February 20, 2018

Claiming Claims

Class Description: There are 27 students in this 6th grade standard inclusion science class with

14 females and 13 males. There are 9 students with IEP’s and 1 student with a 504 plan.

Accommodations include but are not limited to extended time, verbatim reading, selected

sections, visual cues, scribe, reduced distractions, chunking and frequent breaks.

Lesson Topic: Claim-Evidence-Reasoning (CER) Method

Prior Knowledge: The students have briefly been introduced to understanding that one needs to

have a realistic explanation to convince others of a statement they believe to be true.

Alignment:

Standard Objective Assessment Activity(ies)

CCSS:ELA- Students will be able to The students will Activity 1: Pre-

LITERACY.RST.6-8.1 use the Claim, complete a “Claim, Assessment
Evidence, Reasoning Evidence, Reasoning”
Cite specific textual practice worksheet. Activity 2: Discussion
method in order to
evidence to support in small groups of the
analysis of science and identify and support
Questions: Focus on greatest sports player,
technical texts. their argument.
claim and evidence best movie and
portions of Claim- greatest music artists.
Evidence-Response
(CER) method Activity 3: Complete
“Claim, Evidence,
Reasoning Practice”
worksheet with
research on devices.

Materials Needed: prepared PowerPoint slides; projector/screen; student devices; “The Good,

the Bad and the Algae” article (30); “Making Claims and Providing Evidence” pretest worksheet

(30); “Claim, Evidence, Reasoning” worksheet (30)

Technology Integration/Needs: The students will use devices to access search engines to find

pieces of evidence to support various claims on the “Claim, Evidence, Reasoning” worksheet.
Lesson Procedure:

Introduction Activity:

Time Allotted: 25 minutes

Description: As the students are walking into class, the warm-up (take out a pencil and

clear desks) will already be displayed on the PowerPoint. As the students are getting

situated, the teacher will hand out the article “The Good, the Bad and the Algae” as well

as the pretest “Making Claims and Providing Evidence” worksheet to all students. The

teacher will explain to the students that “today you will be reading an article and then

answering a question using examples from the article in your response. We will read the

article out loud together, and then I will have you work independently to respond to the

question”. The teacher will read the article aloud to the students as they follow along on

the article in front of them. After reading the article, the teacher will read the question

and directions aloud on the pretest worksheet. “Even though this is a pre-test, I want you

to try your best to answer the questions! And use the food chain diagram to help you!”

The teacher will give the students approximately 15-20 minutes to write their response,

giving more or less time as needed for majority of class.

Adaptations: The teacher will read the article aloud to the class to help the lower reading

level students to read/understand the article. The article has also been chunked into

separate paragraphs, rather than the original, one long paragraph. The teacher is also

reading and explaining all directions aloud to class. The teacher will also allow extended

time to particular students as needed.

Transition: The teacher will remind the students to “make sure your name is on the top

of your response paper and then pass up both that and the article and get out your
 device”. The teacher will collect the papers after they have been passed up to the front

row.

First Main Activity:

Time Allotted: 20 minutes

Description: The teacher will ask the students “who do you think is the greatest sports

player?”. [Elicit various responses] “It seems like a lot of you do not all agree on who the

greatest player is. Each one of you has a different claim, who you believe to be the best

player. How could you prove to someone that your claim is accurate? How could you

make them believe you?”. [Elicit various responses] Students should arrive to the

conclusion that we need examples or proof to support our claim. “These examples or

proof are called our evidence. When we explain how our evidence proves our claim to be

true, we are using reasoning!” The teacher will tell the students that “now I want you to

have some practice creating your claim, finding evidence or proof, and explaining the

reasoning behind it. Log onto your devices and go to Google.com”. As the students are

doing so, the teacher will pass out the worksheet titled “Claim, Evidence, Reasoning”.

The teacher will tell the students to make a claim for the greatest sports player, movie and

music artist, find evidence and explain through reasoning how their evidence supports

their claim. The teacher will allow the students to work in pairs, however each must

complete their own worksheet that will be collected.

Adaptations: The teacher will explain the instructions to the students verbally. The

teacher may also allow certain students to only complete two of the three CER’s on the

worksheet (selected sections).

 Transition: The teacher will ask the students to turn in their “Claim, Evidence and

Reasoning” worksheet and return to their assigned seats with devices closed.

Closing Activity:

Time Allotted: 5 minutes

Description: The teacher will have a brief short discussion with the class as a whole on

what each of the terms learned today mean, with a focus on claim and evidence. Some

questions the teacher may ask are: What is a claim? Will everyone always have the same

claim? What do we need to get other people to believe our claim? Should evidence prove

our claim to be correct? How much evidence do we need to prove our claim?

Adaptations: The teacher will have the questions being asked listed on the PowerPoint

and repeat quieter answers students may have given, particularly for the student with

hearing loss.

Safety Valve: If the students complete the “Claim, Evidence, Reasoning” worksheet early and

there is still at least 10 minutes left of class, the teacher will have some of the students share

some of the pieces of evidence they found for best sports player, movie and/or music artist and

have the class vote on who has the best pieces of evidence to support their claim.