Peer Critique: Compare and Contrast A Long Walk to Water and “The ‘Lost Girls’ of Sudan” | EL Education Curriculum

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ELA 2019 G7:M1:U2:L14

Peer Critique: Compare and Contrast A Long Walk to Water and “The ‘Lost Girls’ of Sudan”

In this Lesson

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Focus Standards: These are the standards the instruction addresses.

  • W.7.2c, W.7.2d, W.7.5, L.7.6

Supporting Standards: These are the standards that are incidental—no direct instruction in this lesson, but practice of these standards occurs as a result of addressing the focus standards.

  • RL.7.9, W.7.4, W.7.6, W.7.9, L.7.2b, L.7.3
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Daily Learning Targets

  • I can provide kind, specific, and helpful feedback to peers.
  • I can revise my essay to use appropriate transitions among ideas. (W.7.2c, W.7.5)
  • I can revise my essay to use precise language and domain-specific vocabulary. (W.7.2d, W.7.5)

Ongoing Assessment

  • Opening A: Entrance Ticket: Unit 2, Lesson 14 (W.7.2c)
  • Closing and Assessment A: Revisions to End of Unit 2 Assessment essay (W.7.2c, W.7.2d, W.7.4, W.7.5, L.7.2.b, L.7.3, L.7.6)

Agenda

AgendaTeaching Notes

1. Opening

A. Engage the Learner - W.7.2c (5 minutes)

2. Work Time

A. Language Dive: Transitions - W.7.2c (10 minutes)

B. Introduce Peer Critique Protocol - W.7.5 (10 minutes)

C. Peer Critique - W.7.5 (10 minutes)

3. Closing and Assessment

A. Revise Writing - W.7.2c, W.7.2d (10 minutes)

4. Homework

A. Preread Anchor Text: Students should preread chapter 16 of A Long Walk to Water in preparation for studying the chapter in the next lesson.

Alignment to Assessment Standards and Purpose of Lesson

  • Repeated routines occur in the following:
    • W.7.2c – Opening A: In the entrance ticket activity, students explore the effect of transitions in the model essay. 
    • Opening A: Students review learning targets.
  • New skills are introduced in the following:
    • W.7.2c – Work Time A: In a Language Dive, students explore the author’s use of transitions as well as specific phrases they can use as transitions in their own writing to create cohesion and clarify relationships between ideas. 
    • W.7.5 – Work Time B: Students review and discuss directions for providing useful and constructive feedback to their peers.
    • Work Time B: The class co-creates the Peer Critique anchor chart.
    • W.7.5 – Work Time C: Students provide feedback to partners on their informative essays and in the Closing and Assessment section.
    • W.7.2c – Closing and Assessment A: Students incorporate the feedback from their peers in revising their essays for transitions which create cohesion and clarify relationships between ideas.
    • W.7.2d – Closing and Assessment A: Students incorporate the feedback from their peers in revising their essays for precise and specific vocabulary to explain the topic.
  • Continue to reinforce the habits of character introduced in Unit 1, particularly as students give and receive peer critique.
  • The Think-Pair-Share protocol is used in this lesson. Protocols are an important feature of our curriculum because they are one of the best ways we know to engage students in discussion, inquiry, critical thinking, and sophisticated communication. A protocol consists of agreed-upon, detailed guidelines for reading, recording, discussing, or reporting that ensure equal participation and accountability in learning.

Opportunities to Extend Learning

  • Pair those students who demonstrate greater proficiency with the essay writing and planning process with those in need of extra support during the peer critique section. If time allows, partners can switch with each other to offer more perspectives on the work.

How It Builds on Previous Work

  • In the previous lesson, students wrote the essays they’ve been planning over the course of the unit. In this lesson, they have the opportunity to improve their essays through the peer revision process.

Support All Students

  • Much of this lesson is discussion-based, so students who struggle with oral language and/or auditory processing may need additional support. Provide sentence frames for students to refer to during peer critique or a note-taking template for students to take notes during critiques. ▲
  • Continue to monitor students to determine if there are issues surfacing as a result of the content of this lesson that need to be discussed as a whole group, in smaller groups, or individually.

Assessment Guidance

  • Collect students’ essays to informally assess their revising skills. 
  • Optionally, use the Speaking and Listening Informal Assessment: Collaborative Discussion checklist during the Peer Critique in Work Time C.

Down the Road

  • In the next lesson, students will begin Unit 3 by continuing to read and analyze A Long Walk to Water and exploring poetry related to the events in the novel.

In Advance

  • Ensure there is a copy of Entrance Ticket: Unit 2, Lesson 14 at each student's workspace.
  • Determine pairs for Work Times B and C.
  • Ask a student if he or she is willing to share his or her writing to help model the Peer Critique in Work Times B and C.
  • Post the learning targets and applicable anchor charts (see Materials list).

Tech and Multimedia

  • Work Time B: Audio critique: Students record their partners' ideas and feedback in audio through free software or apps such as http://eled.org/0118 or http://eled.org/0119.
  • Work Time B: Students use the highlighting and comments features on word-processing software to make suggestions on the work of peers.

Supporting English Language Learners

Supports guided in part by CA ELD Standards 7.I.A.1, 7.I.A.2, 7.I.A.3, 7.I.A.4, 7.II.A.1, 7.II.A.2, 7.II.B.3, 7.II.B.4, 7.II.B.5, 7.II.C.6, and 7.II.C.7.

Important Points in the Lesson Itself

  • To support ELLs, this lesson introduces the concept of transitions in writing—using a Language Dive to highlight effective transitions—and provides the opportunity for peer revision of transitions and vocabulary in student essays. Explicit instruction in transitions is useful to ELLs because identifying and understanding how to use transitions in English is not always readily apparent.
  • ELLs who have previously written their essay drafts in their home language or used speech-to-text software may find accessing this lesson difficult if they are not given time to translate all or part of their essays into English. Suggestions for providing time for this kind of translation work are included in the supports below.

Vocabulary

  • domain-specific vocabulary, precise, specific (A)
  • feedback, transitions (DS)

Key

(A): Academic Vocabulary

(DS): Domain-Specific Vocabulary

Materials from Previous Lessons

Teacher

Student

  • Academic word wall (one for display; from Unit 1, Lesson 1, Opening A)
  • Domain-specific word wall (one for display; from Unit 1, Lesson 1, Work Time B)
  • Work to Become Effective Learners anchor chart (one for display; from Unit 1, Lesson 5, Work Time A)
  • Work to Become Ethical People anchor chart (one for display; from Unit 1, Lesson 2, Opening B)
  • Close Readers Do These Things anchor chart (one for display; from Unit 1, Lesson 4, Opening A)
  • Affix list (one per student; see Tools page)
  • Vocabulary log (one per student; from Unit 1, Lesson 2, Opening A)
  • Compare and Contrast Model Essay (one per student and one for display; from Unit 2, Lesson 7, Work Time A)
  • A Long Walk to Water (text; one per student; from Unit 1, Lesson 1, Work Time C)
  • "The 'Lost Girls' of Sudan" article (one per student; from Unit 2, Lesson 1, Work Time A)
  • Informative Writing Plan graphic organizer (one per student; from Unit 2, Lesson 9, Work Time C)
  • End of Unit 2 Assessment: Compare and Contrast A Long Walk to Water and "The 'Lost Girls' of Sudan." (one per student; from Unit 2, Lessons 12-13, Work Time A)

New Materials

Teacher

Student

  • Entrance Ticket: Unit 2, Lesson 14 (answers for teacher reference)
  • Language Dive Guide: Compare and Contrast Model Essay, Transitions (for teacher reference)
  • Language Dive: Compare and Contrast Model Essay, Transitions note-catcher (for teacher reference)
  • Chart paper
  • Peer Critique anchor chart (one for display; co-created in Work Time B)
  • Peer Critique anchor chart (example for teacher reference)
  • Student compare and contrast draft (optional; one to display; see Teaching Notes.)
  • Entrance Ticket: Unit 2, Lesson 14 (one per student)
  • Online or print dictionaries (including ELL and home language dictionaries; one per small group of students)
  • Language Dive: Compare and Contrast Model Essay, Transitions sentence chunk strips (one per pair of students and one for display)
  • Language Dive: Compare and Contrast Model Essay, Transitions note-catcher (one per student and one for display)
  • Directions for Peer Critique (one per student and one for display)
  • Sticky notes (several per student)
  • Purple colored pencils (one per student)

Assessment

Each unit in the 6-8 Language Arts Curriculum has two standards-based assessments built in, one mid-unit assessment and one end of unit assessment. The module concludes with a performance task at the end of Unit 3 to synthesize students' understanding of what they accomplished through supported, standards-based writing.

Opening

Opening

A. Engage the Learner - W.7.2c (5 minutes) 

  • Repeated routine: students respond to questions on Entrance Ticket: Unit 2, Lesson 14. Students will review their responses to the entrance ticket in Work Time A.
  • Repeated routine: follow the same routine as with the previous lessons to review learning targets and the purpose of the lesson, reminding students of any learning targets that are similar or the same as in previous lessons.
  • With students, use the vocabulary strategies on the Close Readers Do These Things anchor chart to deconstruct the words transitions (changes from one topic to another), specific (exact and precise), and precise (clear and exact) in the final learning targets. Record on the academic word wall with translations in home languages, where appropriate, and invite students to record words in their vocabulary logs.

Work Time

Work TimeLevels of Support

A. Language Dive: Transitions - W.7.2c (10 minutes)

  • Ask students to retrieve their entrance tickets and Turn and Talk to share their thoughts about the paragraph without transitions. Invite volunteers to share their responses with the class.
  • Repeated routine: follow the same routine as with the previous lessons to facilitate a Language Dive with the focus statement from the model essay:

"Similarly, Langbany recalls that, 'the native people treated us badly because they didn't know us.'"

  • Use the accompanying materials to facilitate the Language Dive:
    • Language Dive Guide: Compare and Contrast Model Essay, Transitions (for teacher reference)
    • Language Dive: Compare and Contrast Model Essay, Transitions sentence chunk strips
    • Language Dive: Compare and Contrast Model Essay, Transitions note-catcher
    • Language Dive: Compare and Contrast Model Essay, Transitions note-catcher (for teacher reference)

For Lighter Support

  • During Work Time A, to further support understanding of the meaning of transition, provide samples of the word used in different contexts (e.g., "The essay had transitions between the sentences"; "The transition from fall to winter happened fast when it snowed in October"; "The gray light outside made them notice the transition from afternoon to evening"; "I am always surprised by the transition from dark to light in the morning"). Offer examples of a word's meaning in different contexts to increase the number of access points ELLs have to understand the word and to give them a fuller sense of the word's nuances and meaning.

For Heavier Support

  • When defining transitions and specific, have students say the words aloud a few times slowly, and then have them break the words into chunks to pronounce them: tran-sit-ions; spe-cif-ic. Taking the time to repeat and break apart multisyllabic words helps ELLs to better remember and say the words.

B. Introduce Peer Critique Protocol – W.7.5 (10 minutes)

  • Tell students that today they will give and receive feedback about their End of Unit 2 Assessment: Compare and Contrast A Long Walk to Water and “The ‘Lost Girls’ of Sudan” focusing on appropriate transitions and domain-specific vocabulary words. Ask for a student volunteer to recall the definition of domain-specific vocabulary (having to do with a topic or area of study). Tell students that in providing feedback on these parts of their essays, they will help one another take the first drafts of their essays and make them into high-quality work pieces.
  • Focus students on the Work to Become Ethical People anchor chart, and remind them specifically of respect and compassion. Remind students that the purpose of peer feedback is to help the other student improve his or her work, so when we provide feedback, we have to be careful to ensure we are respectful and compassionate.
  • Emphasize that peer critique is not about telling someone how bad his or her work is—it is about celebrating the good things about the work and helping to make it even better. Remind students of the whole class peer critique they did in a previous lesson in this unit. 
  • Invite students to Think-Pair-Share, leaving adequate time for each partner to think, repeat the question, and share:

“How can we effectively give peer feedback? What things should we think about and be aware of? What strategies can we use?” See Peer Critique anchor chart (example for teacher reference).

“What does this look like? What does this sound like?” See Peer Critique anchor chart (example for teacher reference).

  • Display and distribute the Directions for Peer Critique handout. Use the handout to guide students through a peer critique of an example sentence from a volunteer student’s work or from a modified sentence from the model, with mistakes added (e.g., “Many of the major events are described similarly in both texts. Also, the authors have chosen to focus their time and attention differently in the two accounts”). Ask students to identify any errors in spelling or opportunities for transition words using sentence frames such as the following:

“I notice _____” and “Have you thought about _____?” (Responses may include: “I notice that similarly is spelled incorrectly. Let’s look up the right spelling just to be sure.” And “Have you thought about adding the transition word however to the sentence instead of using Also to connect the thoughts?”)

For Lighter Support

  • Use strategic grouping to pair ELLs who need more support with their writing with partners who can be supportive and helpful during peer critique.

For Heavier Support

  • In Work Time B and Closing and Assessment A, replace the peer critique protocol with a translation session for students who wrote their essay drafts in their home language or used speech-to-text software. During this time and the Closing, the students who originally did their drafts in their home language or used speech-to-text software can choose a part or all of their essays to translate into English if the text was initially done in the home language, or they can choose a part or all of their essays to shape into smoother-written prose if the text was recorded in English using speech-to-text software. The opportunity to translate their writing supports beginning ELLs by facilitating their capacity to move fluently between two languages, and provides them with the added benefit of using the language they are stronger in to develop complex ideas that they may not have the language to develop yet in English.

C. Peer Critique – W.7.5 (10 minutes)

  • Review the appropriate learning target relevant to the work to be completed in this section of the lesson:

“I can provide kind, specific, and helpful feedback to peers.”

  • Invite students to pair up with a new partner, and distribute sticky notes and purple colored pencils. Tell students they are now going to provide their partner with kind, helpful, and specific feedback about his or her writing, focusing on appropriate transitions and domain-specific vocabulary. Remind students to look to the list of transition words generated at the end of the Language Dive for ideas about which transition words can be useful for including in their own essays. ▲
  • Repeated routine: invite students to reflect on their progress toward the relevant learning target.
  • N/A

Closing & Assessments

ClosingLevels of Support

A. Revise Writing - W.7.2c, W.7.2d (10 minutes) 

  • Review the appropriate learning targets relevant to the work to be completed in this section of the lesson:

"I can revise my essay to use appropriate transitions among ideas."

"I can revise my essay to use precise language and domain-specific vocabulary."

  • Focus students on the Work to Become Effective Learners anchor chart, and remind them of initiative and responsibility as they revise their work.
  • Invite students to revise their writing using the peer feedback, and circulate to support students as they revise their work. If necessary, model reading through several of a volunteer's peer suggestions and considering how best to implement them. Also note that students may thoughtfully reject some suggestions. Remind students to use their vocabulary logs, the academic word wall and domain-specific word wall, affix list, and online or print dictionaries (including ELL and home language dictionaries; one per small group of students) to check spelling.
  • Repeated routine: invite students to reflect on their progress toward the relevant learning targets.
  • Invite students to reflect on the habits of character focus in this lesson, discussing what went well and what could be improved next time.

For Lighter Support

  • See previous note for Work Time B, and allow time for an extension of the same activity during Closing and Assessment A.

For Heavier Support

  • See previous note for Work Time B, and allow time for an extension of the same activity during Closing and Assessment A.

Homework

Homework

A. Preread Anchor Text

  • Students should preread chapter 16 of A Long Walk to Water in preparation for studying the chapter in the next lesson.

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