TEACHING
AMERICAN
HISTORY
PROJECT
Saturday Seminar
October 5, 2013
Please pick up a playing card.
Evidence & Reasoning
• Evidence is ALWAYS evidence for something! Reasoning
gives us that answer!
• Example Statistic: 74% of high school students read at a
minimum of an 8th grade level.
American schools are failing! According
to a new national study, 26%, or, in
other words, 1 in every 4 high school
students cannot read at a 9th grade
level. If 1 in 4 people in the country
had a disease, we would call it an
epidemic of mass proportions!
In a recent study of U.S. students’
reading, the U.S. was given a B
average. 74% of high school students
reads at or above an 8th grade level,
the level necessary to read most
newspapers and popular fiction texts.
The study factored in the nearly 10% of
students who have learning disabilities
or are learning a second language to
come to the average grade of “B.”
Assumptions Behind “Ranking Activity”
• Students are learning to better find “evidence” in text to
support specific questions we ask. But they are still
struggling with finding evidence to support their claims in
writing.
• Students can find evidence in the text, but the sometimes
struggle with finding the MOST APPROPRIATE evidence
for their arguments.
• Talking through evidence can help us to a) determine if it
is valid, and 2) work through the reasoning that helps
make the evidence truly support the claim.
Claim & Evidence
• Open-ended claim: The Union’s emphasis on the
immorality of slavery and the slave trade had major
international repercussions.
• Possible pieces of evidence:
• Please take five minutes to read these quotes from pages 120-125.
• If you finish early, begin taking notes in the second column about
the meaning of these quotes (in your own words).
Possible Evidence
What is the text
saying in your own
words?
1. You individually 1. What are we doing
read this section
in this section?
of text
previously.
2. Why is this an
2. I chose varying
important step
levels of
before choosing
evidence from
evidence to use?
the section.
3. Some choices
3. For what types of
are great
prewriting might this
evidence but
be helpful?
don’t necessarily
jump out.
4. Another option:
students each
bring a piece of
evidence to their
groups for this
section.
Ranking
1-8
(1=best)
Write out the reasoning
to demonstrate why this
piece of evidence
supports the claim.
1. Why
would you
want
students to
rank all of
the
evidence
rather than
just
choose the
top three
pieces?
1. Why is “reasoning” the
very last thing to do in
this process?
2. How might this
graphic organizer be
used when it’s
complete?
How can the “Questions to Consider”
on the final page help students with
these final two steps?
Think About
Ways to Implement Ranking Activity
Academic Vocabulary Book
• Building Academic Vocabulary: Essential Practices for
Content Classrooms
• By Jeff Zwiers
• ISBN#978-0-7879-8761-9