GRADE 11A: Animal rights Persuasive writing

About this unit

This unit is designed to guide your planning and teaching of English lessons. It provides a link between the standards for English and your lesson plans. The teaching and learning activities in this unit should help you to plan the content, pace and level of difficulty of lessons. You should adapt the ideas in the unit to meet the needs of your class. You can also supplement the ideas with appropriate activities from your schools textbooks and other resources. In this unit, students read a text about animal rights and explore arguments against the consumption of meat.

UNIT 11A.10 8 hours

Resources
The main resources needed for this unit are: short informal listening texts of people talking why they eat or dont eat meat and a longer formal interview with someone talking about factory farming or a related topic; a persuasive reading text of approximately 1000 words on a related topic.

Expectations
By the end of the unit, most students will: apply understanding of word parts, relationships, and context clues to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words, to extend, and generate new vocabulary; understand and respond to persuasive arguments in monologues or dialogues with two or more participants; understand hypothetical propositions in the future; actively participate in informal and more formal discussions; use interactive and language repair strategies to maintain and develop conversations; report what people say or believe; summarise and evaluate persuasive texts; read independently and intensively, texts of at least 1000 words; understand the purposes, organisation and typical language features of persuasive and discussion texts; form and present critical opinions of persuasive texts; plan and compose persuasive texts; use common word-processing software to independently plan, compose, edit, present and save their own writing. Students who progress further will: present a persuasive argument fluently and fairly accurately, making use of cohesive devices, and demonstrating ability to respond to questions. Students who make slower progress will: present a point of view in a series of complete utterances with few hesitations.

Key structures and functions

present continuous to describe actions happening now: The simple answer to the question why eat less meat? is that were eating too much already. discussing possible scenarios in the present and future: If we can make reducing meat consumption a real policy issue, then hopefully developing countries will learn from our bitter experience.

Vocabulary
Animal rights: activist, liberate, unethical, extremist, cruelty, pain, suffer, etc. Factory farming: slaughter, vegetarian, deprive, consume, agribusiness, breed, etc. Research: clinical trials, humanely, experiment, suffer, etc. Text-referring words: issue, fact, concern, argument, position, point, etc.

253 | Qatar English scheme of work | Grade 11A | Unit 11A.10 | Animal rights

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Standards for the unit

8 hours
3 hours What are animal rights? 4 hours Presenting a point of view 11A.3.2 1 hour Extensive reading 11A.2.2

Unit 11A.10
CORE STANDARDS Grade 11A standards
11A.1.1 Recognise, understand and use approximately 4000 words for listening, speaking, reading and writing, extending and consolidating the active vocabulary words from Grades K9. Students regularly use these words throughout the year across the four skills, using topics and lexical sets to group them in meaningful, memorable contexts. Extend from Grade 10, the collection and comparison of homophones. Understand and respond to persuasive arguments, debates and discussions with two participants: follow the progression of points, despite changes of speaker; infer speakers points of view and intentions; surmise meaning where there are gaps in the message, through interruptions, extraneous noise, elision etc.; distinguish fact from opinion; respond through drawing conclusions, expressing views, agreeing or disagreeing, referring to what was said in the text. 12A.3.2 Understand and respond to persuasive arguments, debates and discussions with two or more participants.

SUPPORTING STANDARDS including Grade 10A standards

EXTENSION STANDARDS including Grade 12A standards

11A.4.4

Use a variety of interactive and language repair strategies to initiate, maintain and conclude a conversation of up to 15 minutes involving a variety of linguistic and paralinguistic communication strategies.

11A.4.5

Speak fluently: stay on the topic and maintain relevance; cooperatively develop the topic; show independence by eliciting more from the interlocutor; negotiate meaning, and keep talking; take longer turns and allow others to develop their longer turns; process and express more complex ideas; talk at length without hesitation and not too slowly.

12A.4.4

Speak fluently: use rich content ideas developed with elaboration and detail, backed by relevant examples and minimised use of redundancy; deal with unexpected questions or comments.

110A.4.3 Interact in groups, pairs and more formal discussion: actively participate, contributing relevant opinions, examples and suggestions to the discussion; show independence by initiating new ideas and taking responsibility for keeping the discussion going.

11A.5.2

Consolidate and extend ability to describe possible choices, courses of action, in the past, present or future; and weigh up options and consequences. Use hypothetical language with conditionals and appropriate modals and connectives.

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8 hours

SUPPORTING STANDARDS including Grade 10A standards

11A.5.4

CORE STANDARDS Grade 11A standards

Report what people say or believe: summarise monologues, conversations and group discussions; use direct quotations for emphasis or effect.

EXTENSION STANDARDS including Grade 12A standards

10A.5.10 Prepare and present to an audience an opinion or point of view to convince or persuade, in a series of complete utterances.

11A.5.8

Prepare and present to an audience, or discuss in a simulation, a proposal that convinces or persuades: establish and develop a logical and controlled argument; consistently use common organisational structures as appropriate; include relevant and memorable evidence; use strong, positive language, short utterances for emphasis, and a friendly manner to be convincing; be prepared to address counter-arguments or listener bias.

11.A5.9

Summarise and evaluate persuasive texts and presentations, distinguishing fact from opinion, seeking clarification, giving relevant feedback, discussing merits, issues, options, preferences and proposing alternatives.

11A.5.9

Summarise and evaluate persuasive texts and presentations, distinguishing fact from opinion, seeking clarification, giving relevant feedback, discussing merits, issues, options, preferences and proposing alternatives.

12A.5.6

Summarise and evaluate persuasive texts and presentations, distinguishing fact from opinion, seeking clarification, giving relevant feedback, discussing merits, issues, options, preferences and proposing alternatives.

11A.6.1 11A.7.6 Respond to, evaluate and criticise persuasive texts, referring to the texts for evidence. 11A.7.5

Independently and intensively, read texts of up to 1500 words. From Grade 10 Advanced, continue to read a variety of persuasive texts presenting and arguing for a particular point of view, comparing the organisation and language features of texts serving similar purposes: identify and critically understand emotive and persuasive language and how it is used to manipulate perceptions by using persuasive words and phrases, persuasive definitions, rhetorical questions, condescension, concession, pandering, deliberate ambiguities (often found in advertisements).

11A.8.2

Consolidate ability to plan a piece of writing in note or diagrammatic form showing the main points in sequence.

255 | Qatar English scheme of work | Grade 11A | Unit 11A.10 | Animal rights

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8 hours
11A.8.6

SUPPORTING STANDARDS including Grade 10A standards

Consolidate use of common wordprocessing software such as Microsoft Word to plan, compose, edit and present own writing: create, open, save and close documents; find files; type, edit, find and replace; cut, copy and paste; format paragraphs, pages and full documents; check grammar and spelling; print. 11A.9.4

CORE STANDARDS Grade 11A standards

From Grade 10 Advanced, extend writing of persuasive texts. Argue for or against a particular view on an issue of topical, or personal interest, in a variety of forms: structure the argument with titles and introductory statements to capture the readers attention, a clearly articulated position, supporting arguments and elaboration, conclusions to reiterate or summarise; select persuasive language which addresses the audience directly with statements and rhetorical questions, suggests objectivity, expresses obligation and necessity using modal verbs, connects points logically, reiterates points, expresses certainty; use ICT to organise and present persuasive writing to particular audiences use formatting to capture interest and emphasise key messages. 12A.9.4

EXTENSION STANDARDS including Grade 12A standards

From Grade 11 Advanced, extend writing of persuasive texts, in a variety of forms.

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Activities
Objectives
3 hours What are animal rights? Students are able to: interact in paired and group discussion; identify the purpose of a text and key organisational and language features; summarise and evaluate persuasive texts. In groups, students discuss what they think Gandhi meant. Introduce the term animal rights. In groups, students discuss what they think animal rights might include. Monitor the groups and feed in vocabulary as required. Elicit and discuss examples from the groups. Students read a short article explaining the work of an animal rights group. They identify the purpose of the text (i.e. to inform) and explore organisational features (e.g. by identifying the topic of paragraphs). They compare the work of the animal rights group with their ideas above. Identify homophones in the texts and introduce others related to the topic (e.g. right/write, meet/meat). Students practise the words in context. Students listen to an interview with someone from an animal rights group talking about factory farming. They complete activities to identify the progression of points and infer the speakers point of view, giving evidence from the text. Discuss the use of language to convince or persuade the listener (e.g. use of first and second person to give personal opinions and to engage the listener). Note use of cohesive devices to guide the listener (e.g. to signal reason and consequence). Give students a list of sentences from the text on a worksheet. In pairs, students decide if they are fact or opinion. In groups, students discuss the speakers opinion and express their own views.

Unit 11A.10
Possible teaching activities
In groups, students brainstorm different ways we use animals in society. Responses should include: for food (meat, milk, eggs); for clothing (fur, leather); for entertainment (zoos, circus, pets); for scientific research (medicine, cosmetics). Write the following statement on the board: The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated. (Mahatma Gandhi)

Notes

School resources
This column is blank for schools to note their own resources (e.g. textbooks, worksheets).

The mission statement for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) can be found at: www.peta.org/about/

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Objectives
4 hours Presenting a point of view Students are able to: summarise monologues in order to report what people say or believe; summarise and evaluate persuasive texts; evaluate the strength of the claims in a persuasive text; prepare and present to an audience an opinion or point of view intended to convince or persuade.

Possible teaching activities

Students listen to 45 people talking about why they do or dont eat meat, and complete comprehension activities to identify the speakers opinions and supporting reasons. Highlight ways of expressing opinion. Using one of the monologues or interviews as an example, make a written summary as a shared writing activity. In pairs, students prepare a summary of what the other speakers said. They compare and contrast the speakers opinions with their own. Students read a persuasive text of 1000+ words on vegetarianism or a related topic. They complete tasks to identify the organisation of paragraphs, noting the opening statement, topic and supporting sentences, use of sequencing devices and logical connectives and textreferring words, for example: Even though the industrialisation of farming has allowed vast numbers of animals to be reared in relatively small areas, those kept in factory farms cannot forage for their own food or live on scraps or waste products as was traditionally largely the case. Consequently, massive areas of land are given over to growing crops to feed them. Students discuss the authors intentions and evaluate the strength of the claims in the reading text, paying attention to the use of language and the objectivity and relevance of points made. They evaluate the overall effectiveness of the text. Students explore vocabulary, noting use of prefixes and affixes (e.g. agri- as in agriculture, agribusiness) and roots (e.g. consume, consumption). Students examine use of tenses and other grammatical features, for example present continuous to describe actions happening now: The simple answer to the question why eat less meat? is that were eating too much already. Agribusiness companies from the US, Canada and Europe are investing in pig and chicken factory farms in countries like China. Discuss criteria for a good presentation. Record them for later use as assessment criteria. In groups of 34 students prepare a presentation to a peer group to persuade them to reduce the amount of meat they eat. They carry out additional research as necessary. Allow time during class for students to rehearse their presentation. Students evaluate their own performance using the criteria developed above. Working in small groups, students prepare an essay arguing for or against a particular view on an issue related to animal rights. They find supporting arguments and evidence as appropriate. Students write a first draft individually, using ICT to organise and present their work. They edit their first draft using a checklist of common types of error. Alternatively, students could prepare a poster for a campaign related to their presentation. They use ICT to prepare the poster Students display their posters in the classroom or around the school. They use an agreed list of criteria to evaluate each others posters and give feedback.

Notes
If possible, interview a vegetarian and a vegan, as well as someone who eats all kinds of meat and someone who eats only white meat and fish.

School resources

The article CIWF calls for 15% reduction in meat consumption is a useful text for this activity. It can be found at: www.ciwf.org.uk/home/news2.shtml

If possible invite other classes to the presentations.

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Objectives
1 hour Extensive reading Students are able to: read extensively from appropriately levelled texts, in a variety of genres in the text range identified for Grade 11 Advanced.

Possible teaching activities

Students read a book from a range of graded or appropriately levelled readers within the range identified for grade 11A. They may be given time to read their book in class and reading should be set for homework. Set a time in which students should complete a certain number of pages or chapters of the book and an activity that shows their understanding of the book. Activities will depend on the content of the book and can include: writing a book review asking for a summary and an opinion of the story or characters; responding to questions to show understanding of the main ideas; completing a table, graph or other diagram; language-focus activity (e.g. tense, use of adjectives; sequencing devices); role-playing characters in the book; discussing issues raised in the book; writing a letter as if from a character in the book; developing a story map.

Notes

School resources

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Assessment
Examples of assessment tasks and questions
Listening Students listen to someone talking about an aspect of animal rights and identify the speakers opinion and supporting arguments. They complete a task to demonstrate the ability to distinguish fact from opinion. In groups of 45, students discuss a topic related to animal rights. Students read a text related to animal rights and demonstrate comprehension by matching supporting sentences to topic sentences or matching headings to paragraphs. Students write two or more paragraphs on a controversial topic related to animal rights.

Unit 11A.10
Notes
Listening carries approximately 20% of the assessment weighting for this grade.

School resources

Speaking Reading

Speaking carries approximately 30% of the assessment weighting for this grade. Reading carries approximately 20% of the assessment weighting for this grade. Writing carries approximately 30% of the assessment weighting for this grade.

Writing

260 | Qatar English scheme of work | Grade 11A | Unit 11A.10 | Animal rights

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