Alignment to Assessment Standards and Purpose of Lesson

• RI.8.8 – Opening A: On an entrance ticket, students answer questions about relevant evidence.
• RI.8.8 – Work Time A: Students sort relevant and irrelevant information on a topic.
• RI.8.6 – Work Time B: Students complete sections of their Delineate an Argument: The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Section 3 graphic organizer and analyze how the author acknowledges and responds to conflicting viewpoints.
• RI.8.8 – Work Time B – Students complete sections of their Delineate an Argument: The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Section 3 graphic organizer as they review and evaluate the argument and claims in section 3 of the text.
• RI.8.6 – Closing and Assessment A: Students give examples of conflicting viewpoints on a variety of real-world situations.
• The Think-Pair-Share and Back-to-Back and Face-to-Face protocols are used in this lesson. Protocols are an important feature of the 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.
• In this lesson, students practice becoming effective learners, showing perseverance as they learn how to delineate and evaluate arguments and analyze the nuances of their validity. Students also practice effective collaboration as they work with a variety of partners throughout the lesson.

Opportunities to Extend Learning

• In this lesson, students review section 3 of The Omnivore’s Dilemma for their work on the Delineate Argument: The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Section 3 graphic organizer. Provide time for students to read all of chapter 5.
• Continue to invite students to research more about factory farms, feedlots, and animal processing to better understand the history of industrial meat. Students can share what they learn through these interviews in small groups or with the class.
• Invite students to find additional texts and resources with conflicting viewpoints that center around the same topic as this lesson’s excerpts from The Omnivore’s Dilemma (industrial farming). Support students to identify where irrelevant evidence is presented or in identifying false statements and fallacious reasoning that may exist.
• Find additional interviews, speeches, or video on industrial farming, and allow students to evaluate the speaker’s point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric. Help students identify any fallacious reasoning and point out any exaggerated or distorted evidence.
• As appropriate for students, use the Delineate an Argument: The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Section 3 graphic organizer in Work Time B with more or less scaffolding.
• Additional text excerpts from Chew on This by Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson discuss similar topics as section 3 of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and add depth and further foundational understanding about topics such as feedlots, slaughterhouses, industrial food processing, and the meat industry for students. Using pages 151–156 and 159–163 of Chew on This, have students identify the arguments presented to analyze the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence and the soundness of the reasoning.

How It Builds on Previous Work

• In previous lessons, students examined the Delineate Argument: The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Section 3 graphic organizer, focusing on the main claim, supporting points, and relevance and sufficiency of evidence. In this lesson, students look at irrelevant evidence and conflicting information. Previously, students also discussed the author’s point of view and examined how the author responded to or acknowledged conflicting viewpoints. During this lesson, students dig deeper into the author’s point of view by analyzing arguments he raises in the text. Students also examine evidence that is relevant or irrelevant to the claim in this section of The Omnivore’s Dilemma.

Support All Students

• Presenting learning targets in writing, orally, and, if possible, accompanied by symbols, will help students to understand the language within them. ▲
• Note that section 3 of The Omnivore’s Dilemma brings up potentially sensitive topics such as slaughtering animals, CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations), and references animal treatment at feedlots. Some students and their families may find these topics upsetting. Allow time for students to process or respond to these topics during individual, small group, or full class discussion, and reach out to families as needed.
• When grouping students in partners to review the Delineate an Argument: The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Section 3 graphic organizer in Work Time B, group ELLs with partners who have more advanced or native language proficiency. The partners with greater language proficiency can serve as a model, initiating discussions and providing implicit sentence frames, for example. Use the same grouping in future lessons if this grouping was successful. This will support students in building trust and becoming more comfortable and confident with their peers. ▲
• Preselect partners for students who would benefit from more advanced or native language proficiency for their work in Opening A and the Back-to-Back and Face-to-Face protocol used in Closing and Assessment A. ▲

Assessment Guidance

• Monitor students’ Delineate an Argument: The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Section 3 graphic organizer work in Work Time B to ensure students capture accurate main claims, supporting points, and related evidence as identified with guidance.

Down the Road

• In future lessons, students will go back to examining the structure of specific paragraphs in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, analyzing how the structure contributes to developing key ideas in the text. Students will discuss the author’s point of view and examine how the author responds to or acknowledges conflicting viewpoints prior to having another lesson on delineating argument and analyzing evidence in Lesson 6.