Students will eat an oreo, and I will go over the definitions of fact and opinion. They will tell me whether or not they like oreos and we will talk about how that is their opinion. We will also go over facts about oreos, like they have two chocolate cookies with cream in the middle.
Using a student-generated paragraph about observations in their outdoor classroom, students will be able to distinguish facts and opinions.
This unit engages students in a variety of activities that analyze and reflect on the role of social media in our everyday lives. This includes options for collaborative group work, reading nonfiction articles, a design challenge and presentations to communicate ideas. The unit also includes a formal writing assessment option that aligns with the Common Core State Writing Standards. Activities can be adapted or combined in a variety of ways to support student reflection and analysis. These lessons were piloted in 9th grade English classes but are suitable or a range of secondary students.
Students will use the outdoor space to generate opinions and facts about the space which they will use to write about how the space should be used.
Fiction, as you probably know by now, is the type of writing that an author creates, including imaginary characters and conflicts. In other words, it’s fake. Nonfiction, the type of writing you will focus on here, is factual, and addresses the real world and real things that are happening in it. More and more, however, nonfiction can be challenging to analyze as writers can slide their opinions into their writing. This becomes a challenge for the readers: What is the truth and what is merely an opinion? In this seminar, you will learn about objectivity and subjectivity, and why it’s necessary to be able to make inferences based on a writer’s claim in nonfiction reading. Don’t worry if some of those terms don’t make sense yet; you will learn about them soon enough.StandardsCC.1.2.9-10.B: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences and conclusions based on an author’s explicit assumptions and beliefs about a subject.CC.1.2.9-10.C: Apply appropriate strategies to analyze, interpret, and evaluate how an author unfolds an analysis or series of ideas or events, including the order in which the points are made, how they are introduced and developed, and the connections that are drawn between them.CC.1.2.9-10.I: Analyze seminal U.S. documents of historical and literary significance, including how they address related themes and concepts.