Determining Importance and Synthesizing Information

At the end of my last post, I was thinking that "it's been an interesting journey to obtain primary source information. Throughout the research process, students learned the value of perseverance, working collaboratively, and dealing with setbacks and frustration. It will be fascinating to see how students interpret and "fit" the data as evidence to support their arguments." As a reminder, the inquiry question on the table is: Should more than six people be allowed at a lunch table?

Now that we have all of the evidence and data, how do we format and fit it so we can use it to support our claims? Students spent a week creating bar and circle graphs detailing the results of their student surveys to use as supporting evidence in persuasive essays. As the saying goes, we are data rich, but how do I dig through it to find the evidence? This is a high-level skill, sifting through graphs or through complex text to find the evidence to support a person's thinking. That's why politicians have hundreds of people on their staff who do nothing but find just the right evidence then use it to support a claim. Fifth graders only have themselves and a teacher to guide them. 

One clear example is a student's use of a circle graph from our student survey. He initially wrote: "As you can see from the graphs, some people don't get to sit with their friends if they get hot lunch." This was an awesome teachable moment, so I stopped and demonstrated how to make a stronger statement. Instead, what if we say it this way? "As you can see from the graph, 68% of people who get hot lunch get to sit with their friends. That means that 32% of hot-lunch students get excluded from their friends' table." Students were able to clearly see and hear the difference, and we were dealing with the same evidence. It's not necessarily the evidence; it's how you interpret and use it that counts.

The skill of using text evidence is now being taught in all grades. However, the analysis piece is difficult for most kids and may take years to master. Students may argue that they used evidence from the text, but for what purpose? Most students think that just adding a graph to their writing is using evidence. I stress to them that they need to be doing the thinking, not their reader. We need to continue to model the analysis piece of the evidence, not the mere quoting of information. 

As with all writing instruction, it's about seizing teachable moments and modeling, modeling, modeling. During the analysis of evidence, word choice becomes increasingly important. In the above example, I then modeled how to use word choice to the writer's advantage. Adding just a few words can bump the persuasive impact significantly. "As you can see from the graph below, only 68% of people who get hot lunch get to sit with their friends. That means that a whopping 32% or almost one third of hot-lunch students get excluded from their friends' table!" 

Example of a whole-class teachable moment after conferencing with a student. Notice the original sentence edited out and the revised sentence after the impromptu mini-lesson..

With the six to a table rule people with hot lunch can’t sit with their friends because they have to wait in line to get their food. and Wwhen they get to the table where their friends are sitting there are already six to a table so you have to sit by yourself. As you see in the first graph only 68% people with hot lunch get to sit with their friends that means 38% of people don’t get to sit with their friends that is A LOT. In the second graph 48% of people want the rule  graphs some people don't get to sit with their friends when they have hot lunch. In the second graph Most people in 6th grade don’t like the rule.

Persuasive writing continues to be a challenge for adults and kids alike. Academic persuasive writing must be viewed as a unique genre and very unlike op-ed writing. Organizing a compelling piece of academic persuasive writing must include "weaving and thinking" the evidence into the argument. The most effective way to help children hone their persuasive writing skills is to demonstrate this weaving of and thinking about the evidence.

Determining Importance and Synthesizing Information

Students were off to the races and quickly began working in their project teams to explore the question: Should more than six people be allowed at a lunch table?.  Engagement has been high, but frustration began to seep in as their emails were not being answered by principals. The other schools team and the interview team learned that gathering information from busy people was difficult, at best. However, they persevered, checking their emails each day.

The internet research teams finished up and consolidated their data as a source of evidence for arguments. We decided as a project team to delay the experiment since personal observation of the fifth graders could be used as evidence. Apparently, the six-person rule is only a guideline.

The most promising results were the student surveys. Students administered the surveys to one fourth, fifth, and sixth grade class. They quickly began to tally their results. Each team discovered that their surveys had small flaws, but they problem-solved past the issues. They also discovered that many of the survey responders did not read the directions and answered the survey incorrectly. Both were valuable life lessons for the teams.

Finally, as a whole class, students tallied the survey results and transferred them into three tables. Each student had their own copy of the data tables. They were required to reconcile the responses to the number of surveys and arrive at percentages. Students partnered up to complete their charts. Again, there was a high level of engagement during this process.

Once their tables are complete, students will have enough text evidence (survey data and internet research) to begin planning their persuasive essay. My final blog will explain our planning and writing process.

It's been an interesting journey to obtain primary source information. They've learned the value of perseverance, working collaboratively, and dealing with setbacks and frustration. It will be fascinating to see how students interpret and "fit" the data as evidence to support their arguments.

Determine Importance and Synthesizing Information

Determining Importance and Synthesizing Information

Our shared writing goal in 5th Grade is to develop students' abilities to support their writing with evidence in all content areas.  Along with this goal, students are also held accountable for age appropriate: grammar, capitalization, punctuation, and sentence structure.

Teaching only writing and skills this year has enabled me to delve deeply with students while they hone their skills at citing evidence from the text to support their claims/inferences. We've practiced using materials from the EL curriculum and from Scope magazine along with evidence from text read aloud.

The three main assignments where we practiced citing evidence were:

• the mid-unit assessment in the EL curriculum. Students had already done a close reading of the UDHR (Universal Declaration of Human Rights). They were then asked to read a complex text about a family who fled Kosovo during the Serbian civil war. The final task was to synthesize the two texts and analyze human rights violations in the Kosovo article and relate them directly to articles in the UDHR.  Since students were accutely familiar with the UDHR, they readily discovered violations in the Kosovo article and quoted the UDHR and article when supporting their claims.
• an essay synthesizing paired texts from a Scope magazine. The first article detailed the history of candy and how America's love of candy developed over 200 years. The second article contained facts about the dangers of sugar that Americans now know about in 2015. Students responded to the prompt: How have Americans' ideas about sugar changed over the past 200 years? Students were able to make claims about early ideas of candy being healthy to current information about sugar in our diet. They were able to respond quoting the text; however, the engagement and interest in the topic was somewhat lacking.
• a written response detailing any human rights violations in our read aloud novel, Under the Blood Red Sun. Students were able to identify those violations and associate them directly to articles in the UDHR. Here students had a high level of engagement and interest.

The next step of our writing journey entails learning how to write persuasively. Originally I had a debate issue from our last Scope magazine in mind, but I feared a lack of engagement and interest. So I thought the students could decide which issue was most pressing for them. Hands down, the issue near and dear to fifth graders is the six people to a table rule in the Bill Roberts lunchroom. The challenge is not necessarily citing the text; it's finding information. Not much has been written on the subject. Therefore, we need to create our own "text."  Ah-ha! Inquiry!

After much brainstorming and lively discourse, we zeroed in on five areas of research whose results will be used as text evidence in a persuasive essay:

• Big question is "Should more than six students be allowed at a lunch table at Bill Roberts?" Survey team is developing a survey for grades 4, 5, and 6. They will then present their findings using graphs and charts.
• Interview team is developing questions to ask the principals and Miss Jane. Look for lots of quotes from these interviews as supporting evidence!
• Other schools team is investigating what other DPS schools do in their lunchrooms.
• Another team is planning an experiment at grades 4, 5, and 6 lunchtimes to allow up to 8 students at a table and charting observations regarding number of students at a table, noise level, and behavior issues. These could be some interesting results.
• Internet team is researching articles that address school lunchroom management such as traffic flow, behavior, and noise.

Since we are just starting our inquiry into this very important debate, my next post will provide an update on how the inquiry and persuasive writing is going. In the meantime, I'm anticipating some rousing mini-lessons on the unique style of persuasive writing using mentor texts.