Critical Thinking & WritingEarly Release/Late StartFebruary 5, 2015

Objectives:

Success Criteria:

o Participants will increase their knowledge of instructional methods associated with improving evidence and elaboration in student writing.

o Participants will analyze student writing samples to determine instructional implications.

Writing Working Groups

Determined This As An Area Of

Need

Okaloosa Writes and Semester

ExamsTeacher

FeedbackInstructional

Coach Feedback

FSA

Principal Quarterly

Critical Thinking Required!

Evidence and Elaboration

Turn and TalkIn your table groups,

review the writing samples provided.

What are your observations?

Yellow is thesis/claim (WHAT IS SO?)Pink is evidence (WHERE IS IT SO?)Green is elaboration/synthesis/analysis (HOW IS IT SO? SO WHAT? WHY?)

Critical Writing= Critical Reading

This planning became the student’s thesis,

the roadmap that answered WHY and

HOW

The student’s annotations became his evidence, which proved his thesis!

Close Reading = Critical Reading

Important! Students should

start by unpacking the prompt so it

guides their annotations

Turn and Talk: How have you observed your

students using the Close Reading

strategies in their writing tasks?

In order to earn a top score of “4” for Evidence and

Elaboration, a student must be able to:

• Integrate appropriate text evidence supporting the task

• Explain how the text evidence supports the task. THIS REQUIRES CRITICAL THINKING!

So, What Is Elaboration Anyway?

“The Iditarod is a race like no other. It is more than 1,000 miles long, and it is run across ice and snow. It takes at least nine days and dogs are its stars”

Text EvidenceThe Ititarod has no race like it. It is longer than one thousand miles and is ran on frozen ice and snow. The ititarod takes nine or more days to complete.Is this

elaboration???

THIS IS PARAPHRASING!

What about NOW? Is THIS

elaboration?

The Ititarod is a very unuzual race becase it is so long and the racers are actually dogs rather than people and cars. Instead of racing on a track like many races do, the Ititarod takes place in Alaska over 1,000 miles of ice and snow, which make the conditions differnt from most races we may think about.

Elaboration

This statement IS elaboration because:• It shows critical thinking• It is explaining why the

evidence is important enough to be written in the essay

Warrant Workout

Each row represents a paragraph of writing. By completing each section,

both student and teacher can identify potentially missing

components and strengthen the writing.

Warrant WorkoutThesis Statement: HOW: track each horse herd, horses are adopted WHY: not enough food for all of the horses and they become sick and weak.

How/Why?Say what is so?

Evidence from the text (Quote/Reference with page number or

paragraph number)Where is it so? Show it!

Explanation of how the evidence supports the “How/Why”

So what? Why?

How: They track each herds size to make sure they are not too large

Why: When a herd is too big, there is not enough food for all of the horses

Paragraph 8: “There are too many horses to survive on the wild land in the west”

The wild land doesn’t have enough food or space for so many horses.

How: A few horses are caught and put up for adoptionWhy: keeps herd sizes under control and the horses healthy

Paragraph 13:According to the article, there is a group that gives advice on the wild horses. The government also stated that the females could have an operation to keep them from giving birth to foals (baby horses). Horse supporters think this is unnecessary. Suzanne Roy stated, “The real problem is that there is too much cattle and sheep on the land.”

This clearly shows that the government can balance the land and improve the health of the horses.

Table Group Activity

Comparing Warrant

Workouts• Working with your Table

Group, compare the two completed Warrant Workouts

• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the student’s writing?

• How could you use the Warrant Workout to strengthen student writing?

Table Group Activity

In Table Groups, color code the student sample

provided. Look for evidence of a thesis, text evidence,

and analysis.

*Keep in mind, if the writing is found in the task provided

it is text evidence, NOT elaboration/analysis.

Paraphrasing is considered text evidence.

Table Group Activity: Taking It A Step Further

Table Group Activity• Working in Table Groups, complete

the Warrant Workout using your highlighted student writing sample

• What are this student’s instructional strengths?

• What are this student’s instructional needs?

Application of Professional Learning

As you are planning your next Close Reading Instructional Sequence, incorporate the Warrant

Workout into a portion of the lesson.

To Get Students to THINK and WRITE with Elaboration, we must: • Model• Show exemplars• Provide guided practice• Provide independent practice with feedback

ReferenceCrawford, M. & Zwiers, J. (2011). Academic conversations: classroom talk that fosters critical thinking and content understandings. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishing.

Gallagher, K. (2004). Deeper reading comprehending challenging texts, 4-12. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishing.