Alignment to Assessment Standards and Purpose of Lesson

• W.6.8 - Opening A: Students complete an entrance ticket in which they practice recording basic bibliographic information for sources that they have used in their focus figure research.
• RI.6.1 - Work Time A: Students conduct research for their independent argument essays about their focus figures. They add textual evidence to their Independent Argument Evidence note-catchers.
• RI.6.3 - Work Time A: Students analyze the way in which writers illustrate and elaborate on the accomplishments of their focus figure in the sources they find, and they add notes to their note-catchers.
• W.6.1 - Work Time A: Students add relevant evidence to their note-catchers, which they will use to write arguments that support claims about their focus figures.
• W.6.7 - Work Time A: Students conduct research about a focus figure, who will serve as the subject of their independent argument essays.
• W.6.8 - Work Time A: As students conduct research, they gather relevant information from multiple sources. They paraphrase data to avoid plagiarism and provide bibliographic information for each source.
• W.6.9b - Work Time A: Students gather relevant evidence from multiple sources to write arguments that support claims about their focus figures.
• W.6.7 - Work Time B: Students participate in a debrief about their focus figure research.
• The research reading that students complete for homework helps build both their vocabulary and knowledge pertaining to space science. By participating in this volume of reading over time, students will develop a wide base of knowledge about the world and the words that help describe and make sense of it.

Opportunities to Extend Learning

• The entrance ticket requires students to practice citing a research source using proper MLA formatting. Teach students to also include in-text citations in their essays using proper MLA formatting.
• Encourage students to express what they have learned from their independent research reading task using multimodalities. Students could create a collage, podcast, poem, or game to synthesize their learning.

How It Builds on Previous Work

• In previous lessons, students analyzed a model argument essay about hidden figure Dorothy Vaughan and then wrote practice argument essays with partners about one of the other hidden figures featured in the anchor text. In this lesson, students continue to conduct research about their chosen focus figures in preparation for planning and composing their independent argument essays over three lessons.

Support All Students

• Revisit some of the research mini lessons in Module 2 for students who seem overwhelmed by the research task.
• Without strategies in place for screening out irrelevant information and staying focused on the purpose for research, students may struggle to efficiently conduct independent research in class. Brainstorm simple strategies for effective online reading, and post these for students to reference. Some of these strategies may include:
• Click on relevant hyperlinks, but wait to read the linked site until you have finished with the original site.
• Bookmark all URLs as you read, or copy and paste them in a separate document, so that you can easily find them again later.
• Do not have more than three tabs open at one time.
• As students research their focus figures during Work Time B, monitor their progress and use Goal 3 Conversation Cues to help students deepen their thinking and improve their metacognition:
• What strategies have helped you succeed in your research?
• How does your research add to your understanding of your focus figure and of the argument essay?
• Display a timer to count down the 20 minutes during Work Time A. Remind students that this is the last research session they have before they write their essays for the Mid-Unit 3 Assessment; staying on task is critical.

Assessment Guidance

• Review students' entries on their Independent Argument Evidence note-catcher to ensure that recorded textual evidence is appropriate, relevant, and comprehensive. Remind students that this note-catcher serves as preparation for the independent essays they will write in the next three lessons; the more effort they put into the note-catcher now, the easier the writing task will be later.
• Circulate and monitor during the independent research reading share to help students make connections between their independent reading and their learning about the module topic.

Down the Road

• In the next lesson, students will plan their independent argument essays, based on the research they have been gathering. Students will be given two lessons to compose their independent essay for the Mid-Unit 3 Assessment.