Blog 11

The Fourth Lesson

For the fourth lesson I continued using the text Pros and Cons: Increasing minimum wages.  Since in lesson 2 and lesson 3 we had written summaries about the 2 articles and the students were familiar with the text, I decided to work towards a persuasive writing assignment.  The text was invaluable because it made the students excited about the topic.  When in lesson 3 they read about the cons of raising minimum wage, I think that they were impressed with the arguments made in this article.  So in order to find out if the students had been swayed one way or another, I went for a persuasive piece that allowed them to express themselves. 

When Jason and I met Monday before class, Jason helped me to construct a stellar visual organizer through redoing my evidence collection handout.  He created a box at the top which allowed for entering the main claim.  This was followed by 3 more boxes that were asking for evidence and explanation.  Jason’s reconstructed handout made a huge difference.  It really provided a tool that broke down the writing so that it was almost automatic once the information for the handout had been collected.

While I was giving the lesson, Jason did something different than he had done before.  He jumped in at appropriate times guiding me about things that I was not getting.  What I understood very well after giving the lesson is that the concept of claim, evidence and explanation had to be explained many, many times.  Jason recommended that I start with an I do, you do, we do approach.  I went to the board and entered in an example of a main claim which was followed by my example of evidence and explanation.  We then broke the class down in groups so that they could fill out this handout together.  I was surprised about how challenging this was for them.  But as I thought about it, I have just taken a writing class in the fall semester with Mark McBeth.  I remember being similarly confused while writing my first academic paper in his class.  Jason and I both went around to the different groups helping to clarify the claim, evidence and explanations we were asking from them.  I then asked them to post their work on chart paper.  We continued to go over these concepts while reading each other’s work.  Jason pointed out to me while they were posting their work on chart paper that in many cases there was a hazy line between evidence and explanation.  I tried to hone in on this confusion while we were discussing each other charts.

To finish off the lesson, I asked the students to keep this handout as we would be using it next week to complete the lesson with the persuasive writing.  I had them observe that the handout was a map for how they were going to write the persuasive piece next week.

Although I am teaching a fifth lesson next week, Jason brought me deep into the teaching process.  I was really able to understand how a lesson needed to be scaffolded and how by observing how I and the students were doing during the lesson, I was able to understand when I could move on to the next step.  This observation process is hard for a neophyte educator to put into their teaching because you have to veer your attention away from what you as a teacher have planned.  You have to jump from your plan and really try to see what is going on with the students.  What I loved about teaching this lesson is that Jason forced me to do this.

In our class discussions about what had been posted on the chart paper it became clear that many of them had been swayed by the cons argument.  I cannot wait to see next week’s persuasive writing pieces.