Inside Canvas, this video (and the rest) will pause and a question will pop up. After students answer, they get feedback and they get to see other students’ answer. Vid-Grid doesn’t play nicely outside of Canvas, so the question is not showing up here.
Students evaluate these statements as opinions or facts:
All students should be supplied with computers for free.
Advancements in technology are always beneficial.
Experts say we should eat three meals a day.
The blue whale is the largest ocean animal.
(The same video is used for the Introduction and Modeling)
Students read two positions and form their own:
Passage 1: The government should invest in further space exploration.
Passage 2: Further space exploration at this time is a waste of money.
Passage 1: Tattoos and piercings should not be regulated by employers.
Passage 2: Employers should regulate the tattoos and piercings of their employees in order to keep the appearance of their company professional.
Inside Canvas, I coded tabs to break this learning into small chunks. Each step is its own tab, and there is one that has the two paired passages.
Click the PDF for the content of this section
Set up as a quiz in Canvas, this assessment is as close to the performance context as possible. It is timed and uses actual HiSET essay topics and passages. Students will see these passages again and will build on the position they write. At the end of the module, they will have written an essay one step at a time.
Applying Adult Education theories, particularly contextualization and transformative learning, this is my favorite part of this module. In this assignment, students are introduced to a real-world situation and asked to develop a position statement on how to handle it. In each lesson, they will apply their new skill to the situation and their end result will be an email structured as an argumentative essay they could send to their neighbors.
Context: Your neighborhood has been experiencing some break-ins. Cars and homes have been targeted and the situation is escalating to break-ins nearly every weekend. Last week your neighbor across the street found his home had been broken into and nearly $5,000 worth of items had been taken. To combat the situation, some of your neighbors are organizing a neighborhood crime watch. They want to hear from each household how to best stop the crimes.
Assignment: Write an opinion statement that expresses your own ideas on how to monitor, report, and/or stop these break-ins.