Write a Compare and Contrast Essay: Analyze a Model | EL Education Curriculum

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ELA 2019 G7:M1:U2:L7

Write a Compare and Contrast Essay: Analyze a Model

In this Lesson

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Focus Standards: These are the standards the instruction addresses.

  • RI.7.1, RI.7.2, W.7.2, W.7.4, W.7.9b

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, RI.7.10, L.7.4a, L.7.6
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Daily Learning Targets

  • I can determine the central ideas of a model essay. (RI.7.2)
  • I can use the Painted Essay® structure to analyze a model. (W.7.2, W.7.4)

Ongoing Assessment

  • Opening A: Entrance Ticket: Unit 2, Lesson 7 (RI.7.1)
  • Work Time A: Model Essay note-catcher (RI.7.2)
  • Closing and Assessment A: The Painted Essay® template (W.7.2, W.7.4)

Agenda

AgendaTeaching Notes

1. Opening

A. Engage the Learner – RI.7.1 (5 minutes)

2. Work Time

A. Determine Central Ideas in the Model Essay – RI.7.2 (20 minutes)

3. Closing and Assessment

A. Explore the Painted Essay® – W.7.2 (20 minutes)

4. Homework

A. Preread Anchor Text: Students should preread chapter 15 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:
    • L.7.4a – Opening A: In the entrance ticket activity, students use context to determine the meaning and purpose of the Painted Essay®.
    • Opening A: Students review learning targets.
  • New skills are introduced in the following:
    • RI.7.2 – Work Time A: Students analyze a model informative essay to determine the central ideas of the essay.
    • Work Time A: The class co-creates the Criteria of an Effective Informative Essay anchor chart.
    • W.7.2 – Closing and Assessment A: Students explore the Painted Essay® structure to review the components of the introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion as they generate criteria for their own essays.
  • In this lesson, students focus on working to become effective learners, persevering as they read and analyze a new informative text.
  • 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

  • If students are familiar with the Painted Essay® structure, allow them to paint the model themselves or to lead class discussion of the template.

How It Builds on Previous Work

  • In previous lessons, students analyzed informative texts and videos to gain a better understanding of the history and context surrounding A Long Walk to Water. In this lesson, students encounter the prompt for their end of unit essay. They study a model essay written in the same structure to the same prompt. (They will apply what they learned to a different text on the assessment.) Students will begin using this work to plan and write their own essays about how the author of A Long Walk to Water used or altered history for the novel.
  • Students may have worked with the Painted Essay® structure in previous grades. In this unit, they use the same structure and analyze how it applies to informative writing.
  • The model informative essay students analyze is about similarities and differences between Salva’s experiences and those of another Lost Boy of Sudan; students are familiar with Salva’s stories and the Lost Boys from their reading of A Long Walk to Water in Unit 1 and informational articles in Units 1 and 2.

Support All Students

  • In Work Time A, students should read the model essay independently. However, if some or all students need more support, read several paragraphs aloud and then release students to read independently, in pairs, or in small groups.
  • In Work Time A, students may require additional support when finding the gist. If so, pair students heterogeneously for this activity, or group students who may need additional reading support together and read aloud for them. ▲
  • Reduce anxiety and support sustained effort by offering a copy of the model essay with one paragraph per page to students who may be overwhelmed by too much print on a page. Breaking the essay into separate pages may also support ELLs, particularly if they use the space at the bottom of the page to highlight and gloss potentially unfamiliar vocabulary. ▲
  • The subject matter in this essay includes war, death, being shot at by soldiers, and attack by wild animals. 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

  • During Work Time A pair or small group work, circulate to ensure students are taking accurate notes.
  • Throughout Closing and Assessment A, frequently review student work to ensure they are color-coding accurately. Use common issues as whole-group teaching points.

Down the Road

  • In the next lessons, students will plan their own essays, drawing on and reviewing what they learn in this lesson from the model essay and Painted Essay®. Students will then use their plans to draft and revise their essays in future lessons.

In Advance

  • Ensure there is a copy of Entrance Ticket: Unit 1, Lesson 7 at each student's workspace.
  • Read the model essay, the "One Day I Had to Run" article, and the essay prompt to be ready to guide students through the gist and purpose activities. Read the Paint an Essay lesson plan to become familiar with the color-coding and the purpose of each choice of color.
  • Post the learning targets and applicable anchor charts (see Materials list).

Tech and Multimedia

  • Work Time A and Closing and Assessment A: Projector and digital version of the model essay to display and color-code

Supporting English Language Learners

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

Important Points in the Lesson Itself

  • To support ELLs, this lesson directly teaches a number of skills related to essay analysis and essay writing, including recognizing author’s purpose and gist, as well as learning about characteristics of compare and contrast essays and working with the Painted Essay® structure to generate criteria for their own essays. Such direct instruction in essay analysis and essay writing is beneficial to ELLs because it makes the academic language of a challenging reading and writing task transparent, comprehensible, and usable.
  • ELLs who are new to reading in English may find reading the model essay independently challenging because of the complex, academic syntax. Therefore, additional supports such as the ones listed below may be useful.

Vocabulary

  • analyze, model, purpose, structure (A)
  • Painted Essay® (DS)

Key

(A): Academic Vocabulary

(DS): Domain-Specific Vocabulary

Materials from Previous Lessons

Teacher

Student

  • Close Readers Do These Things anchor chart (one for display; from Unit 1, Lesson 4, Opening A)
  • 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 Effective Learners anchor chart (example for teacher reference) (from Unit 1, Lesson 5, Work Time A)
  • Equity sticks (from Unit 1, Lesson 1, Opening A)
  • "One Day I Had to Run" by John Deng Langbay (from Unit 2, Lesson 3, Work Time A)
  • Vocabulary log (one per student; from Unit 1, Lesson 2, Work Time A)

New Materials

Teacher

Student

  • Entrance Ticket: Unit 2, Lesson 7 (answers for teacher reference)
  • Compare and Contrast Model Essay (example for teacher reference)
  • Chart paper
  • Criteria of an Effective Informative Essay anchor chart (for teacher reference)
  • Criteria of an Effective Informative Essay anchor chart (one for display; co-created in Work Time A)
  • Paint an Essay Lesson Plan (for teacher reference)
  • Annotated Model "Using History in A Long Walk to Water" (for teacher reference)
  • Projector
  • Entrance Ticket: Unit 2, Lesson 7 (one per student)
  • Online or print dictionaries (including ELL and home language dictionaries; one per small group of students)
  • Compare and Contrast Model Essay (one per student and one for display)
  • Watercolor paint set or colored pencils (red, yellow, blue, green; one of each per student)
  • Painted Essay® template (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 - RI.7.1 (5 minutes)

  • Repeated routine: students respond to questions on Entrance Ticket: Unit 2, Lesson 7. Explain that students will review their responses to the entrance ticket prompts at the end of the lesson.
  • 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 model (a standard that is suitable for imitation or comparison), purpose (the reason guiding an action), structure (something made up by a number of parts), and analyze (separate into parts for close study; examine and explain) in the 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. Determine Central Ideas in the Model Essay – RI.7.2 (20 minutes)

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

“I can determine the central ideas of a model essay.”

  • Inform students that they will now read and discuss a model essay to determine the central idea and the reason it was written. Inform students of the prompt for the end of unit essay: “How has the author of A Long Walk to Water used or altered history in the novel?” To support all students, write the prompt on the board.
  • Ask students what they expect the essay to be about, based on the prompt.
  • Distribute and display the Compare and Contrast Model Essay to students. Ask students to read the essay independently straight through without pausing so that they can understand the text as a whole. Focus students on the Work to Become Effective Learners anchor chart, especially persevere, reminding students that they may have to persevere to read a new informative text.
  • Invite students to note any questions or initial ideas they have about the essay in their notebooks after reading it for the first time.
  • Inform students that the class will review the essay together to find the main ideas of the paragraphs and the central ideas of the essay overall. Ask for student volunteers to describe what it will mean, based on their work in this module so far, to find the main idea of a paragraph or an essay overall. (We are going to identify what each paragraph and the essay is mostly about.)
  • Reread aloud the first paragraph while students follow along silently.
  • Ask students to Turn and Talk:

“What is the main idea of this paragraph?” (It describes the Sudanese civil war and explains how the author uses history in the novel A Long Walk to Water.)

  • Cold call students to share out using equity sticks. As students share, capture their responses next to the first paragraph on the displayed model. Refer to Compare and Contrast Model Essay (example for teacher reference) as necessary. If students need support in identifying the main idea, model doing so for this first paragraph. ▲
  • Invite students to work in pairs to do this for each of the remaining paragraphs.
  • After 5 minutes, refocus whole group and use total participation techniques to select students to share the main idea of each paragraph with the whole group. Divide the room into four groups, and assign each group a paragraph from the essay. Inform students that they will work together as a class from their groups to determine the central ideas of the essay.
  • Ask for volunteers from the group that believes it has the paragraph where a central idea of the whole essay is first introduced. Guide the discussion so that the first (introduction) paragraph group claims the first statement of the central ideas of the essay. Ask other students if they agree with this, and what their evidence is. (Volunteers should cite the focus statement sentences: “Comparing the two texts shows how Park used historical events in the novel. Many of the same major events are described in both texts. However, the authors focus their attention differently in the two accounts.”) Inform students that these sentences make up the focus statement. Note that often the focus statement is just one sentence, but in this essay, the focus statement is several sentences. Explain to students that the focus statement is a good place to look for determining the central ideas of an essay.
  • Reread the focus statement sentences for students, and ask:

“What are the key words in the focus statement sentences that give clues about what the author is doing in the essay?” (“comparing,” “used,” “same,” “differently”)

“What is being compared and contrasted?” (A Long Walk to Water and “One Day I Had to Run”)

“Why are these texts being compared?” Remind students to look at the essay’s prompt for clues about the purpose. (The author is comparing the two texts in order to see how Linda Sue Park used or altered history.)

  • Have students Turn and Talk about the central ideas of the whole essay. (A Long Walk to Water didn’t alter history too much, but the author used it differently from the author of the article.)
  • Display the Criteria of an Effective Informative Essay anchor chart. Tell students that they will use their analysis to generate criteria as they did for summaries and discussion norms in Unit 1. Ask students for any suggestions they have about what should be on the chart following their discussion of the model essay. Add these suggestions to the anchor chart.
  • Repeated routine: invite students to reflect on their progress toward the relevant learning target.

For Lighter Support

  • During Work Time A, have students read the model essay in a digital format that links any potentially unfamiliar vocabulary, so that students can click on words they do not know while reading to get an immediate definition. Linked definitions of words on digital documents supports ELLs by giving them immediate access to definitions for unknown vocabulary, and can also be helpful for pronunciation if an audio link is included as well.

For Heavier Support

  • During Work Time A, have students who are not very familiar with reading in English listen to the model essay read aloud with headphones, while the other students read it silently, allowing students to replay the whole recording or sections of it as much as they need to. Alternatively, read the model essay aloud to the entire class before students read it independently if the majority of the class is new to reading in English. Reading aloud text before silently reading it supports reading in a new language by familiarizing students with the pronunciation of new words and by providing them with more than one modality with which to access unfamiliar language.

Closing & Assessments

ClosingLevels of Support

A. Explore the Painted Essay® – W.7.2 (20 minutes)

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

“I can use the Painted Essay® structure to analyze a model.”

  • Ask students to Turn and Talk to share their responses on the entrance ticket activity. Have several volunteers share with the class their thoughts about the Painted Essay®.
  • Distribute colored pencils, and guide students through using these and their Painted Essay® template to color-code the Compare and Contrast Model Essay. Refer to Paint an Essay Lesson plan (for teacher reference) and Annotated Model “Using History in A Long Walk to Water” (for teacher reference) for further detail.
  • Once students have painted (or colored) their copies of the model, ask them to Turn and Talk:

“Which paragraph compares the two texts and which paragraph contrasts the two texts?” (The yellow paragraph is how the texts are the same; the blue paragraph is how the texts are different.)

  • Focus students on the Criteria of an Effective Informative Essay anchor chart. Ask students to Think-Pair-Share to add any other criteria to the chart.
  • Repeated routine: invite students to reflect on their progress toward the relevant learning target.
  • 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

  • Expand on the initial prompt by having students talk to partners more specifically about how they use the Painted Essay® structure to analyze a model. Provide some example comments to get partners started discussing this prompt. Focusing on how makes the directions more specific and easier to understand, and also supports ELLs by providing more background knowledge and comprehensible language about the process of using the Painted Essay® structure.

For Heavier Support

  • Provide sentence frames for engaging in the prompt.
    • I use (color) to show . . .
    • The Painted Essay® structure helps me understand . . .
    • The part of the Painted Essay® structure I do not understand is . . .

Homework

Homework

A. Preread Anchor Text 

  • Students should preread chapter 15 of A Long Walk to Water in preparation for studying the chapter in the next lesson.

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