must pay
attention to how your emotions are being manipulated, and ask yourself not just what view
you are more sympathetic to, but also why are you more sympathetic to that view. For
instance, if I reread the article we began this unit with, ‘Listening to Wisdom From a 10Year-Old Son About His Head Injury,’ I’m becoming very sympathetic to this issue because
the father describes his young son. Because I am connected so early on, when he shifts to
supplying other more public examples of the effects of concussions I can’t help but compare
those to the child. Now, is it right to assume that what happened to a NFL pro across his
whole career is destined to happen to a young child? Maybe not. But including that
personal perspective really affects me as a reader.”
Your brief midworkshop teaching point for research clubs might sound like: When talking
about the effects of texts, clubs can look particularly for loaded words – words that pack an
emotional punch or that set us up to admire or condemn.
Session Two- Analyzing the Impact of Narratives in
Informational Texts
As critical readers we can zoom in on images and anecdotes
nonfiction authors use to support their argument, and we
revisit those to see how they may stir up our emotions and
make it more likely we will feel sympathetic to a certain side of
an issue.
“Today I want to tell you that when readers
see narratives in informational texts they
can stop and look more carefully at them.
Readers draw on everything they know
about narratives to analyze these
anecdotes: what words do the authors
choose? What are the people thinking,
saying, and doing? What setting is
described? All of these details are
intentionally chosen to have an impact.”
You might say: “Anecdotes are often a part of strong
informational writing-- narrative elements help readers connect more emotionally and
intellectually with a text. It’s often more powerful to experience something, even just in our
minds, than just be told facts about it. Today I want to tell you that when readers see
narratives in informational texts they can stop and look more carefully at them. Readers
draw on everything they know about narratives to analyze these anecdotes: what words do
the authors choose? What are the people thinking, saying, and doing? What setting is
described? All of these details are intentionally chosen to have an impact.”
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Additional Sessions
Additional teaching might include: One helpful lens is to
consider the intended audience for a text as a way to further
think through the purpose and central ideas of that
text. Readers can ask, “Who is this text for, and how do I
know? Does the author seem to be writing to persuade
readers from another viewpoint or writing to a group of likeminded readers? Is the author talking to readers as if they
are beginners or experts in this topic?” You might also teach
your students that readers evaluate how persuasive the text
seems; or they may talk or write to think through how this
piece of writing might impact the intended community.
Additionally, you can teach students that as researchers extend
their expertise about an issue, and research specific claims
within it, sometimes they begin to notice when parts of a topic
are not being discussed, or are being left out. Also, you can
teach that astute researchers may actually find out more about
the authors and sources they are using. They check out
authors’ bias and authority. Finally, teach your students that
through close reading readers continually check in with,
extend, and adjust their own thoughts and opinions on the
topic they’re studying.
One helpful lens is to consider the
intended audience for a text as a way to
further think through the purpose and
central ideas of that text. Readers can
ask, “Who is this text for, and how do I
know? Does the author seem to be
writing to persuade readers from
another viewpoint or writing to a group
of like-minded readers? Is the author
talking to readers as if they are
beginners or experts in this topic?”
You might also teach your students
that readers evaluate how persuasive
the text seems; or they may talk or
write to think through how this piece
of writing might impact the intended
community.
Additionally, you can teach students
that as researchers extend their
expertise about an issue, and
research specific claims within it,
sometimes they begin to notice when
parts of a topic are not being
discussed, or are being left out.
Also, you can teach that astute
Club work might include: Clubs can look closely at the
researchers may actually find out
statistics, the numbers, and the data that are presented, and we
more about the authors and sources
they are using. They check out
notice if various authors offer different statistics, or when they
authors’ bias and authority.
may manipulate scale or context to skew data and our
response to it. Additionally, clubs can look closely at moments
when an author seems to sway a bit from their first stated opinion, “We ask ourselves, for
instance, ‘Is the author attempting to stay neutral but sometimes slides into opinionated or
loaded language? Or is the author clearly making an angled statement, but at some point
presents a counter-argument that undermines his/her own points?’
Possible Culminating Projects:
Annotated bibliography: Clubs write and publish annotated bibliographies on their topics,
including the source materials that they read and summaries of those materials, indicating
the relative value of each source text and what position(s) or angle(s) of the topic the text is
particularly relevant to. Or a Gallery walk of Texts: Clubs create a continuum of texts –
either across a spectrum of opinion on a topic if that applies (for example, from the least
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Teachers College Reading and Writing Project
Reading Curricular Calendar, Seventh Grade, 2013-2014
Unit Three – Nonfiction Research Across Text Sets
sympathetic to sharks to the most); or across a spectrum of reliability; or across different
perspectives. Clubs write explanatory texts in the form of post-its or note-cards to explain
the groupings of the source texts and how they decided to organize the texts in that
particular way.
Debates: Clubs rehearse and argue the most important claims and supports of sides of an
issue. They develop talking points and use either note cards and chart paper or PowerPoint
to present orally and visually on the topic, making clear note of the source of the
information they’re presenting.
Research-based Argument Essays: Students take a side of an issue and argue a claim in a
researched-based essay or documentary. (This unit of study is written up for middle
school as a parallel writing unit).
Questions for clubs to consistently consider:
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
What do these authors have to say about this topic?
How does what they say fit with what we already think we know about this
topic? How can we map all the parts of it and the different possible points of view that
we could take?
What are the issues within this topic and what “stance” or position is this text taking?
What is the evidence for this stance and how is that evidence presented?
Who has a voice in this text and who doesn’t? Why did the author include/not include
particular voices or perspectives? What effect does that have?
Who benefits from the topic being presented in this way?
What gives the author of this text credibility on this topic? Why should we trust what
he/she is saying? What craft does the author use to forward his/her claims?
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Teachers College Reading and Writing Project
Reading Curricular Calendar, Seventh Grade, 2013-2014
Unit Three – Nonfiction Research Across Text Sets
Appendix
Appendix A
Possible Text Set for Studying Sports Benefits and Dangers
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An article about a boy’s recovery from a snowboarding accident
http://www.timeforkids.com/news/new-beginnings/9676
Upfront article: Have Youth Sports Become Too Intense?
http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticnews/indepth/upfront/debate/index.asp?a
rticle=d022111
A book about extreme sports
Extreme Sports by Louise A. Gikow
A video about the importance of sports safety
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3bIY_Hohc0&feature=relmfu
Sports Illustrated report on high school concussion study
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/david_epstein/04/13/high.school.c
oncussion/index.html
PBS Frontline documentary and corresponding website: “Football High School”
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/football-high/
Malcolm Gladwell article in the New York on NFL and brain injury: “Offensive Play”
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/19/091019fa_fact_gladwell
Articles and reports from First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move Campaign
http://www.letsmove.gov/
White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity Report to the President (2010)
http://www.letsmove.gov/sites/letsmove.gov/files/TaskForce_on_Childhood_Obesi
ty_May2010_FullReport.pdf
An article about whether or not athletes are good role models
http://www.livestrong.com/article/402590-are-athletes-good-role-models-forkids/
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Teachers College Reading and Writing Project
Reading Curricular Calendar, Seventh Grade, 2013-2014
Unit Three – Nonfiction Research Across Text Sets
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An article about chemistry and how it has impacted sports: “Racing Ahead With
Chemistry”
http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_SUPERA
RTICLE&node_id=1758&use_sec=false&sec_url_var=region1&__uuid=b9bbb526349d-4cb4-8ec1-9f6ee721ff31
An article about taking the pressure off of sports competition
http://kidshealth.org/kid/stay_healthy/fit/pressure.html
Impact of football injuries
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/sports/football/29cohen.html?pagewanted
=print
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2013-2014 ©
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