Narrative

In a middle school located in a middle class neighborhood in Baltimore County, there are

a wide range of student ethnicities, socioeconomic backgrounds and learning styles. In one

particular 6th grade standard inclusion science class, there are 27 students consisting of 14

females and 13 males. Their ages range from eleven to thirteen with multiple ethnic backgrounds

including Caucasian, African American and Korean. While the majority of the students in this

class are from the lower or middle socioeconomic class, there are three students whose families

are below the poverty line, with one student currently homeless. The currently grades in the class

range from A’s to E’s, with only seven of the 27 students having either an A or a B in the class.

Within the class, there are nine students who have an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) and

one student with a 504 plan. One student is on the Autism spectrum, one has hearing loss, one

has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), three students have a learning disability

and one has health impairments. In addition, several of the students are reading significantly

below grade level, with the lowest being a 2nd grade reading level.

These students use various combinations of the following accommodations: extended time,

verbatim reading, selected sections, visual cues, scribe, reduced distractions, chunking and

frequent breaks. The students enjoy socializing and working with partners rather than

individually. Many of the students also have difficulty focusing on one activity for extended

periods of time, but are more engaged and participative in activities that involve topics of

interests, including watching video clips and solving mystery challenges. It was vital to take all

of the students’ needs and interests into consideration as the lessons for teaching the Claim,

Evidence and Reasoning method were developed. Over the course of three days’ worth of
lessons, they included appropriate accommodations to guide students to success as well as video

clips, collaborative partner activities and even a mystery challenge to pique their interest.

Within the three lessons of the Claim, Evidence and Reasoning method, the following

Common Core State Standards will be addressed:

 CCSS:ELA-LITERACY.RST.6-8.1 - Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of

science and technical texts.

 CCSS:ELA-LITERACY.RST.6-8.8 - Distinguish among facts, reasoned judgment based

on research findings and speculation in a text.

The main objective for the three lessons is that students will be able to use the Claim,

Evidence and Reasoning method in order to identify and support their argument. By the time the

students complete the post-assessment, the students will be able cite specific pieces of evidence

from a text to support their claim (first standard) as well as be able to understand the difference

between using facts rather than opinions as evidence as they support their claim (second

standard). Although the Claim, Evidence and Reasoning method lessons is not directly related to

the science curriculum for the academic year, it is a vital writing skill that the students need to

master in order to be able to effectively communicate and support future scientific claims – or

claims for other content areas as well – on constructed responses, assessments and state

standardized tests.

Both the pre-assessment and post-assessment examine how well the students are able to use

the Claim, Evidence and Reasoning method to identify and support their argument – the

overarching objective for the three lessons. The pre-assessment has the students identifying how

a “large decrease in the algae population would most likely impact the bay ecosystem”. After

they create their claim, they must use evidence from the accompanying article to support their
claim through reasoning. The post-assessment is very similar, except the topic is centered around

“if merely smiling makes a person happier”. The students still use the related article to find

evidence and reasoning to support their claim. Both the pre-assessment and post-assessment are

evaluated using the same rubric. There are three categories for the students to succeed in: claim,

evidence and reasoning, with a maximum of four points being awarded in each category

dependent on how well the student wrote that category section. Overall, the students did not

score very well on the pre-assessment, with the class average score being a 4.62 out of 12

possible points. This was understandable, as the majority of the students were not familiar with

what a claim, evidence and/or reasoning was. After conducting the pre-assessment, it was

realized that a discussion needed to be included within the three lessons regarding definitions and

examples of what claim, evidence and reasoning were.

Throughout the three lessons, there are also other various informal assessment strategies

used. In the first lesson, the “Claim, Evidence, Reasoning Practice” worksheet was collected at

the end of class to examine how well the students were able to create a claim and find proper

evidence to support the claim. In the second lesson, the students concluded the lesson by

completing the graphic organizer on honeybees – demonstrating their ability to identify a claim,

highlight three pieces of evidence and use reasoning to support their claim. In the final lesson,

the students ended the class by constructing a written response to the question for the Mr. Xavier

mystery using their Claim, Evidence, Reasoning graphic organizer as a guide, allowing the

teacher to determine if the students were able to use the method to identify and justify their

argument – the overall objective – in paragraph form.

In the first lesson titled “Claiming Claims”, the students were focusing on the claim and

evidence portions of the Claim, Evidence and Reasoning method. After the students began the
lesson by taking the pre-assessment, they had short class discussion on the greatest sports player.

As the teacher elicited differing responses from students, the teacher introduced the students to

the idea that whom they think is the greatest sports player is their claim. The teacher then asks

the students what they could do/use to convince someone else that their claim is true, leading to

the discussion of evidence. The students then completed a worksheet titled “Claim, Evidence,

Reasoning Practice”, where they were to make a claim on the greatest sports player, best movie

and greatest music artist and use the internet to find three pieces of evidence to support their

claim. This worksheet was turned in at the end of class as an assessment. The lesson concluded

with a short wrap up class discussion on what a claim is and why evidence is important. The

following adaptations were addressed in the first lesson to assist differing students’ needs:

verbatim reading of the pre-assessment article to class, pre-assessment article was chunked into

smaller paragraphs, allowing certain students to only complete two of three sections on the

worksheet, and having instructions and/or questions listed on PowerPoint in addition to being

stated aloud. Many of the students struggled with the idea of using claim, evidence and reasoning

in the pre-assessment as they were not entirely aware of what these were yet. The students

enjoyed completing the “Claim, Evidence, Reasoning Practice” worksheet and researching

pieces of evidence to support their claim. However, through talking with students as they

completed the worksheet, it was realized that they were not entirely certain whether a piece of

evidence they found was “good” to use or not – whether it was a fact or an opinion. Because of

this, the warm-up for the following lesson would help address these confusions.

In the second lesson titled “Evidence is the Key”, the students focused on the evidence

and reasoning portions of the Claim, Evidence and Reasoning method. As a warm-up, the

students used their devices to access a Quizizz that asked approximately 10 questions on if a
statement was a fact or an opinion. As the students finished, the teacher initiated a follow up

discussion on if facts or opinions should be used as evidence. The teacher then introduced the

formal definitions of claim, evidence and reasoning to the students before modeling with the

class how to complete a Claim, Evidence and Reasoning graphic organizer. For the first

organizer, the teacher showed the students a ShamWow commercial video and modeled to the

students how to complete the organizer. Then, the teacher had the students try completing the

same graphic organizer on their own after watching a video on honeybees. The honeybee graphic

organizer was collected as the assessment for the second lesson. The lesson concluded with

another short class discussion as the teacher reviewed the definitions for claim, evidence and

reasoning as a few students shared their responses on what they wrote for each on their

organizer. The students were extremely engaged in the questions asked in the Quizizz as well as

both videos, which allowed the students to be more engaged in completing the graphic

organizers. While the majority of the student were understanding the difference between facts

and opinions as evidence, several students still were struggling with the idea. Therefore, the

teacher decided to have the next lesson’s warm-up continue facts verses opinion practice.

In the third lesson titled “Reasoning It All Together”, the students focused on all three

parts of the claim, evidence and reasoning method – with a special focus on the latter. The

students begin the lesson as they use their devices to play Kahoot, consisting of approximately

five questions asking if a statement of evidence is a fact or opinion. The students then completed

another Claim, Evidence and Reasoning graphic organizer about the Mr. Xavier mystery story

after the teacher read it aloud to the class. The students worked in partners to complete the

graphic organizer, and then worked individually to use the information from their organizer to

put their thoughts into complete sentences in paragraph format – which was then collected as the
assessment. The students were engaged in Kahoot, although they were a little loud in between

questions. The students also enjoyed solving the mystery as well as being able to work

collaboratively in pairs to do so. After reading the students’ written paragraph, it was apparent

that many of the students struggle with transition words and allowing their ideas to flow

smoothly from one statement to the next.

After examining the pre-assessment and post-assessment results and taking into

consideration the informal assessments throughout the three lessons, the majority of the students

significantly improved on their ability to use the Claim, Evidence and Reasoning method in

order to identify and support their argument. Within the pre-assessment, the class average score

was 4.62 out of 12 possible points – approximately an average of 38%. As one looks at the post-

assessment scores, the average increased up to 8.79 out of 12 possible points – now an average

of approximately 73%. There were several students that were either absent during the pre-

assessment and/or post-assessment or did not turn in their assignments, even after consistent

follow-up from the teacher. Therefore, the data for the class is not entirely complete, so it not to

say that every single student in this class did improve. However, with the data that is available

for the students that completed and turned in both assessments, all of these students had a

positive change/increase to their post-assessment scores in comparison to their pre-assessment

scores. The overall average of a 37% increase in the students’ scores highlights that the students

were able to better demonstrate their ability to use the Claim, Evidence and Reasoning method

after participating in the three lessons. These students have improved in their ability to determine

a claim and select appropriate evidence to support their claim, a skill that will not only help the

students on state exams but in future classes and career jobs.

 Through the informal assessments, minor additions and adjustments were made to help

the students grasp the Claim, Evidence and Reasoning method to the best of their ability. When

the teacher came to the realization at the end of the first lesson that the students were struggling

with what constitutes a piece of evidence as ‘good’ evidence to use, the teacher decided to spend

extra time on the warm-up for the next lesson to address this confusion – as the students’ ability

to determine and use strong pieces of evidence to support their claim is a vital skill for mastering

the overall objective of the three lessons. The strategy of “we do-you do” (having the teacher

model with the students first and the students try on their own) during the second lesson with the

ShamWow commercial and honeybee video were very effective, as the students were able to use

the model to help guide them on their own. In addition, having the students watch videos rather

than continuing to read multiple articles (multimedia strategy) kept the students more engaged,

excited and participative in learning. Allowing the students to work with a partner of their choice

during the third lesson of the Mr. Xavier mystery also kept the students’ interest and allowed the

opportunity for the students to improve their communication and teamwork abilities – another

skill vital for future classes and career world.

While the students enjoy educational games (i.e. Quizizz, Kahoot, etc.), for future lessons

the Kahoot activity would have been replaced by another that did not provide for a large amount

of opportunity for the students to begin talking and socializing with their peers. In addition, after

realizing that many students struggled with writing a cohesive paragraph, a future set of lessons

would have included an extra activity of having the students practice and/or improve their

knowledge of transition words to help their paragraph sentences flow smoother. While this was

not a part of the assessments that was scored on the rubric, it is still an important skill for these

students to master for future classes where that skill may indeed affect their overall score on an
assignment. Throughout my journey as a teacher implementing these lessons, one professional

learning goal that has emerged from this experience for myself is to be aware of skills that the

students may need to improve on that may not necessarily be in the subject area that I teach. As I

experienced how much my students struggled with transition words for their written paragraphs

– a skill generally thought of as being taught in the English/Language Arts classroom – I realize

that as a math and science teacher, I may still need to be on the lookout and willing to help

strengthen my students’ skills in areas that are outside my own teaching comfort zone. Another

professional learning goal that has emerged is to continue reflecting between and even during

each lesson on how well the students are grasping the little important ideas that are vital to

grasping the overarching main idea/objective and not being afraid to make adjustments on the

spot (i.e. creating a different warm-up to address student confusion). A teacher cannot anticipate

everything the students may not understand or struggle to master and teachers must continue to

be flexible and be willing to modify their lesson plans to best serve for their students’ success in

mastering the content.