Making Change: Speeches, Essays, and Articles (2020)

Lesson 2
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ELA

Unit 7

8th Grade

Lesson 2 of 11

Objective


Determine the central idea of an article and explain how it is developed over the course of the text. 

Readings and Materials


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Target Task


Writing Prompt

 According to the examples provided in this article, what makes social movements effective? Provide evidence related to at least two specific social movements described in this article and explain how they demonstrate common trends in what makes for an effective social movement.

Sample Response

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Key Questions


  • What is the central idea of this article overall? Write your answer (in your own words) in one to two complete sentences. 

  • How is this article structured? How do individual sections help to support the central idea of the text? Carefully explain your thinking. 

  • What does this article suggest about the way that social movements begin? How does the author support this idea? Provide at least two pieces of evidence from the article that develop this idea. 

  • Discussion: In the article, Greensboro lunch counter protester Franklin McCain is quoted as saying: “Once you identify what you want to do, don’t ask for the masses to help you, because they won’t come.” How do you respond to this quotation? Do you think this is true? 

Lesson Guidance


Notes

  • You may have to provide students with schema for them to understand the significance of these different social movements. 
  • The timeline "Groundbreaking Youth-Led Movements" may also be interesting to students.

 

Standard and Literary Concepts

  • Like a theme in a literary text, a central idea is the author’s primary message that he or she is trying to communicate about the main topic in a nonfiction text. This is the big idea; if nothing else, the reader should understand this idea by the end of the text.
  • A central idea isn’t an idea that the author comes up with at the very end of a text—effective authors carefully develop this idea throughout the text through details, examples, images, etc. By 8th grade, readers should be able to both identify the central idea and the various places in the text that this idea is developed. 
  • While literary texts will rarely state the theme of the text explicitly, nonfiction texts will sometimes state the central idea clearly. Looking at the introduction and ending of texts can provide clues to the central idea.

Homework

Common Core Standards


  • RI.8.2 — Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to supporting ideas; provide an objective summary of the text.
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Lesson 1

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Lesson 3

Lesson Map

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