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After three years of teaching high school I reached a startling conclusion: After 12 years of instruction, a majority of my students still could not write a proper evidence statement. This summer, I decided I was going to make every effort to ensure my new 7th graders would leave the class knowing that, if nothing else!
I searched online and asked on various social media platforms for a simple checklist of requirements for such a sentence. I got a lot of ideas, but nothing really concrete. The closest I found was an article from the Library of Congress about what goes into historical evidence. With that, and some input from others, I had my list. Here it is!
Now, what to do with it? I tried to find a fun video clip and quick activity to show and then reinforce each. I found a couple videos and had a few activity ideas, but I wasn't getting particularly far. Then, I found someone who used this commercial to introduce evidence and claims.
This was definitely something I wanted to use. I'd have students watch the commercial then evaluate each of the girl's evidence sentences to see if they followed the rules. I slowly worked on filling out the activities, with an eye on finding a theme. I was mostly feeling a detective theme. Then, my video game nerd life gave me a gift. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 introduced their teaser trailer titled "The truth lies." That would make a fun intro. Plus, it gave me a "why" for students. We were learning how to write evidence properly so we could identify when others were violating the rules in order to deceive us. Media literacy is a big thing for me, so tying this into that idea made a ton of sense.
But, it was getting kind of... uh, dark. Probably a bit too dark for the beginning of 7th grade.
I worked with a colleague (so nice to have that opportunity back!) and he wanted to go with a fairy tale theme since they are often about truth and lies as well. That would be more palatable. We wanted a title and tossed some ideas around. I thought aloud, "it's like we're taking them through the looking glass, to see what isn't obvious."
He immediately jumped on the idea. Title obtained, "Through the Looking Glass." As a bonus, that solidified the Fairy Tale theming for the activities.
We planned a 3 day lesson. Day 1 would introduce the 6 rules with the videos and short activities. Day 2 would have longer activities for each that students would complete in groups.
Key word: Planned
Here's the file as it looks now, having run through it once and making some changes.
And the second day of stations activities? Yeah, that never happened. I made them. Sort of. So, if you want them in their very raw (and untested) form, here you go!
I like the idea of them, but the timing just didn't work out.
Here's the rundown of how the lesson went.
Day 1:
I immediately was reminded that 7th graders know very little. I didn't plan to teach a lesson on how to access a file in Google Classroom, but yep, I got to do that. So, I was already off my planned pace. Once they were all in, they answered the welcome questions, which again, took longer than I expected. I just wanted a simple hook using Disney movies and fairy tales. Though it took awhile, they students were excited to share their answers, so it did work as a hook.
They also enjoyed the intro video (the aforementioned Call of Duty trailer.) The explainer slide that set up the rest of the lesson was longer than it should have been. I need to cut the text by about a third at least. I was trying to use it to explain the connection to the fairy tales and the lesson title, but I'm not sure that is necessary in the least.
The intro activity went better. It is a series of "crime scene" images where students must list evidence to show what crime they think happened. It is obviously someone taking cookies from a cookie jar. It was a great opportunity to point out to students that evidence is a fact-based observation, not an interpretation. Some students wrote things like, "Someone in panel 3 is stealing cookies." I pointed out that was an interpretation, not a fact. Perhaps the person was putting them back on the shelf or just wanted to touch the jar. I was also able to point out incomplete sentences and use of vague language. I hadn't shown them the rules list yet, but this was an organic way to introduce them. Again, it took longer than I planned, but in this case, it was absolutely worth it.
I then introduced the rules, very briefly, and then began going through each one. The "Complete" video and activities worked well. I cut the number of practice sentences down from 8 to 5 after first period. It just took too long and wasn't necessary to get the basic idea of what a complete sentence was for students.
The materials for "Obvious" worked well too. Students liked the surprise Dora video and the activity was easy enough. The image isn't perfect as it doesn't provide a ton of evidence, but in the case of introducing the concept, maybe that is for the best.
And then the bell rang. So, I guess I wasn't getting through all six in a day!
Day 2:
We began by reviewing the "Obvious" activity and discussing what students had written. We moved on to "Precise" and I immediately realized the video clip was too long. It worked well enough for students, but it didn't need the second example. Next time I'll be cutting the part with Michael and Marta. Even with it though, students got it. They were able to identify how the overuse of pronouns caused so much confusion.
The activity also worked well, and was incredibly fun. It's kind of unfortunate that the best activity goes with the easiest rule! In the activity, students try to identify a movie based only on its pitch line which has had all its proper nouns replaced with pronouns. The reveal was so fun that I made a presentation file just for that. Here it is if you want it.
"Connected" also worked well. The students liked the video and it helped make it clear the problem with rambling, disconnected sentences. The activities were also quick and easy. This one was a winner.
The next one was not. "Alone" didn't work really at all. The video clip, which I thought was a clear example of adding unnecessary information to evidence statements. It wasn't. Students didn't get the reference to the Vietnam war and had no idea what an A/V club was. I ended up skipping the video after period 1's confusion. The draggable activity worked fine, but the sentence breakdown one seemed unnecessary. Honestly, I was kind of frustrated with this one and just wanted to move on. Not surprisingly, this is the rule that students frequently broke when they wrote their own evidence statements later in the week.
Thankfully, the last set for "Detailed" worked far better. The video worked (though I'd still love to find a good "Yada Yada" commercial to replace it with) and the activity was solid. I think I'll cut the explainer slide next time though. The students need explanation of the problem with lacking detail, I'm just not sure the slide is the way to do it. This is still the rule students struggle with the most, so, despite the success of the activity and the extra explainer, it will still need more in the future. This, however, was a great start.
And then the bell rang. It took two full days to get through the 6 rules. I'm actually okay with that though going forward. I think if I clean up some of the activities and videos it will be good to go.
Day 3:
Since I was a day behind schedule, I decided to skip the stations activities. I wanted to get to using the rules as quickly as possible, so that's what we did. Students created colored flashcards to match the colors for each rule in the presentation. I was able to find index cards with 6 different colors on Amazon (at a reasonable price) and they worked perfectly.
I had them copy the rule onto one side and provide a "rule breaking" example. They were free to use the ones from the Through the Looking Glass activity, but most made their own. This was difficult for them (as it was for me in come cases, like Connected), but most were able to do it. They then drew a picture to go along with the word.
To close out class we watched the commercial with the girl and students held up their cards soccer referee style to identify the rules the girl broke in each of her evidence statements. Some kids got it quickly, some didn't get it at all, but the idea worked as planned. We are able to get through a bunch of examples quickly and I can see student understanding (or lack thereof) at a glance. My plan is to continue this practice activity throughout the year - every time we right evidence. I'll have the class review the statements provided by their classmates with the goal of fewer and fewer rule-breaks as the year goes on.
Day 4:
On day 4 we did a Gimkit review (you can find it here: https://www.gimkit.com/view/6692b3874aaee79cb5711db4) with a series of evidence statements that broke one (or more) of the rules. It started off very poorly. I saw lots of red screens indicating wrong answers. I realized I didn't do a good job of explaining that they were to pick the broken rule. Thankfully, after a few minutes, I saw more and more green screens and scores started to improve. They were getting it, which is good because it was quiz time.
It had 10 multiple choice questions, much like the Gimkit questions and then a written section where they had to write proper evidence sentences. I was quite surprised, but overall they did really well on the multiple choice section. It seems 3+ days of instruction worked!
They also did pretty well on the written part - far better than any of my former students have done on their first written test, even my seniors for the last 3 years.
However, when grading them, I realized I missed some basic rules that I overlooked like ensuring each piece of evidence was unique and on topic. I don't really want to add more rules as six already feels like pushing it. So, I may alter a couple (Obvious, for example and maybe Alone) or just keep the missing ones as additional pieces to add on later.
The Verdict
This was a good enough pilot run that I'll try again. That isn't always the case. Sometimes when I aim high I miss so widely that I never try again. This one was close. I don't know how to say this without sounding arrogant, so I'll just say it plainly. I honestly think in most classes this lesson will stand out positively and be excellent. For my class, it isn't quite there. It is competing with some tremendously fun early year lessons and I think that's why it didn't feel great for me. (That and I was making changes to it on the fly, period to period.) Still, the students at least got a good jump-start on evidence writing and I think it is going to pay off mightily in the long run.
It's a shame I'm back to teaching full year courses though, I won't get to test it again for quite some time!
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