These discussion guides may be used as part of an anticipatory set to introduce argumentation. "Claim, Support, Question," is a "Visible Thinking Routine" developed by Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
This unit shows instructional approaches that are likely to help ELLs meet new standards in English Language Arts. Built around a set of famous persuasive speeches, the unit supports students in reading a range of complex texts. It invites them to write and speak in a variety of ways and for different audiences and purposes. Students engage in close reading of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech, Aristotleí˘äĺä˘s Three Appeals, Robert Kennedyí˘äĺä˘s On the Assassination of Martin Luther King, and George Wallaceí˘äĺä˘s The Civil Rights Movement: Fraud, Sham, and Hoax, Barbara Jordaní˘äĺä˘s All Together Now. The five lesson culminate with student's constructing their own persuasive texts.
Material Type: Unit of Study
Making Evidence-Based Claims ELA/Literacy Units empower students with a critical reading and writing skill at the heart of the Common Core: making evidence-based claims about complex texts. These units are part of the Developing Core Proficiencies Program. This unit develops students' abilities to make evidence-based claims through activities based on a close reading of an excerpted text from Plato's Apology.
Material Type: Primary Source, Reading, Teaching/Learning Strategy, Unit of Study
Students learn how to get their voice out on the web when they research issues important to them and compose a persuasive podcast to post online.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Students write and record their own essays for a class blog by first completing a series of activities designed to get them thinking and writing about their experiences.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan, Unit of Study
This 2 week lesson incorporates the CCSS ELA Standards using the Serial podcast, an engaging murder mystery podcast.
Material Type: Lesson
Students write a persuasive letter to the editor of a newspaper from a selected fictional character's perspective, focusing on a specific issue or situation explored in the novel.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Identifying Media Bias in News Sources through activites using relevant news sources to answer the following essential question:Why is this important and relevant today?Students are engaging with a growing number of news sources and must develop skills to interpret what they see and hear.Media tells stories with viewpoints and biases that shape our worldviews.Students must become critical consumers of media which is essential for being an informed citizen.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Assessment, Homework/Assignment, Lesson Plan, Reading, Student Guide, Teaching/Learning Strategy
Students will research a local issue, and then write letters to two different audiences, asking readers to take a related action or adopt a specific position on the issue.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
The Persuasion Map is an interactive graphic organizer that enables students to map out their arguments for a persuasive essay or debate.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Interactive
In this lesson Students use the Cornell notes tool (developed by Walter Pauk from Cornell University) to do close reading of informational text. Students will be able to read closely and analyze the key details of what they read. Students will be able to summarize informational text.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
Students write and perform a skit or monologue that brings awareness to a specific issue addressed in the text.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
In this video from American Masters | Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise, learn about the lasting impact of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and why it’s such an important piece of American literature. Students answer discussion questions, analyze text from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and write a short essay to gain a deeper understanding of Angelou’s work and why it’s so impactful.
Material Type: Lesson
Explore how growing up in the South during the Jim Crow Era influenced Maya Angelou’s writing in this video from American Masters | Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise. The power of memory and the importance of setting inform both the video and discussion questions as students are asked to consider why Maya Angelou chose to write about her own life in her famous autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
Material Type: Lesson, Primary Source
In this video from American Masters | Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise, students analyze an excerpt of the poem Caged Bird. Through discussion questions and a short activity, students analyze the poem by doing a close read of the text and examine the literary techniques used.
Material Type: Lesson, Primary Source
In 1993, President Bill Clinton asked Maya Angelou to write a poem for his inauguration. After Clinton’s inaugural address, Maya Angelou recited her original poem “On the Pulse of Morning.” As the second poet in history to read a poem at a presidential inauguration—Robert Frost was the first when he recited a poem at John F. Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961—Angelou captured the attention of the nation. President Clinton called her poem “an eternal gift to America.” This clip from American Masters | Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise features part of her performance at the inauguration and provides background about Clinton’s reasons for asking her, her response, and how the poem was received by the public. In this resource, students explore the role of poetry in American politics, compare Angelou and Frost, and consider how Angelou’s poem reflects the challenges and concerns of the time. Discussion questions, teaching tips, and a student handout push students to engage with Angelou’s words and to think critically about her famous work.
Material Type: Primary Source
Explore the Harlem Writers Guild, the oldest African American writers association in the world, in this video from American Masters | Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise. Teaching tips suggest asking students to research the Harlem Writers Guild and to think about writing as part of a community. Sensitive: This resource contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class.
Material Type: Primary Source
Learn about the connection between Maya Angelou and Malcolm X, and their work in Ghana, in this video from American Masters | Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise. Sensitive: This resource contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class.
Material Type: Primary Source
Students research, evaluate, and synthesize information about the Harlem Renaissance from varied resources, create an exhibit, and highlight connections across disciplines (i.e., art, music, and poetry) using a Venn diagram.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
This unit will be geared toward my Advanced Placement Literature and Composition class, but could certainly be taught in any survey course of English literature, or a course that examines women’s literature. One objective, part of the AP Literature curriculum, is to teach historical context. This is always important so that students realize that art is a response to real life, and characters’ lives represent real lives shaped by real events. I also want my students to see connections to their own lives, and that the struggles for equity are not futile, but ongoing and necessary. I would like students also to see that a society that suppresses a group of people, is weaker, not stronger, and oppression is something for all of us to fight. And, I would like to open up some dusty-shelf texts to high school teachers who might not consider teaching them. This unit will ask students to examine the historical boundaries in law, society, and economics for women in medieval literature, and consider how females depicted in stories from these eras might reveal power and agency that is not revealed in laws or politics. The unit will include the ancient Greek play Lysistrata, poetry from Anglo-Saxon England, Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and stories from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.
Material Type: Lesson Plan, Unit of Study
