Instructional Strategy

INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGY

Evaluating Evidence

Grade:

6-8, 9-12

Type:

Read Actively

30-40

Minutes

When:

During reading

Materials:

Evaluating Evidence graphic organizer, preselected text, whiteboard or display, writing utensil

Description

The Evaluating Evidence strategy encourages students to critically read and analyze information and evidence as they construct an explanation to answer a question. This strategy helps students actively read and process what they have read. It also encourages them to compare and synthesize information from multiple sources and perspectives as they form a conclusion and explain their thinking.

Procedure

Select an informational text for students to read and analyze.

Distribute an Evaluating Evidence graphic organizer to each student.

Introduce a question that will guide students’ reading and analysis of the text. Invite students to record the question on their organizer as you model this for them.

Explain to students that they will conduct a first read of the text to identify possible theories and/or explanations that address the question.

After reading, ask students to record a brief description of the theories and/or explanations on their graphic organizer.

Share that students will conduct a second read of the text, identifying and evaluating evidence presented by the author. Encourage students to record their analysis on their organizer, modeling how to do so as appropriate. Consider sharing the following thinking steps to support students with their analysis:

Name the evidence.

Describe the evidence.

Interpret the evidence—this involves explaining how to support or contradict one or more explanations.

Invite students to use their analysis of the evidence to answer the question. Reinforce that they should reference the evidence in their explanation.

As time allows, debrief the task, inviting students to share their responses with a partner or the class discussing how the evidence supports or refutes each of the theories presented in the reading.

Differentiation

Partner/Small Group Support: Some students may benefit from working with a partner or small group, stopping to discuss the theories and evidence. Providing students with an opportunity to talk and discuss before writing can help them process the information and support deeper analysis.

Sentence Stems and Frames: To help students complete the organizer, consider providing sentence stems and frames for each of the sections. This supports language development while allowing students to focus on analyzing evidence. Sample sentence stems include the following:

The first theory is ___. It says ___.

Another theory is ___. It says ___.

The evidence ___ shows ___.

This evidence supports the theory ___ because ___.

This evidence disproves the theory ___ because ___.

Rank the Evidence: Ask students to evaluate the strength of the evidence, assigning each piece of evidence a point value from 1–3 (1 being not strong and 3 being very strong). For an additional challenge, for each piece of evidence given a 1, invite students to explain what would make the evidence stronger.

Variations

Student-Generated Questions and Research: Rather than presenting students with a historical question to answer, ask students to generate the questions. This is a great culminating activity to a unit and a way to encourage independent research. Ask students to use what they have learned to generate questions and then find sources that provide reliable and credible evidence to help them answer the question.

Instructional Strategy

INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGY

Evaluating Evidence

Description

Procedure

Differentiation

Variations

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