3.6 Balancing Evidence with Analysis

CONNECTION Friend is getting married and going to cake tastings. She must find the perfect blend of frosting to cake. You don’t want it too crumbly or for there to be too much frosting so the cake falls over or the cake topper slides off on all the frosting.

TEACHING POINT Today I want to teach you that a good argument is like a perfect piece of cake—just the right balance of researched evidence to thinking. Writers must balance their thinking and explanations.

Questions to Help Writers Analyze Evidence/Fortify Their Thinking TEACHING Don’t just pile on more and more evidence. You have to explain your evidence Questions to Help Writers Analyze Evidence/Fortify Their Thinking Why did I include this evidence? How does this evidence relate back to my claim? What makes this particular quote or statistic so important? How is this evidence changing my thinking?

TEACHING Jack’s first draft: There’s one more reason why chocolate milk should be served in schools. The famous nutritionist showed that chocolate milk has a lot less sugar and carbohydrates than soda and power drinks like Gatorade.

TEACHING Jack’s first draft: There’s one more reason why chocolate milk should be served in schools. The famous nutritionist showed that chocolate milk has a lot less sugar and carbohydrates than soda and power drinks like Gatorade. Jack’s second draft: There’s one more reason why chocolate milk should be served in schools. The famous nutritionist showed that chocolate milk has a lot less sugar and carbohydrates than soda and power drinks like Gatorade. So if kids get in the habit of drinking milk in school, then they’ll probably skip the sodas outside of school. The famous nutritionist didn’t actually say this as a fact, this is my interpretation, but it was the facts her kids pointed out about how soda has more sugar, that made me think of it.

So how did Jack do this new thinking? TEACHING So how did Jack do this new thinking? What makes this quote or statistic so important? Well, I included evidence about how the nutritionist said that chocolate milk has less sugar and carbs because it makes chocolate milk seem healthier than soda. Everyone knows soda isn’t good for you. There’s one more reason why chocolate milk should be served in schools. The famous nutritionist showed that chocolate milk has a lot less sugar and carbohydrates than soda and power drinks like Gatorade. So if kids get in the habit of drinking milk in school, then they’ll probably skip the sodas outside of school. The famous nutritionist didn’t actually say this as a fact, this is my interpretation, but it was the facts her kids pointed out about how soda has more sugar, that made me think of it.

So how did Jack do this new thinking? TEACHING So how did Jack do this new thinking? What makes this quote or statistic so important? Well, I included evidence about how the nutritionist said that chocolate milk has less sugar and carbs because it makes chocolate milk seem healthier than soda. Everyone knows soda isn’t good for you. How is this evidence changing my thinking? If chocolate milk is healthier than soda, it makes me think it’s good that kids can have it in school because maybe they’ll get in the habit of having it and they’ll like it so much they’ll drink chocolate milk at home too. It could change their choices at home. There’s one more reason why chocolate milk should be served in schools. The famous nutritionist showed that chocolate milk has a lot less sugar and carbohydrates than soda and power drinks like Gatorade. So if kids get in the habit of drinking milk in school, then they’ll probably skip the sodas outside of school. The famous nutritionist didn’t actually say this as a fact, this is my interpretation, but it was the facts her kids pointed out about how soda has more sugar, that made me think of it.

TEACHING Other ways to raise your thinking…Remember this from Informational Writing? Ways to Push Our Thinking I see… To add on… In other words… That is… The important thing about this is… As I say this, I’m realizing… This is giving me the idea that… An example of this is… This shows… Another example of this is… This connects to… The thought I have about this is… The reason for this is… Another reason is… This is important because…. On the other hand… This is similar to… This is different from… This makes me think… This proves…

TEACHING With partner, find a place where you sued a lot of evidence or where the evidence feels particularly strong. With partner, try asking some of the predictable questions and thought prompts to rehearse the thinking you could add to your writing.

LINK Do you need to start a new draft based on your new learning today? Here is how you are being graded on this portion of your writing—where do you fall right now? What do you need to do to improve???