1) This exercise is practice in paragraph development and coherence. It is also practice in choosing good quotes to illustrate your point, and in making quotes work for you—tying them in and explaining them effectively—once you do choose them.
2) Class groups into pairs or solos.
3) Everyone (either in pairs or solo) gets a sheet with either a Topic Sentence (highlighted in yellow) or a quote on it. Each topic sentence or quote has been assigned a number (for topic sentences) or a letter (for quotes).
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5) In your pairs/solos, read your topic sentence or quote, discuss it, review the sections in the chapter that relate to it, write down notes on your sheet that will help you explain it (if it’s a quote, for example, you would need to explain the context—who says it, when and why?
What does it mean? How does it relate to important point(s) that come up in the chapter? If it’s a topic sentence, what section(s) of the chapter does it relate to, and how could you expand on or explain it? What quotes tie in best with it?) 10-15 minutes
6) Topic sentence pairs/solos station themselves at set places in the room and stay put there while they “speed date”/interview the quotes. Quote pair/solos go and sit at the first station and talk to the topic sentence there. Topic sentence people will explain their topic sentence, utilizing the notes they wrote down, and the Quote people will explain theirs, and both will think about whether this is a “good match.”
Topic sentence groups get to “claim” the quote they think is the best match, so quote people should try to convince the topic sentence people to vote for them if they think they are a good fit.
7) After every numbered group has interviewed every lettered group, topic sentence groups get to vote for the quote they want to be paired with—the one they think they could compose the best paragraph with. If two topic sentence groups vote for the same quote, that quote group gets to choose which of them they want to “go” with.
8) Once the topic sentences and quotes are paired off, they will write the rest of the paragraph together, Explaining why they go together, bringing in an additional quote if they want, and tying the whole paragraph together. They final draft of the paragraph—which must include the original topic sentence and quote—will be written in groups in the WRAC lab.