Adding support and detail without getting arrested!

This lesson plan is designed to teach students the concept of using facts to support ideas and to interpret (elaborate on) those facts in order to create a synthesized paragraph.

A lesson plan for grades 9–12 English Language Arts and Information Skills

By Bonnie Mcmurray and Julie Joslin

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Related pages

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Related topics

• Learn more about Plagiarism, details, information literacy, language arts, note-taking, and research skills.

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Learning outcomes

Students will:

• identify important supporting information.
• elaborate on information in order to draw connections for readers.
• compose well-supported paragraphs.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

1-2 Hours

Materials/resources

• Synthesis note sheet
• Blank note sheet
• 2×4 card
• Transparencies
• Markers
• Magazine/Newspaper/Reference articles
• copies of nonfiction articles (linked to within the lesson) for each student

Technology resources

Overhead projector or document camera

Pre-activities

Mini-lesson on plagiarism and how to avoid it. Give students the handout 2×4 card. Discuss with students.

Activities

Modeling

1. Explain to students that they will be learning to distinguish between facts with documented sources, which are found outside themselves, and the author’s interpretation of the facts, which comes from within the author. Explain that good informational writers don’t just provide facts, they also interpret those facts for their readers. Tell students that this method is an effective way to compose any essay or report because it helps the writer distinguish between details (facts) and elaboration (interpretations, generalizations, conclusions, etc.). It also prevents students from listing facts without adequate interpretation.
2. Project three columns on the board. Label the first column “Fact,” the second column “Source,” and the third column, “Interpretation.” In the first column, “Fact,” write the statement, “It is 60 degrees F.” Tell students that this is a fact that can be verified. In the second column, “Source,” write down the source of the fact, “according to the National Weather Service thermometer at the Raleigh-Durham International airport.” Then in the third column, write down your interpretation of the fact, “It is warm outside.” Tell students that another person may interpret this fact to mean, “It is cold outside.”
3. Pass out a nonfiction article of your choosing to students. A good source of informational articles are government websites. This article on “Cigarettes and Other Nicotine Products” is available at the National Institute on Drug Abuse website.
4. Read the passage aloud as a class. Ask students to come up with three relevant facts from the article.
5. Make three columns on the board. Write down the three pieces of information in the first column. For example, “In 1998, 60 million Americans were current cigarette smokers (28 percent of all Americans aged 12 and older).”
6. Next, go through each of the three facts and have students find the source that the author cites for each fact and write the source in the second column, “Source.” In this case, the author does not cite the source of this fact, so put a question mark in the second column.
7. Write the author’s interpretation of the fact in the third column. (If you would like, draw an arrow from the fact in the first column to the corresponding interpretation in the third column.) For the first fact, the author’s interpretation is that “Nicotine is one of the most heavily used addictive drugs in the United States.”
8. Repeat the above process for the remaining two facts, finding the source cited by the author and the author’s interpretation of the fact. Ask students which information needs to be documented (is a direct idea from the article) - the facts, and which information is generated by the writer - interpretation.

Guided Practice

9. Using another informational article, have students find three facts about one of the drugs from the NIDA InfoFacts: Science-Based Facts on Drug Abuse and Addiction list and then complete the three column chart, this time providing their own interpretation of the facts they found (in column 3). Demonstrate for students how to combine the facts with their own interpretations to form a synthesized paragraph about the drug.
10. Have students generate possible paragraphs based on the information.
11. Share.

Independent Practice

12. Give students a nonfiction article.
13. Pass out a Synthesis note sheet (which gives directions for the students) and a Blank note sheet to each student.
14. Have students read their article and take down notes independently. (Be sure to remind students to stay on one topic.)
15. Then students form their own conclusions from their notes and create their own paragraph.

Closure

16. Students can volunteer to read their paragraphs aloud and have the class discuss which information should be documented.
17. Remind students that this method is an effective way to compose any essay or report because it helps the writer distinguish between facts and interpretations (generalizations, conclusions, etc.). It also prevents students from listing facts without adequate interpretation.

Assessment

Read student paragraphs to determine if they included the following:

• facts pertaining to one topic.
• comments/elaboration to explain details.
• appropriate documentation when necessary.

Supplemental information

Comments

After students become familiar with this format, it can be used for longer essays/papers.

You could also use the worksheet to write a literary analysis by using the first column for examples supporting a topic and the second column as interpretation of the examples.

This lesson was created as part of the NCDPI Writing Lessons for Writing Features Workshop. (Support and Elaboration)