Juvenile Justice - kennethmhill.com...Developed by Roberta J. Ching. MODULE: TEACHER VERSION Grade...

CSU Expository Reading and Writing Curriculum 1

Juvenile Justice Developed by Roberta J. Ching

MODULE: TEACHER VERSION Grade 12, 4 weeks ERWC with Integrated and Designated ELD

Module Purpose The module is designed to explore the ways in which scientific evidence, personal observations, and experience contribute to strongly held points of view on the legal issue of how society should respond to juveniles who commit serious crimes. As they read different genres, students explore differing viewpoints on the issue before writing an open letter in which they argue for their own position.

Questions at Issue The following are the questions at issue in the module:

• How should juveniles who commit serious crimes be treated in the criminal justice system? When, if ever, should they be punished as adults if they have committed “adult” crimes?

• What evidence is there that juveniles can mature and return to productive life after committing a serious crime?

• To what extent should the desires of victims and the families of victims be taken into consideration in charging and sentencing juveniles who have committed crimes against them?

• Are juveniles of color equitably treated in the juvenile justice system, in other words, in the same way as white juveniles who commit the same crime?

Module Texts Dobbs, David. “Beautiful Brains.” National Geographic, Oct. 2011,

www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2011/10/beautiful-brains/.

Holloway, Phillip. “Should 11-Year Olds Be Charged with Adult Crimes?” CNN, Updated 14 Oct. 2015, www.cnn.com/2015/10/14/opinions/holloway-charging-juveniles-as-adults/index.html.

Human Impact Partners. Juvenile InJustice: Charging Youth as Adults Is Ineffective, Biased, and Harmful – Executive Summary. Human Impact Partners, 2 Feb. 2017, humanimpact.org/wp-content/uploads/HIP_JuvenileInjustice_ExecutiveSumm_2017.02.pdf.

Jenkins, Jennifer Bishop. “On Punishment and Teen Killers.” Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, 2 Aug. 2011, jjie.org/jennifer-bishop-jenkins-on-punishment-teen-killers/19184. Accessed 11 June 2012.

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Ralston, Cameron Delane. “Furious.” “Out of Juvenile Corrections, Poems of Fury, Loss—and Lingering Beauty,” reported by Colin Dwyer, All Things Considered, National Public Radio, 28 May 2016, www.npr.org/2016/05/28/479722459/out-of-juvenile-corrections-poems-of-fury-loss-and-lingering-beauty.

Module Audio Text Ralston, Cameron Delane. “Furious.” “Out of Juvenile Corrections, Poems of Fury, Loss—and Lingering

Beauty,” reported by Colin Dwyer, All Things Considered, National Public Radio, 28 May 2016, www.npr.org/2016/05/28/479722459/out-of-juvenile-corrections-poems-of-fury-loss-and-lingering-beauty. [Click “ Listen” button to listen to Cameron Ralston read “Furious.”]

Module Video Texts Padowitz, Kenneth. “‘Wrestling Defense’ Murder Trial of 12-Year-Old Lionel Tate.” YouTube, uploaded

by Kenneth Padowitz, 2 Sept. 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VZRmKdAa8I.

“The Teen Brain,” National Geographic, www.nationalgeographic.com.au/videos/brain-games/the-teen-brain-4097.aspx. Accessed 16 Feb. 2019.

Module Web Sites Bragdon, Allen D., and David Gamon. “Your Brain and What It Does: A Diagram of How the Brain

Works.” Building Mental Muscle: Conditioning Exercises for the Six Intelligence Zones, 2003, www.brainwaves.com/. Accessed 27 Feb. 2019.

Dobbs, David. “Official Site: About.” Neuron Culture, 2019, daviddobbs.net/smoothpebbles/about-david-dobbs. Accessed 27 Feb. 2019.

Holloway, Phillip. “Phillip Holloway Mini-Biography.” IMDb.com, 2019, www.imdb.com/name/nm6363771/bio. Accessed 30 June 2019.

Juvenile Law Center. “Juvenile Life without Parole (JLWOP).” 2018, jlc.org/issues/juvenile-life-without-parole. Accessed 26 Feb. 2019.

Morales Gomez, Dayana. “Two 13-Year-Old Girls Are Being Tried as Adults. Here’s Why That Matters.” Huffington Post, 12 Aug. 2015, updated 03 Jan. 2017, www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/slenderman-youth-adults-prison-wisconsin_us_55cbc70ce4b0cacb8d32ee35. Accessed 27 Feb. 2019.

Romero, McKenzie. “Judge: Double Murder Case for 16-Year Old Girl Will Remain in Adult Court.” Deseret News, 8 Sept. 2016, www.deseretnews.com/article/865661943/Judge-Double-murder-case-for-16-year-old-girl-will-remain-in-adult-court.html. Accessed 27 Feb. 2019.

Sanchez, Ray. “Cops: Boy, 10, kills Woman, 90, for Yelling at Him.” CNN, 14 Oct. 2014, www.cnn.com/2014/10/14/justice/pennsylvania-juvenile-homicide/index.html. Accessed 27 Feb. 2019.

Smith, Anna. Anna Smith: An Open Letter to California’s New Governor. Bakersfield.com, 24 Feb. 2019, www.bakersfield.com/news/anna-smith-an-open-letter-to-california-s-new-governor/article_4bc4c290-370c-11e9-b268-3fa8fa7b8cbc.html. Accessed 27 Feb. 2019.

Watkins, D. “Colin Kaepernick’s Brave Decision: An Open Letter to the 49ers Quarterback.” Salon. 9 Sept. 2016, www.salon.com/2016/09/02/colin-kaepernicks-brave-decision-an-open-letter-to-the-49ers-quarterback. Accessed 27 Feb. 2019.


Module Learning Goals Integrated

At the conclusion of the module, students will be able to

• Understand how arguments and counterarguments are developed and supported with evidence

• Evaluate the rhetorical effectiveness of documents produced in different genres

• Synthesize multiple perspectives

• Create a persuasive document tailored for its purpose, audience, and occasion

• Develop arguments and counterarguments and support them with evidence

Designated

At the conclusion of the module, students will be able to

• Analyze how writers combine sentences, use comparatives, passives, and nominalization

• Analyze how writers create coherence using repetition, pronouns, and synonyms

• Use academic vocabulary relevant to the topic in discussion and writing

• Increase the use of academic English in pairs and small groups

• Evaluate how writers create their personas in different genres

Rhetorical Concepts The rhetorical concepts emphasized in this module are rhetorical situation, audience, genre, and ethos.

English Language Arts Standards Emphasized in this module are the following English language arts (ELA) standards for grades 11-12: Reading Informational Text 7; Writing 4.

English Language Development Standards Emphasized in this module are the following English language development (ELD) standards for grades 11-12: Part I, A. Collaborative, 1, 3, Bridging; Part I, B. Interpretive, 5, 6, Bridging; Part I, C. Productive 10, 12.a, Bridging; Part II, C. Connecting and Condensing Ideas, 6, Bridging.

Defining Features of the Module The module invites students into a conversation about current legal policy on juvenile sentencing. They read multiple texts in highly varied genres and media to address that policy before synthesizing what they have learned in an open letter, potentially publishable on the Internet. This task enables them to draw on their personal experiences and expertise as young people as well as what they have learned during the module to take a position on the policy.

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Culminating Task Students write an open letter (an opinion piece) to be published on a Web site for those interested in the issue of juvenile crime, particularly state policymakers. Students use what they have learned about the issues surrounding charging and sentencing juveniles and about juvenile brain development through reading and discussion about the implications for juvenile accountability and rehabilitation. They apply what they have discovered about analyzing the rhetorical situation and the genre of the open letter to create their own letters tailored for their intended audience in order to make the argument for their position on juvenile sentencing.

Module Background Based on English common law, America, since its founding, followed a policy of treating juveniles under the age of 14 differently from adults based on the belief that they could not form criminal intent. But harsh laws were passed in the “tough on crime” era of the 1980s and 90s in response to rampant fears that “juvenile super-predators” were a threat to civil society. Subsequently, questions arose about condemning children to the death penalty and life in prison without possibility of parole. At the same time, a growing body of research into the changes that the teenage brain undergoes buttressed arguments that indeed teens needed to be held accountable for their crimes differently than adults. In 2005 in Roper vs. Simons, the Supreme Court ended capital punishment for juveniles, basing the ruling in part on a national consensus against the practice and on arguments about the teenage brain. In 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that courts were not required to sentence juveniles to life in prison when they committed the same crimes that would require a life sentence for adults. They concluded that the practice violated the Eight Amendment to the U.S. Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

However, the cases of juveniles can still be transferred out of the juvenile justice system, so that in a state such as California juveniles as young as 14 can be tried as adults. This module asks students to grapple with the complex issues raised by the laws governing the sentencing of juveniles when they commit heinous crimes. After reading and viewing texts that explore the legal, moral, and personal issues involved as well as evaluating the genre of the open letter, students join this ongoing conversation by writing their own open letters on the subject of juvenile sentencing. Because new legislation dealing with juvenile sentencing continues to be proposed and the issue remains hotly contested, it is essential that teachers update themselves on the status of juvenile sentencing before teaching the module.

Setting Teaching Goals for this Module Designed for use in classrooms that include English learners at the Expanding and Bridging levels, this module provides ample opportunities to foster language development through attention to reading strategies, structured academic discussion, collaborative pair and group work, on-going attention to vocabulary and rhetorical grammar, and the use of a mentor text when students write their open letter. The module is culturally responsive with the final text focusing specifically on the experiences of juveniles of color in the juvenile justice system.


NOTE: ERWC Modules with Integrated and Designated ELD. Modules with integrated ELD instruction support the acquisition of academic English for all students, including English learners (ELs). The designated ELD curriculum additionally provides a full college-preparatory course for English learners at the Expanding and Bridging levels. In order to make collaboration between the teachers of the ERWC and companion ELD classes as seamless as possible, the Module Plan lays out two parallel curriculums following a day-by-day sequence. Intended for 50 minute periods, it shows the activities designed for both settings and the accompanying ELA and ELD standards. The Module Plan can serve as the basis for adapting the module for the variety of settings in which instruction is delivered.

Each module is organized by days. In the Teacher Version, each day begins with the activities intended for the ERWC class and specifies the activity name, following the ERWC template, the purpose and suggested time for each activity along with a suggested procedure for teachers to consult as they plan how to implement the activity. In most cases, the italicized responses are not meant to be definitive correct answers; rather they are examples of an acceptable level of understanding. In addition, many activities exist only in the Teacher Version since no separate handout is required. The corresponding day for the designated class follows immediately and is set apart in a box with double borders. It follows the same pattern of activity name, suggested time, purpose, and procedure with a shaded box for student activities. In the event the module is being used where ELs do not have access to a designated class, the ELA teacher is encouraged to pull in activities from the designated portion of the module to support the academic language development of English learners and other students in the ERWC class.

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Day 1 Reading Rhetorically Preparing to Read

Video Text 1 – Padowitz, “‘Wrestling Defense’ Murder Trial of 12-Year-Old Lionel Tate”

Activity 1: Understanding Key Vocabulary Purpose: To provide students with some legal terms that will enable them to get more out of the video they will be watching and the other texts in the module

Suggested Time: 15 minutes

Introduce the module by telling students they will be watching a video about a serious crime committed by a 12 year old. Tell them the video contains some legal language and ask them to share what they know about the words and to record them on a wall chart. Briefly clarify definitions as needed.

• To intend/intentional/intentionally – to do something on purpose

• Homicide – murder

• To charge/to be charged/charge – to make an official statement that someone may be guilty of a crime

• To try/to be tried/trial – to examine and judge someone in a legal case in a court of law

• Prosecutor – lawyer who argues that someone is guilty of a crime

• Defense attorney – lawyer that argues that someone is innocent of a crime

• To rehabilitate/to be rehabilitated/rehabilitation – to help someone become heathy and productive again

• To incarcerate/to be incarcerated/incarceration – to lock someone up in jail, prison, or a juvenile facility

• To sentence/to be sentenced/sentence – to specify someone’s punishment

Ask students to use some of the words and phrases above in sentence. If they demonstrated that they know and can use them, introduce the words below instead:

• competent – able to understand right from wrong

• homicide – killing someone, either intentionally or unintentionally. Includes accidents and murder.

• murder – killing someone intentionally or while committing another crime.

• first-degree murder – killing someone deliberately and with planning.

• second-degree murder – killing someone as a result of committing another crime

• voluntary manslaughter – killing someone intentionally but without planning

Formative Assessment: Activities 1, 1D and 2D, and 7 all enable students to explore the vocabulary associated with this module. Based on your assessment of your students’ level of knowledge, you can make decisions about how many and which of these activities you want to have students engage in.


Activity 2: Getting Ready to Read – The Lionel Tate Video Purpose: To introduce students to the topic of this module, which is whether juveniles should be sentenced as adults when they commit serious crimes


1. The video provides a real life example of a juvenile, Lionel Tate, who committed a heinous crime, was charged and sentenced in the adult justice system, and committed another crime after release. Show the first half of the video (8.21 minutes). Pause and ask students about their reactions to Tate and what happened.

2. Show the trial portion of the video (8.21-15.09) and ask students to take notes using the chart below. When they are finished, have them to do the quickwrite and share their quickwrites with their partner. Collect the quickwrites or ask students to keep them in a notebook for this module. You will be passing them back to students after they have read the other texts in this module, so they can see how their ideas have evolved as they prepare to join the ongoing conversation about the best way to deal with juveniles who commit serious crimes.

Formative assessment: Based on what students write and their discussions with partners, you can get a sense of what students know and think about the topic of sentencing juveniles, including their knowledge of the academic and legal vocabulary specific to the topic of juvenile justice, and make decisions about any additional introduction to the concepts and vocabulary for the module that may be needed.

Activity 2: Getting Ready to Read – The Lionel Tate Video

“‘Wrestling Defense’ Murder Trial of 12-Year-Old Lionel Tate”

Should Lionel Tate be found guilty of murder? Record the arguments made in the video below:

Not Guilty Verdict Guilty Verdict

Quickwrite: Based on what you saw in the video, do you think Lionel Tate should have been sentenced to prison for life as an adult? Explain why or why not.

Activity 3: Introduce Independent Reading

Purpose: To provide a somewhat structured process to give students an incentive to read independently and to establish accountability for reading outside of class


Invite students to select a book from the classroom or school library, either fiction or non-fiction, to read independently over the next three weeks. Tell them that you will be conferencing with them about the

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book in about three weeks (Day 16 of the Juvenile Justice module). Tell them you expect them to read at least two hours a week and add to or begin an independent reading journal in which each week they write a brief response (a paragraph or longer) to what they are reading. The journal will be the basis for the reading conference.

Day 1 Designated

Activity 1D: Understanding Key Vocabulary – Word Forms


Purpose: To explore with students the way verbs can be turned into passive and noun forms using verbs from the Lionel Tate video

Students have been introduced to the words below and heard them used in the video. Now they can explore the forms they can take and what effect that has in communicating information about a person or event. Review the meaning of the active verbs below, asking students to share their understanding. Point out the following information and discuss the example sentences:

• Active verbs are frequently turned into passive verbs or noun forms of verbs (nominalizations). These forms allow us to talk about an action that happens to someone without naming who is doing the action.

• They are often used in legal and academic writing and speaking when the writer or speaker wants the focus on the action and the receiver of the action rather than the agent or doer.

• They can also be used to intentionally obscure or hide who is doing something.

• Verbs used to describe actions can be used in the passive form. This form puts the emphasis on the receiver of the action while the agent (the doer of the action) does not have to be specified.

Example: The verb to intend can be turned into the noun intention or the passive was intended.

Noun form: The intention was to hold Lionel Tate accountable for his heinous crime. (Note: We have to infer who is holding Lionel Tate accountable—the judge, the prosecutor, and the jury.)

Passive verb: The punishment was intended to send a message that juveniles who commit heinous crimes will be sentenced as adults.

After reviewing the examples above, guide students in filling out this chart as a class. As students tell you the form, model how the words are used with the example sentence or, depending on students’ readiness, ask them to generate sentences about Lionel Tate using the words. Add new words to the wall chart. Alternately, form pairs and assign one row of the chart to each pair. When they have finished their row and sample sentences, if you determine they will be able to generate them, ask them to share with the class. If they have not generated sentences, do so at this time.

Activity 1D: Understanding Key Vocabulary – Word Forms

Many words that have to do with the legal system have several different forms. Active verbs can be turned into passives or into nouns. With a passive verb and nouns formed from verbs, you may not know who is doing the action. Fill in the blanks in this form and then write sentences using the active verb and the new forms.


Active Verb Passive Verb Noun Form Who is doing the action?

To intend to plan or have a purpose to do something

To be intended Intention A person

• Lionel Tate intended to hurt the little girl. • Wrestling was play and was not intended to hurt the little girl. • Intention helps determine if someone should be accountable for a crime.

To prosecute to try someone in court for a crime

To be prosecuted Prosecution A lawyer (prosecutor)

• The lawyer prosecuted Lionel Tate for the murder. • Lionel Tate was prosecuted for murder. • The prosecution of Lionel Tate was unjust because he was just a child.

To charge to state legally that someone may be guilty of a crime

To be charged Charge A lawyer (prosecutor)

• The prosecutor charged Lionel Tate as an adult. • Lionel Tate was charged as an adult. • The charges against Lionel Tate were harsh.

To try to examine in court someone who is charged with a crime

To be tried Trial The justice system

• The attorney tried the case of Lionel Tate. • The trial was held in court. • He was tried as an adult.

To defend to argue that someone is not guilty of a crime

To be defended Defense A lawyer (defense attorney)

• An attorney defended Lionel Tate. • Lionel Tate was defended using the argument that he was copying what he saw on TV. • The defense argued that he was copying what he saw on TV.

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To rehabilitate to help someone recover and be useful after they have committed a crime

To be rehabilitated Rehabilitation The juvenile justice system primarily

• The juvenile justice system rehabilitates young people who commit crimes. • Teens are rehabilitated in the juvenile justice system. • Rehabilitation is the goal of the juvenile justice system.

To incarcerate to send someone to prison or a juvenile facility

To be incarcerated Incarceration The justice system (both juvenile and adult)

• The justice system incarcerates juveniles who commit crimes. • Too many juveniles are incarcerated in adult prisons. • Incarceration in juvenile facilities can lead to rehabilitation for young people.

Activity 2D: Exploring Key Concepts – Teenage Crime Scenarios Purpose: To provide an opportunity for students to use the key words to discuss additional examples of juveniles who have committed serious crimes and consider whether they should be sentenced as juveniles or adults


1. Ask students to form triads and discuss each scenario using the key words on the wall chart.

2. Circulate to answer questions as needed and note students’ use of the target words, so you can provide feedback when the discussion concludes.

3. When students have finished discussing each scenario, poll the groups to see what decisions they arrived at. Then tell them the actual decisions made in each case: Scenario 1: Sent to adult court; Scenario 2: Sent to adult court; and Scenario 3: Sent to juvenile court. Give feedback on students’ use of the key words in their discussions and answer remaining questions.

4. Laws governing juvenile sentencing change frequently. For additional up-to-date information about juvenile sentencing and other issues related to juvenile justice, see the Juvenile Life without Parole (JLWOP) Web site: https://jlc.org/issues/juvenile-life-without-parole.

Activity 2D: Exploring Key Concepts – Teenage Crime Scenarios The scenarios you are about to discuss are all based on real crimes that have been committed by teens. Read the first scenario and discuss the questions that follow with your group, using the key


words your teacher has posted. Follow the same process for Scenarios 2 and 3. When you are finished, your teacher will tell you how each juvenile was sentenced. Scenario 1: A 16-year old girl stole a Chevy Tahoe from her parents’ home. She later told officers she had been on her way to meet a 17-year-old friend and was planning on “purchasing drugs, taking the drugs, and then crashing her mother’s car with her boyfriend inside” with the intent to kill herself and him. She was fleeing from an officer who tried to pull her over when she slammed into the back of another car. She was going almost 100 mph and killed the two occupants of the other vehicle. Should this girl be charged as an adult? If you were the prosecutor what would you say? I think she should be charged as an adult. If I were the prosecutor, I would say that by the time you are 17, you know right from wrong, and she should have known everything she did was wrong—stealing the car, planning to buy drugs, planning to commit suicide, and then driving away when the police officer tried to stop her. She killed two people, and she ought to be punished by being sent to adult prison, not just being sent to juvenile hall. Scenario 2: The two 13-year-old girls are accused of stabbing a classmate with the intent of murdering her. According to the prosecutor, the girls planned the deed as a tribute to the fictional Slender Man, a paranormal creature who has supposedly been in existence for centuries. The girls found Slender Man on a Web site and decided to kill their friend to show devotion to the figure. Despite multiple stab wounds, the victim managed to crawl out of the woods where she had been abandoned. She was taken to a hospital and survived. Was this crime an intentional murder (a homicide)? Should the two girls be charged as adults? The crime was not homicide because the girl who was stabbed did not die. But this crime was definitely intentional. The girls planned to stab their classmate; it wasn’t just an accident. No, I don’t think the girls should be charged as adults even though the crime was horrible. They were only 13, and I don’t think they really understood what they were doing. Adults wouldn’t do something just because they think it would please somewhat who is completely made up. Scenario 3: A 10-year-old boy got angry with a 90-year-old woman who shared the home where he lived with his grandfather. He beat her and choked her with a cane. She died later that day. Should this boy be incarcerated with adults or with juveniles? If you were the defense attorney what would you say? Could rehabilitation work? This boy should be incarcerated with juveniles. He was only 10 years old, and his action shows that he still thinks like a kid. If I were the defense attorney, I would argue that he should be punished with other juveniles, not with adults. I think rehabilitation could work if he is sent to juvenile hall because he is so young, but if he were thrown in with a lot of adult criminals, he could just grow up to be a criminal like them.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865657300/Teen-charged-as-adult-with-murdering-2-in-suicidal-crash.html?pg=all

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865657300/Teen-charged-as-adult-with-murdering-2-in-suicidal-crash.html?pg=all

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Sources for Scenarios: Morales Gomez, Dayana. “Two 13-Year-Old Girls Are Being Tried as Adults. Here’s Why That

Matters.” Huffington Post, 12 Aug. 2015, updated 03 Jan. 2017, www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/slenderman-youth-adults-prison-wisconsin_us_55cbc70ce4b0cacb8d32ee35. Accessed 27 Feb. 2019.

Romero, McKenzie. “Judge: Double Murder Case for 16-Year Old Girl Will Remain in Adult Court.” Deseret News, 8 Sept. 2016, www.deseretnews.com/article/865661943/Judge-Double-murder-case-for-16-year-old-girl-will-remain-in-adult-court.html. Accessed 27 Feb. 2019.

Sanchez, Ray. “Cops: Boy, 10, kills Woman, 90, for Yelling at Him.” CNN, 14 Oct. 2014, www.cnn.com/2014/10/14/justice/pennsylvania-juvenile-homicide/index.html. Accessed 27 Feb. 2019.

Day 2

Activity 4: Exploring Key Concepts Purpose: To generate and categorize as a class key concepts around the topic of juvenile justice, leading to a discussion about whether age alone makes a person a juvenile or if other qualities are involved.


1. As a class, co-create a map for the words “juvenile crime.” Begin by brainstorming a list of words that relate to “juvenile crime.” Sort the words into categories, and label each one by creating a graphic like the one below using a document camera or white board.

2. Once the graphic has been completed, form heterogeneous groups of three to five students to discuss the questions. When students have finished, ask each group to briefly report their answer to one question and ask questions. Based on the discussion and answers, you can decide if some key concepts need further clarification.

PUNISHMENT juvenile hall probation parole community service adult prison life without possibility

of parole death penalty

CAUSES gangs broken homes media violence bullying money looking for thrills mental illness homelessness

KINDS OF CRIME tagging drugs parkland drive-bys murder theft

JUVENILE CRIME


Activity 4: Exploring Key Concepts

Discuss the following questions in your group.

1. Who is a juvenile? What are some synonyms for “juvenile”?

A juvenile is someone under the age of 18. Adolescent, youth, young person

2. What are the differences between an adult and a juvenile? Brainstorm a list of qualities that characterize juveniles but not adults.

Juveniles are still immature. They can be moody, impulsive, risk-taking. They care a lot about friends and like new things

3. If you or your family have come to the U.S. from a different country, when do you become an adult in your home culture? How do you know?

(Answers will vary.)

4. What is illegal for young people but legal for adults in other cultures?


5. When young people commit serious crimes in other countries, what happens do them? Is it the same as what happens to adults or different?


Reading Purposefully Activity 5: Reading for Understanding – Charting Multiple Texts Purpose: To provide a structure for students to collect information from texts that they can ultimately use when they write their open letter about juvenile sentencing Suggested Time: 25 minutes 1. Students can begin by charting the Lionel Tate video they watched. The chart appears as Appendix A

at the end of this module. Because the chart is rather small, you may want to ask them to use a larger piece of paper and create their own charts. Let them know he chart will prove especially useful when they are ready to do the writing assignment they will complete at the end of this module.

2. Ask students to use the notes they took when they viewed the video to determine what goes in each box of the chart.

3. If this is the first time students are charting multiple texts, model how you would fill out the chart and then have students work with a partner as they chart the remaining texts in the module. Once students are able to chart a text accurately, you can make charting a homework assignment.

Activity 5: Reading for Understanding – Charting Multiple Texts

This graphic organizer will help you keep track of the key information from each text (beginning with the video “Wrestling Defense”), the relationships among them, and your own responses to them. You can use the chart to make the best use of the text when you do the writing assignment at the end of the module.

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As you look down the side of the chart, you will see that it asks you for information about the different texts you will be reading in this assignment:

• Title “‘Wrestling Defense’ Murder Trail of 12-Year-Old Lionel Tate.”

• Author Kenneth Padowitz

• Genre (type of writing) news video

The title and author are self-explanatory. For this first text, you would put “news video” as the genre.

Across the top of the chart are the ideas you will be tracking as you read the texts in this module. They are presented in the form of questions:

• What is the text’s big issue?

What is the issue the video is reporting about? Here you will identify the “main idea” of the text.

“The Wrestling Defense” is about a 12-year-old who killed a young girl. He may have been copying a wrestling show he watched on TV. He is tried and sentenced as adult, but he is only a child and should have been tried in the juvenile justice system.

• What claim does the text make?

This asks you to identify the video’s perspective on the issue.)

The “Padowitz, who prosecuted Tate, says he does not think Lionel Tate’s sentence to adult prison was appropriate.

• What are examples or quotations from the text?

This is where you would put examples. Be sure to identify where you found the quotation or idea and note who is speaking. You can’t give page numbers, but it will be important to indicate the name of the video and who is speaking.

Tate was charged as an adult. Tate’s lawyer defended him using a wrestling defense but the jury found him guilty. He was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.

• What do you think about the text’s claim?

In this box, you will explain your response to the text’s claim.

• What are your examples?

Give your reaction and examples from your experience that help explain your response to the text’s claim. Your experience may simply be your observations about young people, or you may know about teens who have committed crimes.

Tate seemed really young. I did stupid things as a 12-year old and so did my friends, and it doesn’t seem like Tate planned to kill Tiffany. I think Padowitz was right when he said there were two lives ruined when Tate was sent to adult prison for life.

• How does this text connect to other texts?

Does this text support or contradict the ideas in the other texts you have read? Consider texts (including pictures, videos, or Web sites) you have read not only in this module, but also in other classes and out of school.


This video connects to the scenario we talked about when the 10-year-old boy killed the old woman. He was also really young, younger even than Tate, and he didn’t plan the crime. I think both he and Tate deserve a second chance if they show that they are sorry and seem to be rehabilitated.

Day 2 Designated

Activity 3D: Negotiating Meaning – Collaborative Text Reconstruction

Purpose: To revisit key vocabulary and concepts while previewing the content of the module


The short text below contains essential vocabulary and concepts from the modules. When students reconstruct it collaboratively, they are previewing the issues they will encounter in the module. The reconstruction also provides a diagnostic of students’ understanding and use of coordination, subordination, and transitions to connect ideas and show logical connections. This activity is based on the Executive Summary of Juvenile InJustice, the last text students will read in this module. The Paying Attention to Language Activity that follows enables you to get a sense of students’ knowledge of why writers use coordination, subordination, and transitions.

1. Instruct students to listen as you read the following paragraph at a normal rate of speed. Then ask them to take notes while you read the paragraph again; emphasize that the notes will be essential when they write their paragraphs. Alternatively, instead of having students take notes, write a series of key words or phrases on the board to guide them as they write their reconstructions.

Paragraph to read:

In all 50 states, youth under the age of 18 can be tried in adult criminal courts and sent to adult prisons. In California, youth as young as 14 can be tried as adults when the juvenile court judge decides to order it. When young people are transferred from the juvenile system, they are more likely to be convicted. If they are tried in the adult system, they are more likely to receive a longer sentence than juveniles who are charged with the same crime in juvenile court. The purpose of the adult justice system is punishment while the purpose the juvenile system is rehabilitation. Furthermore, trying juveniles as adults leads to racial inequities because youths of color are more likely to be tried as adults than white youth. In California in 2015, 88% of juveniles who were tried as adults were youths of color.

2. Ask students in pairs or triads to reconstruct collaboratively what they heard using their notes or the key words. When students are finished, read some of their paragraphs aloud. Ask students to save their paragraphs in their notebooks or collect them to return at the end of the module for editing.

3. Ask students in their groups to discuss the set of sentences that are combined differently and the final discussion question. Debrief by polling students on the question of whether juveniles should always be sentenced as adults when they commit serious crimes, whether they should sometimes be sentenced as adults, or whether they should never be sentenced as adults.

Formative Assessment: Based on your observations of what students wrote and said as they collaboratively reconstructed the paragraph and discussed the sentence set, make decisions about

Juvenile Justice 16

how you will group students for later instruction about the use of coordination, subordination, and transitions and their meanings. Some students may only need a reminder while others will benefit from more in-depth instruction and practice.

Activity 3D: Negotiating Meaning – Collaborative Text Reconstruction

In your group, discuss the following questions:

How is the first pair of sentences different from each of the single sentences that follow? Why would a writer choose to use the single sentences instead of the pair of sentences?

A small minority of juvenile criminals will continue to commit crimes.

The majority will grow up to be law-abiding citizens.

• Although a small minority of juvenile criminals will continue to commit crimes, the majority will grow up to be law-abiding citizens.

• A small minority of juvenile criminals will continue to commit crimes, but the majority will grow up to be law-abiding citizens.

• A small minority of juvenile criminals will continue to commit crimes; however, the majority will grow up to be law-abiding citizens.

• While a small minority of juvenile criminals will continue to commit crimes, the majority will grow up to be law-abiding citizens.

Now discuss whether it is fair to sentence juveniles who commit serious crimes as adults. Should they always be sentenced as adults? Never sentenced as adults? Or does it depend?

The pair of sentences are two facts, but you can’t tell what the relationship is between them. In the others, you know the logical relationship: they are contrasting the large group of teen law-breakers who grow up to follow the law with the small group that still commits crimes. The last sentence shows that two things are happening at the same time—the small group is continuing to break the law and at the same time the majority will follow the law as adults.

Text 1 – Holloway, “Should 11-Year Olds Be Charged with Adult Crimes?”

Preparing to Read Day 3

Activity 6: Surveying the Text; Making Predictions and Asking Questions Purpose: To invite students to survey the text, predict the purpose and audience and consider the ethos of the writer in preparation for reading the text independently


Ask students what they know about surveying a text before reading and why it’s a good idea to do so. In the discussion, they should indicate that they will do the following:


• Read the title, the author, the date, and the source of the text.

• Read the headings.

• Read the first two paragraphs (beginning with “An 11-year-old boy…”) and the final paragraph.

In the course of the discussion, ask students to supply brief definitions for first-degree murder (killing someone intentionally) and defense lawyer (a lawyer who helps a person who has been accused of a crime); clarify as needed. Then have them survey the text.

When they are done, ask students to talk to their partner using the following questions.

Activity 6: Surveying the Text; Making Predictions and Asking Questions

When you are done surveying the text, talk to your partner about the following questions:

1. What do you think is the purpose of this text? What enabled you to predict this?

I think the purpose is to persuade me that young children should not be charged and tried for the crime of murder. Judges should decide whether a child should be sentenced as an adult based on the child’s age and other things. I predicted this based on the place in paragraph 2 where it says, “. . . prosecuting a very young child for murder and sending him to prison for life is tragic in and of itself” and on the last paragraph where it says judges should make the decision “based on the totality of the circumstances.”

2. Who do you think is the intended audience for this piece? How do you know?

The audience is people who would read something on the CNN Web site. They are probably adults who are interested in the news, but they don’t necessarily know a lot about the topic of juvenile sentencing.

3. Who is Phillip Holloway? How knowledgeable do you expect he will be on this topic? How do you know?

He is a “legal analyst” for CNN. I think that means he is an expert in the law, and he works for CNN which is a respected news organization, so I think he will be informed about juvenile justice.

Activity 7: Understanding Key Vocabulary Purpose: To expand students’ understanding of key vocabulary by asking them to generate opposites and definitions


Several words and phrases in the articles students will be reading come in pairs of opposites. Ask students in triads to fill out this chart after you do the first pair of words as an example. You can adjust the level of difficulty by providing more or fewer answers, depending on your assessment of students’ needs. When students are done, talk about each pair and post them on a wall chart of words related to this module.

Alternatively, turn this into a matching game. Put the words and definitions on cards or slips of paper and have students in groups match the word to its opposite and to the definitions.

Juvenile Justice 18

Activity 7: Understanding Key Vocabulary

Several juvenile justice terms come in pairs of words with opposite meanings. In your group, fill out the blanks in this chart by supplying the word, its opposite, or the definitions. If no one in the group is sure about how to fill in a blank, use your online dictionary.

Juvenile Justice Word Opposites

Word: to prosecute

Definition: to try someone for a crime

Opposite: to defend

Definition: to argue that someone is innocent

Word: intentional

Definition: on purpose

Opposite: accidental

Definition: by mistake, not on purpose

Word: guilty

Definition: committed a crime

Opposite: innocent

Definition: did not commit a crime

Word: maximum penalty

Definition: the harshest punishment

Opposite: minimum penalty

Definition: the lightest punishment

Word: adult

Definition: someone mature, 18 or older

Opposite: juvenile

Definition: someone immature, under 18

Word: adult jail

Definition: where adult criminals are sent

Opposite: juvenile facility

Definition: where juvenile criminals are sent

Word: to incarcerate

Definition: lock up in jail

Opposite: to release

Definition: to allow to leave jail

Word: punishment

Definition: penalty for committing a crime

Opposite: rehabilitation

Definition: helping some who has committed a crime become a productive member of society

Activity 8: Creating Personal Learning Goals Purpose: To help students become better academic readers and writers by developing their metacognitive awareness of their reading behaviors


Introduce students to the writing task that they will have at the end of the module. Tell them they will be reading four texts, including a news article about juvenile justice, an article about the latest scientific understanding of the teenage brain, an open letter about juvenile sentencing reform, and an executive summary to a report about juvenile sentencing in California. Then they will write an open letter of their own, one that could be published on a Web site, in which they make their argument for how juveniles should be tried and sentenced. . Ask them to think about what they have learned in previous modules about becoming critical readers and writers, and ask them to set personal learning goals for this module.


For a more scaffolded way to introduce students to setting personal learning goals, see the grade 9 module, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian., Activity 7 and Activity 4D. You may also want to refer to the grade 12 module, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, Activity 6, Negotiating Meaning – Metacognitive Reflection. This activity asks students to share possible strategies that they can use when they encounter difficulties while reading and can form the basis for setting goals for the reading they will be doing during this module.

Possible strategies include the following:

• Imagine myself as a character in the book.

• Reread or slow down and read more carefully.

• Figure out the meaning of unfamiliar words and phrases from context; if necessary, use a dictionary.

• Read aloud to myself (not necessarily so someone can hear) or someone else.

• Read the last paragraph, so I know where the text is heading and then go back to reading where I left off.

• Skip difficult passages and return to them later.

• Summarize or paraphrase confusing parts.

• Break the reading into smaller chunks and pause in between reading the chunks.

• Develop a graphic organizer or road map of the reading.

• Ask someone else what they thought a passage meant.

• Go online to find images, definitions, or explanations to help with understanding.

• Don’t freak out. Keep reading because an explanation or clarification may be coming up later in the text.

Adapted from Schoenbach, Ruth, Cynthia Greenleaf, and Lynn Murphy. “Classroom Close-up 4.2: Don’t Freak Out,” Reading for Understanding: How Reading Apprenticeship Improves Disciplinary Learning in Secondary and College Classrooms. 2nd ed., Jossey-Bass, 2012, p. 96.

Activity 8: Creating Personal Learning Goals

As you consider what you want to learn by participating in this module, you may want to think about some of the following questions:

• What strategies will I use to understand and evaluate the texts that I am going to read?

• What strategies will I use when I encounter difficulties with texts that I am reading?

• How can I take part in class discussions, so I get the most out of them?

• How can I get the most out of work that I do with my peers?

• What other goals do I have that have that will help me get the most out of this module?

Choose two or three goals that are important for you. In your notebook, explain what they are and why you have chosen them. Keep your goals in mind as you continue with the Juvenile Justice module so that when you are finished, you can reflect on how well you accomplished them.

Juvenile Justice 20

Homework: Independently read “Should 11-Year Olds Be Charged with Adult Crimes?” by Phillip Holloway.” As you are reading, think about how the writer answers the question raised by CNN: “How old is ‘old enough’ to be charged as an adult criminal?”

Reading Purposefully Reading for Understanding

Day 3 Designated

Activity 4D: Reading for Understanding – Collaborative Reading

Purpose: To enable students to construct an understanding of a text by working with others


1. Model reading the first half of “Should 11-Year Olds Be Charged with Adult Crimes?” by Phillip Holloway, while students read along, stopping to talk about key words and phrases that students may not understand and reinforcing words and phrases like “to charge” and “prosecuting” that have already been introduced. Give your reactions as you go along, for example talking about how you feel about the “two wrongs don’t make a right” argument in the second paragraph.

2. When you finish paragraph 10 that begins, “Nevertheless, the Georgia Legislature responded…,” stop and invite students to ask questions.

3. Now tell students they will read the remainder of the text collaboratively, following the Guidelines for Collaborative Reading (Appendix B). Tell them you will be observing the way they participate in academic discussion as they work. Model filling out the Collaborative Reading Notetaking Chart for the first two paragraphs. As they collaboratively read the text, which has been broken into chunks, take notes on parts of the text or the task that they struggle with and on their use of academic language. If you have not previously introduced students to Scholarly Discourse Moves, you can do so now. A protocol for this is available in the grade 10 module Age of Responsibility, Activity 3: Reading for Understanding. A different approach emphasizing civil discourse is available in the grade 11 module, Changing Minds: Thinking about Immigration, Activity 6: Establishing Norms for Civil Discourse.

Paragraph Number Essential Terms One-Sentence Summary “Right There”

Question & Answer

1, 2 prosecutor, prosecuting, charge as an adult

Prosecuting a young child for murder and sending him to life in prison, such as the 11-year old in Tennessee, is wrong.

Why is prosecuting a young child for murder wrong? It takes the life of another child and is tragic for everyone.


4. Debrief when students are finished, clearing up any misunderstandings, noting good uses of academic language that you overheard, and pointing out possible alternatives when students slipped into more familiar non-academic language.

Formative Assessment: Based on your observations of students’ reading and their participation in the collaborative discussion, you can determine the amount and type of additional practice and instruction that will be most beneficial as students work with Holloway and the other texts in the module. If most students were able to collaboratively read the second half of the text readily, you can reduce the amount of modeling that you do with future texts, but if they struggled, additional instruction, including modeling, vocabulary work, and sentence unpacking, will be helpful. If they used academic language and participated fully in the academic discussion, you can use the protocol in the future without modification. If all students were not fully participating, you may need to provide more structure next time, perhaps focusing on a single aspect of academic discussion such as turn-taking or asking clarifying questions with each new discussion. (See Appendix C: Teacher-like Conversation Skills.)


Based on your teacher’s directions, use the notetaking guide below to record your discussion.

Collaborative Reading Notetaking Guide for “Should 11-Year Olds Be Charged with Adult Crimes?”

Paragraph Number Essential Terms One-Sentence

Summary “Right There”

Question & Answer

13-16

17-19

20-23

24

Day 4

Activity 9: Reading for Understanding – Debriefing Purpose: To give students an opportunity to share their understanding of Holloway’s text and to assess how well they have comprehended it


Ask students to share their responses to the question raised by CNN: “How old is ‘old enough’ to be an adult criminal?” What is Phillip Holloway’s position?

Juvenile Justice 22

Holloway says that sometimes it is right to charge juveniles as adults, especially if they are older, have shown that they can’t be rehabilitated, or have planned the crime. But he thinks that usually young people should be charged as juveniles. He says he has seen that they often can be saved and that bad things happen to kids in adult prisons.

Activity 10: Annotating and Questioning the Text Suggested Time: 20 minutes

Purpose: To have students read Holloway’s text more deeply, thinking about what he says and how they feel about what he is saying

Ask students to share their process for annotating and questioning a text. If students do not have a robust process, direct them to follow the procedure below, using an “I do, We do, You do” format, beginning by modeling how you would annotate the first four paragraphs of the text. Project a copy of your annotations. Talk about alternative possibilities, and explain that people annotate and respond to a text differently because they bring different background knowledge and experience to their reading. Then co-annotate the next several paragraphs. Finally, form triads of different ability levels, to annotate the remainder of the text, so that when they share their annotations, the stronger readers can support those who may be struggling.

As the students reread Holloway, ask them to make marginal notations (e.g., ask questions, express surprise, disagree, elaborate, or note any moments of confusion). Activity 10 provides one way to structure the marginal notations.

If students are reading the texts online, ask them to make a T-chart and take notes, using the directions in the student activity to guide what they are observing.

Annotation Chart

Paragraphs What is the writer is saying? What are my reactions and questions?

1-3

4-5

6-8

9-12

13-16

17-1

20-23

24 Formative Assessment: Analyzing what students choose to annotate and what they skip over can provide insights into their comprehension of the text. You can determine if they identified the main claims and noted important evidence. You can see if they marked words they were unsure of. Parts of the text left unannotated may suggest that students skipped it because they found it especially challenging. Their questions can inform you about their confusions. These insights can inform you about their reading strategies. Giving them feedback about their reading and annotation strategies will help them transfer what they learn to their annotation of future texts.


Activity 10: Annotating and Questioning the Text

As you reread “Should 11-Year Olds Be Charged with Adult Crimes?” by Phillip Holloway, make marginal notations. 1. In the left margin, label what the author is saying as follows:

• The introduction • The issue or problem the author is writing about • The author’s main arguments • The author’s examples • The author’s conclusion

2. In the right margin, write your reactions to what the author is saying. You can ask questions, express surprise, disagree, elaborate, and note any moments of confusion.

3. Now share your annotations with your partner and talk about what you chose to mark and how you reacted to the text. Did you agree on what the main idea was? Did you mark the same arguments and examples? Did you agree on the conclusion?

Activity 11: Negotiating Meaning – Sentence Unpacking Purpose: To give students strategies for deconstructing long, information-dense sentences that they encounter when reading independently


Talk about your strategies for understanding the following sentence:

State legislatures across America have largely changed / the traditional common-law idea / that children are unable to formulate criminal intent.

Here is how you might talk about your reading strategies when you encounter a confusing sentence.

1. I reread the sentence and break it into meaningful chunks. Then I ask myself questions about each chunk. For the first chunk I might ask, What is a state legislature? What are they doing?

They are elected officials who make laws. They are changing an idea.

2. For the second chunk, I might ask, What is traditional common law? What is the idea that is changing?

“Traditional” sounds like law has been around for a long time. Maybe “common” means it is a law that everyone agrees about. I’m looking it up in the Merriam-Webster learners’ dictionary because I’m not sure about the definition. It says, “The laws that developed from English court decisions and customs and that form the basis of laws in the U.S.” That makes sense since customs are traditional. It’s law that is based on customs but also on earlier laws. So state legislatures are deciding those older laws no longer apply.

3. For the third chunk, I might ask, What is criminal intent?

Juvenile Justice 24

In the previous paragraph, it says that “criminal intent” means “the guilty mind,” mens rea in Latin. I know the word “intention” means to do something on purpose, so criminal intent must mean to commit a crime on purpose.

4. What does “to formulate” mean?

It’s a verb and it is describing what children are doing. Using context, I think maybe it means to plan a crime. So the sentence is saying that based on common law, courts used to believe that children could not plan crimes, but that idea is now changing.

5. I reread the sentence again to make sure I understand how all the parts fit together. Now I see that the sentence means that state lawmakers have decided that children are able to plan crimes and commit them intentionally while the traditional idea was that they couldn’t.

6. At this point, I want to think about what the sentence means in the context of what I’ve already read. The implication is that in the past, courts thought children couldn’t plan and commit crimes because they were too young. Now lawmakers think they can. Wow! That’s a big change. Thinking back to the title, “Should 11-Year Olds Be Charged with Adult Crimes?” I can see that the assumption is that if 11-year olds can plan crimes like adults, maybe they should be charged like adults. And that means they can be sent to adult prisons, just like Lionel Tate in the video.

Now ask students to share several sentences that they found hard to understand. As a class, apply the same process to several of these sentences, talking about one chunk (meaningful group of words) at a time and considering the meaning of words, phrases, and grammatical structures.

After the sentences are unpacked, ask students to reread the text to see how their new understanding of the sentences contributes to its meaning.

Day 4 Designated

Activity 5D: Analyzing Rhetorical Grammar – Sentence Combining (“Should 11-Year Olds Be Charged with Adult Crimes?”) Purpose: To provide practice combining short sentences into dense, information-packed sentences


Sentence combining helps students deconstruct dense, information packed sentences when they encounter them in texts and to understand the logic of different ways of combining sentences. It will also help them combine their own shorter sentences into longer, denser sentences when they go to write. Activity 5D also directs students to language used to indicate the writer’s stance toward the claims he is making.

1. Post a chart (see Appendix D) showing options for using coordination, subordination, and transition words to join sentences.

2. Combine the first set of sentences as model, talking about what you are thinking as you do it. Emphasize that there is more than one correct way to combine the sentences and talk about why one way might be more effective than another. Encourage students to try to condense the ideas in the short sentences to make one or more dense sentences.

3. If students have not done sentence combining before, you may want to do the next sentence set as a class. Then you can assign the last sentence set to a team of two and have them write their


new sentence(s) on the board when they have successfully combined it. If students are familiar with sentence combining, assign the sentence sets to different teams.

4. Once all the teams have put their sentences on the board, ask students to evaluate whether the sentences are correctly formed, contain all the information in the kernel sentences, and are easily understood by a reader.

5. Project the original sentences, and ask students to compare the set of short sentences, their correct sentences, and the originals. As you do this activity, take advantage of the opportunity to teach concepts and additional vocabulary as they come up in discussion.

6. Ask students to talk about the rhetorical purpose of the way in which Holloway begins sentences.

7. As you debrief the activity with students, discuss the following:

Set 1: Original: I suggest that except for extraordinary circumstances, no child under the age of at least 17 should be sentenced to lengthy incarceration in adult jails.

• Why does the original begin with I suggest that? What is the writer telling us?

The writer is telling us that what follow is his opinion. Set 2: Original: It is beyond debate that the human brain does not reach anything close to maturity until the early to mid-20s.

• Why does the original begin with It is beyond debate? What is the writer telling us? The writer is telling us that he thinks everyone agrees that the statement is true.

Set 3: Original: Studies show that incarcerating children more often than not results in higher rates of recidivism; essentially, it turns children into hardened criminals.

• Why does the original begin with Studies show that…? What is the writer telling us? The writer is telling us the statement is based on scientific research.

Activity 5D: Analyzing Rhetorical Grammar – Sentence Combining

Combining the components of these difficult sentences from Holloway’s “Should 11-Year Olds Be Charged with Adult Crimes?” will help you figure out what they mean and become aware of the rhetorical choices he made in writing them. You can also use what you learn to combine sentences in your own writing to write denser sentences—sentences that pack in more meaning in a briefer, more succinct way. Try to combine all the ideas in as few sentences as possible, but it is alright to create more than one sentence.

Example:

An 11-year old boy is facing first-degree murder charges.

He is in Tennessee.

The charges are in the death of an 8-year old.

He shot the 8-year old.

He asked to see her puppy.

Juvenile Justice 26

She said no.

Possible combinations:

An 11-year old boy is facing first-degree murder charges in Tennessee. The charges are in the death of an 8-year old he shot. He asked to see her puppy and she said no.

Or: An 11-year old boy is facing first-degree murder charges in Tennessee in the death of an 8-year old. He asked to see her puppy and she said no, so he shot her.

Or: In Tennessee, an 11-year old boy is facing first-degree murder charges in the death of an 8-year old. When he asked to see her puppy, she said no. He shot her.

Original: An 11-year old boy in Tennessee is facing first-degree murder charges in the death of an 8-year old he shot after he asked to see her puppy and she said no.

Set 1

No child should be sentenced to lengthy incarceration.

A child is someone under the age of at least 17.

The incarceration is in adult jails.

The exception is when circumstances are extraordinary.

No child under the age of at least 17 should be sentenced to lengthy incarceration in adult jails except when the circumstances are extraordinary.

Set 2

The human brain does not reach maturity until the early to mid-20s.

The adolescent child cannot understand the nature of their actions.

They cannot understand the consequences of their actions.

The human brain does not reach maturity until the early to mid-20s, and therefore the adolescent child cannot understand the nature and consequences of their actions.

Set 3

Incarcerating children results in higher rates of recidivism.

This happens more often than not.

Essentially, incarcerating children turns them into hardened criminals.

Incarcerating children results in higher rates of recidivism, essentially turning children into hardened criminals.


Activity 6D: Examining the Structure of the Text Suggested Time: 10 minutes

Purpose: To preview how Holloway’s text is structured

Once the class has talked about different ways of combining the sentences to include all the ideas, ask students to discuss how they would rearrange the four sentences to make a brief argument.

Introduction: An 11-year old boy in Tennessee is facing first-degree murder charges in the death of an 8-year old he shot after he asked to see her puppy and she said no.

Evidence: It is beyond debate that the human brain does not reach anything close to maturity until the early to mid-20s.

Evidence: Studies show that incarcerating children more often than not results in higher rates of recidivism; essentially, it turns children into hardened criminals.

Conclusion: I suggest that except for extraordinary circumstances, no child under the age of at least 17 should be sentenced to lengthy incarceration in adult jails.

Then ask students which paragraph in the text offers the counterargument or viewpoint of those who disagree with Holloway’s position.

The paragraph beginning with “And there can be no doubt that sometimes it is appropriate to do so.”

Day 5 Activity 12: Examining the Structure of the Text Purpose: To give students practice summarizing what a writer is saying and analyzing the rhetorical moves that the writer makes in each part of the text Suggested Time: 40 minutes 1. Post a list of verbs that describe what texts do (see Bean, Chappell, and Gillam, 57) and that might be

useful for this text. A possible list includes the following: The purpose is to…

Argue Cite Compare Describe

Explain Propose Question Recommend State Suggest Use

Juvenile Justice 28

2. In addition to providing the verbs listed above for students to use as needed when they write their “Does” statements, based on your assessments of students’ abilities, you may want to offer the option of using sentence starters for students who need them:

Sentence Starters:

Paragraphs 1-2

Says: An 11-year-old boy is charged…

Does: Introduces the issue…

Paragraphs 3-10

Says statement: Legislatures have changed the law so that…

Does statement: Explains the change in the law that…

Paragraph 10-16

Says statement: Juveniles should almost never be sentenced to adult prisons since they…

Does statement: Acknowledges those who disagree, but then argues that…

Paragraph 17-20

Says statement: My experience in the criminal justice system and as a parent enables me to know that…

Purpose statement: Uses his personal experience...

Paragraph 21 Says statement: Judges should decide when... Does statement: Concludes that...

3. Place students in triads to complete the activity with students using sentence starters grouped together. Emphasize that in this activity, thinking and reasoning about organizational structure are more important than agreeing on where the lines should be drawn.

4. When students have finished their descriptive outline, point out that the features of an opinion piece do not correspond to paragraphs. This article has 23 paragraphs but it makes five main rhetorical moves:

• Introduces the issue.

• Describes the problem more fully, citing evidence and giving examples.

• Acknowledges the arguments of those who disagree and addresses those issues.

• Provides the writer’s background and expertise

• Concludes by making a recommendation.

5. Finish by discussing Holloway’s concluding paragraph. Clarify the phrases a bright line rule (a clear-cut decision) and ad hoc legislative determinations (when legislatures pass laws in response to a current situation). Ask students what Holloway’s alternative is to these.

Note: When introducing this activity for the first time, it is helpful to prepare the text by dividing it into sections determined by the textual organization and modeling for students what the text says versus what it does (highlighting the difference between content and rhetorical purpose). When most


of the groups have finished, project one Says/Does each for each chunk, pausing to accept suggestions for revision.

Formative Assessment: You can ramp this activity up or down depending on your assessment of students’ ability to summarize a text and articulate its rhetorical purpose. Providing the list of words that describe what texts do and using sentence starters provides maximum support for the activity. Chunking the text but allowing students to generate their own Says/Does statements provides moderate support. Asking students to do a descriptive outline and then write a Rhetorical Précis provides the least amount of support.

Activity 12: Examining the Structure of the Text

Map the organization of “Should 11-Year-Olds Be Charged with Adult Crimes?” by taking the following steps:

1. Draw a line across the page where the introduction ends. Is it after the first paragraph, or are there several introductory paragraphs? Is it in the middle of a paragraph? How do you know that the text has moved on from the introduction?

2. Draw a line across the page where the conclusion begins. Is it the last paragraph, or are there several concluding paragraphs? How do you know that the text has reached the conclusion?

3. Discuss in your group why you drew the lines where you did.

4. Now draw lines between the other parts of the text. Look for shifts where the writer moves from making one part of his argument to making another. Discuss in your group and come to an agreement about where the lines belong. Number each chunk of the text.

5. Collaborate in your groups to write Says/Does statements on a separate sheet of paper using the numbers that correspond to the chunks. Assign one person to read the chunk out loud, the second person to write the “Says” statement, and the third person to write the “Does” statement. Everyone in the group needs to come to an agreement. Be as precise as possible as you describe what the text actually is saying and doing.

6. At the end of the text, describe the overall content and purpose of the text.

Possible Say/Does Statements:

Paragraphs 1-2

Says: An 11-year-old boy is charged with murder in the death of an 8-year old. This death is tragic, but prosecuting a very young child for murder is tragic also.

Does: Introduces the issue of trying young children as adults with a timely anecdote and indicates that the writer thinks this practice is wrong.

Paragraph 3-10

Says: Legislatures have changed the law so that young people can be incarcerated in adult jails in spite of the fact that children do not mature until at least 17.

Does: Explains the change in the law that has led to the situation of juveniles being sent to adult jails.

Juvenile Justice 30

Paragraph 11-16

Says: Juveniles should almost never be sentenced to adult prisons since they are still children who suffer in adult prisons and are turned into hardened criminals.

Does: Acknowledges that under certain circumstances juveniles should be tried as adults.

Paragraph 17-19

Says: Sending children to adult prisons harms them and often turns them into hardened criminals.

Does: Argues that putting adolescents in adult prisons is counter-productive.

Paragraph 20-23

Says: Holloway’s experience in the criminal justice system and as a parent enables him to know that we should rehabilitate rather than punish teens.

Does: Uses his personal experience and ethos to support his argument.

Paragraph 24

Says: Judges should decide when a child should be tried as adult after considering all the circumstances.

Does: Concludes his argument with a solution.

Questioning the Text Activity 13: Synthesizing Multiple Perspectives – Charting Multiple Texts (“Should 11-Year Olds Be Charged with Adult Crimes?”)

Purpose: To continue creating a graphic organizer that students can use when they write their final assignment


Ask students to make an entry for Holloway’s “Should 11-Year Olds Be Charged with Adult Crimes?” on their Charting Multiple Texts chart. Tell them to fill it out as they did with the video they watched. When they reach the entry for “How does this text connect to other texts?” ask them to briefly describe the ways in which the article contributes to the debate about juvenile incarceration and how it relates to the video. For example, they might want to connect Padowitz’s position that Tate should not have been tried as adult with Holloway’s claim that children “are not adults and their brains do not work the same as an adult.” When they are finished, have students compare their charts with a partner and make any revisions they want.


Day 5 Designated

Reading Purposefully Activity 7D: Considering the Rhetorical Situation Purpose: To consider why someone would write an opinion piece and the distinction between objective fact and opinion


Ask students to work in pairs to discuss the questions and locate the evidence that supports their answers. When pairs are done talking, call on students to share their answers and the evidence that supports the answer. Clarify the distinction between factual reporting and opinion.

Activity 7D: Considering the Rhetorical Situation Writers always have purpose for writing. Sometimes they write for themselves, for example, a journal or diary, but often they write to influence others and accomplish something in the world. The purpose of this activity is to help you think about why Holloway wrote “Should 11-year olds be charged with adult crimes?”

Discuss the questions below with your partner. Find evidence in the text to support your answers.

1. What is the question that is being debated? Why is it being debated now?

The question is whether juveniles who commit serious crimes should be treated as adults. It is being debated because many people think that teens are not yet mature and can be rehabilitated, so they should usually be treated differently.

2. What change has taken place? How does Holloway feel about that change?

He says that politicians passed laws requiring juveniles to be tried as adults. He thinks this is wrong because teenagers can change as they grow up.

3. What has he chosen to do in response to that change?

He has written an article for broadcasting company, CNN, to try to influence public opinion.

4. Who will read his writing? What does he hope to accomplish?

A wide audience will be reading it, including politicians who can change the laws.

5. Why does he feel that is well-qualified to join this conversation?

He is a legal analyst for CNN and has worked in the criminal justice system for 28 years.

This article comes from the CNN news Web site. It offers different categories of news. Here’s what their drop-down menu looks like. In what category do you think the article was originally posted? Why? Where do you think the video about Lionel Tate was posted?

US World Politics Opinion Health Entertainment Style Travel Bleacher

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I think the article was posted in the section called Opinion. It is Holloway’s opinion about sentencing juveniles. He says, “But I don’t need studies to tell me this because I have seen it for myself.” He isn’t just reporting about the issue. He uses the pronoun “I” and talks about his own experiences. The video we watched about Lionel Tate was less personal but Padowitz says at the beginning. “In my estimation that was not an appropriate sentence,” so it is an opinion piece also.

Activity 8D: Considering the Rhetorical Situation – Genre

Purpose: To consolidate understanding of the distinction between a news story and an opinion piece


When the pairs have discussed the questions above, discuss the following questions with the whole class. You may want to project the CNN Website (www.cnn.com/us) before you begin.

• What is an opinion piece in a newspaper or on a news Web site such as the CNN site?

In an opinion piece, the writer tries to persuade readers that something is true. It tells you the writer’s point of view instead just objectively reporting the facts of an event. Holloway uses the word “I” and tells you about his personal life. In the video we don’t know anything about Padowitz’s life except that he was the prosecutor. However, we know he thinks what happened was wrong. You Tube classifies the video as “New/Politics.” I guess even news stories can include some opinion.

• Who gets to write an opinion piece? What does it mean when CNN says, “The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author?

In this article, Holloway is giving his own opinion, not the position of CNN. Opinion pieces are written by people who are experts on a topic but often do not work for a newspaper or network.

Text 2 – Dobbs, “Beautiful Brains”


Activity 14: Exploring Key Concepts Purpose: To provide background information on some of the concepts and terminology related to brain physiology that students will encounter in the text


This text provides up-to-date information about the research on the adolescent brain that contributes to the understanding of teen behavior, which in turn speaks to the degree to which young people may be rehabilitated after committing serious crimes. If students have completed other modules that include discussion of the teenage brain, such as Age of Responsibility, ask them to share what they learned about the teenage brain and the age when young people should be held responsible for their actions.


1. Ask students to do a quickwrite and share their responses with a partner. Then read some of them aloud.

Quickwrite: What traits (kinds of behavior) characterize teens? Could these traits be useful as teens prepare to leave home and enter the adult world?

2. Project an image of the brain and point out the region called the prefrontal cortex. Tell students that it controls executive function which enables us to do the following:

• Differentiate between good and bad, better and best, same and different

• Understand future consequences of current activities

• Work toward a goal

• Predict outcomes

• Control impulses and delay gratification

Remind students that the cells of the brain communicate with each other along pathways called synapses. Alternatively, provide students with a blank diagram of the brain and have them work together to color and label the parts by accessing information on the Internet.

3. Ask volunteers to clarify the phrases differentiate between and delay gratification.

4. Then have students in pairs talk to each other about what might happen if someone did not fully have these abilities.

5. Following this pair discussion, introduce the concept of plasticity, the way the brain can change over time. Add these terms to your word wall.

Your Brain and What It Does: A Diagram of How the Brain Works

(Bragdon and Gamon)

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Activity 15: Surveying the Text Purpose: To enable students to practice surveying a longer text that uses headings to guide readers


1. Call on a few students to refresh everyone’s memory about how to preview a text.

2. Have students unpack the title and subheading and bolded first lines in triads with one person taking notes.

Formative Assessment: Based on your observations of students’ ability to read independently, you may decide it will take too much time and support for students to read the whole article. Consider asking students to do Activity 9D: Reading for Understanding - Collaborative Reading. In this activity, they just read the highly abbreviated, six-paragraph version of the article. This short text will enable students to make the connection between teenage brain research and the argument about teenage accountability. This argument helped decide the question of sentencing teens who commit heinous crimes to life in prison when the issue came before the Supreme Court, so it is important for students to be aware of it even if they do not read the entire article. If you ask students to read/skim the whole article, you may want to pre-teach the following words: brain imaging scans, maturation, adaptive adolescent, dysfunctional traits, sensation seeking, attraction to novelty, peer relations, plasticity. Or you may judge that students are ready to practice determining key words and their meanings on their own.

The following highly engaging video, “The Teen Brain,” can supplement the shortened version of the article: www.nationalgeographic.com.au/videos/brain-games/the-teen-brain-4097.aspx.

Activity 15: Surveying the Text

With your partner, read the title and subheading of “Beautiful Brains.” Then read the sentences that begin with words in bold. Respond to the following questions and ask one member of your group to note your answers.

Beautiful Brains. Moody. Impulsive. Maddening. Why do teenagers act the way they do? Viewed through the eyes of evolution, their most exasperating traits may be the key to success as adults.

• Whose brains are we talking about? Why are they beautiful?

The brains of teenagers. They are beautiful because they adapt to prepare teenagers for adult life.

• How does the writer say teenagers behave? Use different adjectives (paraphrase).

They are emotional drama queens. They take risks without thinking about consequences. They make their parents crazy.

• What does it mean to view behavior “through the eyes of evolution?”

To explain how it has developed over time to help the species survive.

• What does Dobbs’ claim are teens’ most exasperating traits (behaviors)? (Look back at the sentences you previewed to answer).

Excitement, novelty, risk, the company of peers

• Why does he say that these traits may be the key to success as adults?

They prepare us to leave our parents and home and become independent.


Homework: Now that you have previewed the article, read Dobbs’s “Beautiful Brains,” as homework. Highlight important ideas and note key phrases, so you can share some of them the next day. As you read, look for answers to the following question:

• How does the latest research about teenage brains contribute to your view about how juveniles who commit serious crimes should be dealt with in the criminal justice system?

Reading “Beautiful Brains,” which is a longer text, is a chance to build up your reading stamina. Previewing the text and having a question you are looking to answer will enable you to read faster and more efficiently. Unlike the other texts in this module, which require in-depth critical reading, “Beautiful Brains” can be read quickly for the gist of Dobb’s argument. Learning how to vary your reading strategies based on purpose is important as you prepare for college and work.

Reading Purposefully

Day 6 Designated

Activity 9D: Reading for Understanding – Collaborative Reading Purpose: To increase comprehension of “Beautiful Brains” by inviting students to read the article collaboratively with each member of the group responsible for contributing to a shared understanding

Suggested Time: 50 minutes 1. Ask students to read part of “Beautiful Brains” collaboratively, following the Guidelines for

Collaborative Reading (Appendix B; Palinscar and Brown, pp. 117-75). Tell them you will be observing the way they participate in academic discussion.

2. As they collaboratively read the text, take notes on parts of the text or the task that they struggle with and on their use of academic language. Students may be familiar with the process of collaborative reading; if not, model it by doing the first paragraph as a class.

3. Debrief by giving students feedback on their understanding of the text. Answer remaining questions and clarify any terms or concepts that are still confusing to students. Remind them to read the entire article for its gist as homework.

This activity is a good way to observe how well students understand some of the core ideas in Dobbs’ text. It also allows you to assess students’ ability to participate in academic discussion without intervention from the teacher. If you notice that students in a group are struggling to understand the text, you may want to guide them in unpacking a key sentence such as, “This delayed completion—a withholding of readiness—heightens flexibility just as we confront and enter the world that we will face as adults.”

Paragraph Number Essential Terms One-Sentence Summary “Right There”

Question & Answer 1 Traits, adaptive Teenagers in all cultures seek

out new activities, enjoy risk, and like to spend time with friends.

What teenage traits make us able to survive better? Excitement, novelty, risk, the company of peers

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Based on your teacher’s directions, use the Collaborative Reading Notetaking Guide below to record your discussion.

Paragraph Number

Essential Terms One-Sentence Summary “Right There” Question & Answer

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Key Paragraphs from “Beautiful Brains” by David Dobbs

1. Excitement, novelty, risk, the company of peers. These traits may seem to add up to nothing more than doing foolish new stuff with friends. Look deeper, however, and you see that these traits that define adolescence make us more adaptive, both as individuals and as a species. That’s doubtless why these traits, broadly defined, seem to show themselves in virtually all human cultures, modern or tribal. They may concentrate and express themselves more starkly in modern Western cultures, in which teens spend so much time with each other. But anthropologists have found that virtually all the world’s cultures recognize adolescence as a distinct period in which adolescents prefer novelty, excitement, and peers. This near-universal recognition sinks the notion that it’s a cultural construct (par. 43).

2. Culture clearly shapes adolescence. It influences its expression and possibly its length. It can magnify its manifestations. Yet culture does not create adolescence. The period’s uniqueness rises from genes and developmental processes that have been selected for over thousands of generations because they play an amplified role during this key transitional period: producing a creature optimally primed to leave a safe home and move into unfamiliar territory (par. 44).


3. The move outward from home is the most difficult thing that humans do, as well as the most critical—not just for individuals but for a species that has shown an unmatched ability to master challenging new environments. In scientific terms, teenagers can be a pain in the ass. But they are quite possibly the most fully, crucially adaptive human beings around. Without them, humanity might not have so readily spread across the globe (par. 45).

4. Meanwhile, in times of doubt, take inspiration in one last distinction of the teen brain—a final key to both its clumsiness and its remarkable adaptability. This is the prolonged plasticity of those late-developing frontal areas as they slowly mature. As noted earlier, these areas are the last to lay down the fatty myelin insulation—the brain’s white matter—that speeds transmission. And at first glance this seems like bad news: If we need these areas for the complex task of entering the world, why aren’t they running at full speed when the challenges are most daunting? (par. 49).

5. The answer is that speed comes at the price of flexibility. While a myelin coating greatly accelerates an axon’s bandwidth, it also inhibits the growth of new branches from the axon. According to Douglas Fields, an NIH neuroscientist who has spent years studying myelin, “This makes the period when a brain area lays down myelin a sort of crucial period of learning—the wiring is getting upgraded, but once that’s done, it’s harder to change” (par. 50).

6. The window in which experience can best rewire those connections is highly specific to each brain area. Thus the brain’s language centers acquire their insulation most heavily in the first 13 years, when a child is learning language. The completed insulation consolidates those gains—but makes further gains, such as second languages, far harder to come by (par. 51).

7. So it is with the forebrain’s myelination during the late teens and early 20s. This delayed completion—a withholding of readiness—heightens flexibility just as we confront and enter the world that we will face as adults (par. 52).

8. This long, slow, back-to-front developmental wave, completed only in the mid-20s, appears to be a uniquely human adaptation. It may be one of our most consequential. It can seem a bit crazy that we humans don’t wise up a bit earlier in life. But if we smartened up sooner, we’d end up dumber (par. 53).

Day 7

Activity 16: Negotiating Meaning Purpose: To gain insight into students’ independent reading processes and provide additional guidance and clarification as needed


1. Have students talk about their strategies for reading a longer text such as Dobbs’s “Beautiful Brains” by asking questions such as the following:

• How long did it take?

• Did you skim some parts? Did you focus on certain parts more than others based on the preview?

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• Did you read through to the end?

• How well do you feel that you now understand the text?

2. Ask students to report on the key words and phrases that they thought were most important for the text they read. Post the terms on the board and discuss their meanings. Make sure the following or similar words and phrases are identified: brain imaging scans, maturation, adaptive adolescent, dysfunctional traits, sensation seeking, attraction to novelty, peer relations, plasticity.

3. Then ask students to reread the last 11 paragraphs of the article beginning with “Excitement, novelty, risk, the company of peers” to the end. Alternately, give students the shortened version in Activity 6D, based on your assessment of how quickly students can reread. Students in the designated class will have already read the shortened version closely.

For a more fully developed procedure to enable students to consider their metacognitive process as they read independently, refer to the grade 11 module, The Boy who Harnessed the Wind, Activity 6: Negotiating Meaning – Metacognitive Reflection.

Questioning the Text Activity 17: Thinking Critically Purpose: To enable students to share their understanding of key claims made by Dobbs and to apply what they have learned to the issue of juvenile justice which is not mentioned in the article


Ask students to form heterogeneous groups of five. Assign one person to be a reporter, and ask the reporters to share out the answers that their group agreed upon. Encourage students to refer to the readings as they are answering.

Activity 17: Thinking Critically

In your group, select one person to be a reporter. The reporter will share out the answers that you as a group agree upon. Refer to “Beautiful Brains” as you are answering.

• What changes take place in human brains? What behaviors do these changes cause?

The prefrontal cortex is remodeled. This causes teens to value excitement, novelty, risk, the company of peers.

• According to Dobbs, what purpose do the changes in the teenage brain serve? Why are they “adaptive” (useful for humans as a species)?

The changes prepare teens to leave home and go out into the world.

• Why should parents be hopeful about their teenager’s behavior? What can they do for their teens?

The teen brain has plasticity. It is changing and maturing. Teenagers will become adults! And parents can offer guidance although it may not all be heard.

• What does the brain research tell us about why juveniles may commit crimes? What does it mean for deciding how to punish them?

Teenagers like to take risks, but they balance the danger with the reward differently than adults, so they aren’t responsible in the same way as adults. And because their brains are changing, they


may be able to be rehabilitated after they commit a crime much more than adult criminals if they are given a chance.

• Does Dobbs’ description of what happens to the teenage brain and why it is both positive and negative make sense to you? What objections or questions do you have?

I agree that teenagers like risk taking and hanging out with friends more than adults do, so it makes sense that this difference is related to our brains. I understand that sometimes teenagers do things that are dangerous and that can even get them killed, so it’s good to hear that these same characteristics are also helping us get ready to leave home and become adults. I still wonder if teenagers in other cultures behave the way American teens do. My parents are always talking about how American teenagers are a bad influence because of their wild behavior, and they wish we were still at home where teenagers have to follow rules. I guess our brains make us want to be wild, but our parents won’t let us, and maybe that is good.

Activity 18: Synthesizing Multiple Perspectives – Charting Multiple Texts (“Beautiful Brains”)

Purpose: To release responsibility to students for charting the texts they are reading

Now have students make an entry for David Dobbs’s “Beautiful Brains” on their Charting Multiple Texts chart as homework. Tell them to fill it out as they did with the Holloway article and the video they watched. When they reach the entry for “How does this text connect to other texts?” ask them to briefly describe the ways in which the article has contributed to the debate about juvenile incarceration. For example, they may comment on how Dobbs’ argument about teenage brains supports Padowitz’s belief that Tate should not have been tried in the adult justice system. You may want to assign this as homework.

Formative Assessment: By checking students’ charts, you can determine if students have made the connection between the research on teenage brains and the arguments they have encountered in the Tate video and the Holloway article about teen accountability. If they have not, provide some guided discussion about how texts “talk” to each other and help them see that each of the texts they have read or viewed so far have contributed to the argument about the age at which young people should be held accountable in the same way as adults when they commit heinous crimes.

Reading Purposefully

Day 7 Designated

Activity 10D: Analyzing Rhetorical Grammar – Text Cohesion

Purpose: To draw students’ attention to the way in which writers connect important concepts in their text to create text cohesion


Writers create texts that are tied together by the use of language features such as repetition of important words, using pronouns to substitute for those words, and using synonyms for those words.

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1. Ask students in triads to analyze how Dobb’s creates cohesion in his text by repeating nouns and pronouns in “strings” to tie the text together. To do this, they will need to share their knowledge of the meanings of words and phrases in the passage.

2. Review the grammatical metalanguage: noun, noun phrase, pronoun, and synonym. Model the first two sentences and point out how “these traits” refers back to the characteristics listed in the first sentence (which happens to be a fragment). The next mention of traits adds the information that they “define adolescence.” In addition to nouns that are repeated (“traits”), students should also mark pronouns that refer to the nouns and synonyms that have a similar meaning. This will work best if students have four different colors of markers, but they can also use marks: a single line, a double line, a circle, a box and connect the “string” of words back to the focus word(s).

3. Students will probably identify some of the words in the strings of connected words and phrases but miss others. After a few minutes, project the text and co-construct the strings. Read each string aloud, and then guide the class in creating four statements that summarize the main idea of each string. (Note that the “teenagers” string connects to the “adolescence” string, but they are different because one refers to a developmental period while the other refers to the people at that stage of their life.) To make this task easier, the topic of each string has been underlined.

String 1: Excitement, novelty, risk, the company of peers are the traits that define adolescence.

String 2: Adolescence is a key transitional period.

String 3: Culture does not create adolescence.

String 4: Teenagers are the most fully, crucially adaptive human beings.

4. Ask students to turn to a partner to discuss the following questions:

• Why does Dobbs create these strings of connected words?

They are the most important ideas, so he introduces them and then adds more information about them.

• What causes him to shift from one string to the next?

He is building an argument. First he talks about adolescent traits; then he says that adolescence is a very important stage in development and that it is happens in all cultures. He concludes that adolescents are the best at adapting—better than children or adults.

5. Now ask students to reread the excerpt from the text silently, so they can experience how paying attention to the cohesive strings now helps them understand the argument of the text better.

Activity 10D: Analyzing Rhetorical Grammar – Text Cohesion

In your group, work together to identify words and ideas that are connected to each other. Highlight or mark the words or phrases that go together. Begin with the first underlined phrase and look for the words or phrases that are connected to it. These words may be nouns or noun phrases, pronouns that refer to these phrases, or synonyms that mean the same as the phrases.


When you get to the next underlined word or phrase, it tells you that the focus has changed. Use a different color or mark (or a single line, a double line, a circle, a box) and identify the words or phrases that connect to it.

Key Paragraphs from “Beautiful Brains” by David Dobbs

1. Excitement, novelty, risk, the company of peers. These traits may seem to add up to nothing more than doing foolish new stuff with friends. Look deeper, however, and you see that these traits that define adolescence make us more adaptive, both as individuals and as a species. That’s doubtless why these traits, broadly defined, seem to show themselves in virtually all human cultures, modern or tribal. They may concentrate and express themselves more starkly in modern Western cultures, in which teens spend so much time with each other. But anthropologists have found that virtually all the world’s cultures recognize adolescence as a distinct period in which adolescents prefer novelty, excitement, and peers. This near-universal recognition sinks the notion that it’s a cultural construct.

2. Culture clearly shapes adolescence. It influences its expression and possibly its length. It can magnify its manifestations. Yet culture does not create adolescence. The period’s uniqueness rises from genes and developmental processes that have been selected for over thousands of generations because they play an amplified role during this key transitional period: producing a creature optimally primed to leave a safe home and move into unfamiliar territory.

3. The move outward from home is the most difficult thing that humans do, as well as the most critical—not just for individuals but for a species that has shown an unmatched ability to master challenging new environments. In scientific terms, teenagers can be a pain in the ass. But they are quite possibly the most fully, crucially adaptive human beings around. Without them, humanity might not have so readily spread across the globe.

Text 3 – Jenkins, “On Punishment and Teen Killers”

Reading Purposefully Day 8

Activity 19: Reading for Understanding Purpose: To ask students to preview and read the article with the grain in order to understand Jenkins’s argument


1. Ask students to preview “On Punishment and Teen Killer” using the previewing strategies they practiced when they read Holloway and Dobbs.

2. Read the title and introductory quotation aloud. Ask students to turn to a partner and discuss the title and the reason Jennifer Jenkins begins with that quotation. If needed, clarify the words deter and avails. Then discuss the answers with the class.

The title tells us that the article will be about how teenagers who commit murder should be punished.

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The quotation says that some criminals are evil and can’t be reformed. They have to be kept separate from innocent people. This is the opinion of a Harvard University professor who studies crime, so we are supposed to think it is credible.

3. Ask students to read the article independently and then discuss the following questions with their partner:

• Who is Jenkins and why does she have a strong position on juvenile justice?

Jenkin is a high school English teacher. Her sister, who was pregnant, was murdered.

• What is the change in the law that she is objecting to? What is JLWOP? Look it up on the Internet.

People want to change the law that requires that teenage murderers be sentenced to life imprisonment. She says they aren’t taking into account the feelings of families of their victims. JLWOP is Juvenile Life without Parole. It advocates for sentencing some juveniles to prison for life without a chance of parole (being released because they have been rehabilitated.)

Activity 20: Annotating and Questioning the Text Suggested Time: 20 minutes

Purpose: To annotate the text for the purpose of locating Jenkins’ claims

Have students annotate the article by underlining the arguments Jenkins makes. When they are finished, ask them to read aloud what they underlined. Students should identify the claims below. Encourage them to ask questions; redirect their questions to other students to clarify any remaining confusion.

• The feelings of victims and their families need to be taken into account by sentencing juveniles who commit serious crimes to life in prison.

• Juveniles are not sentenced to death, and life in prison still “allows a lot of good living to be done.” (Note: After Jenkins wrote her open letter, the law was changed and the Supreme Court ruled that juveniles cannot automatically be sentenced to life in prison for certain crimes like murder. However, they can still be transferred to the adult system and serve long terms in adult prisons.)

• Juveniles who are sentenced to life in prison are often multiple offenders.

• Eleven other nations sentence teens to life for murder.

• Many nations don’t have a separate system for juveniles, and they torture offenders of all ages without regard for human rights.

Homework: Do the following quickwrite:

What is your reaction to Jenkins’ arguments? Draw on your personal experience as well as what you have learned so far during this module. What have you observed about teenagers and how they behave? Do you know of any cases of juveniles who have been involved in either the adult or juvenile justice systems?


Day 8 Designated

Activity 11D: Negotiating Meaning – Sentence Unpacking Purpose: To enable the students to read the article more deeply by deconstructing several key sentences


Unpack the following sentence with the entire class participating. Project one part of the sentence at a time and ask questions such as the suggested ones below.

I have worked lovingly with teens all my life / and I understand how hard it is to accept the reality / that a 16 or 17 year old is capable of forming such requisite intent.

1. I have worked lovingly with teens all my life

Who is speaking? What has she done? For how long?

Jenkins is speaking. She says she has worked lovingly with teens. She has done it all her life because she has been a teacher.

2. and I understand how hard it is to accept the reality

What does Jenkins understand? Use your own words

She understands how hard it is to believe facts about teens.

3. that a 16 or 17 year old is capable of forming such requisite criminal intent.

What does “capable” mean? What is “requisite criminal intent?” What is the reality about teen that is hard to accept?

“Capable” means to be able to do something. “Intent” must be related to intend” which means to plan something, like I intend to go somewhere with friends tonight. The intent is criminal, so teenagers are able to plan a crime. “Requisite” is related to the word “required.” I think “requisite criminal intent” is like “mens rea” that we learned about in the video about Lionel Tate. It means the planning that is required to be charged with a crime. If you can’t form the intent, then if you kill someone like Tate did, it isn’t the same as when an adult plans and commits a murder.

4. Read the entire sentence out loud to the class. Then have students individually write a version of the sentence in their own words. Project some of the sentences and talk about how well they capture Jenkins’ meaning.

I have been a teacher all my life, and I know that it difficult to believe the fact that a teenager is able to plan to commit a crime.

5. Read the sentence below aloud and ask students to unpack it in triads using the same process you used with the whole class.

Juvenile Justice 44

Activity 11D: Negotiating Meaning – Sentence Unpacking

Unpack the sentence below in your group. Take turns talking about the meaning of each chunk. Share your understanding, but if no one knows the meaning of a word or phrase, look it up using Dictionary.com or Wikipedia. If you still can’t figure it out, ask your teacher. Then reread the whole sentence and collaboratively write a paraphrase.

And while we respect their right to advocate for reform, / some of which is needed, / we have begged them to embrace the victims of these crimes as well, / and take a truly inclusive and restorative justice approach / to their advocacy.

1. And while we respect their right to advocate for reform,

2. some of which is needed,

3. we have begged them

4. to embrace the victims of these crimes as well,

5. and take a truly inclusive ... approach

6. and restorative justice* approach

7. to their advocacy.

*Restorative Justice gives criminals a chance to meet their victims and try to make up for the harm they caused. (See a full explanation in the Wikipedia article on Restorative Justice.)

Once you and your partners have unpacked the sentence, rewrite the sentence in your own words.

And at the same time we believe they (the people who want to reform juvenile sentencing) should be able to call for changing the laws—and some of the laws should be changed—we have also asked them from our hearts to care about the people who were affected by these crimes and to include them in figuring out how to change the laws.

Activity 12D: Analyzing Stylistic Choices Purpose: To support students in understanding how a writer’s choice of words with powerful positive and negative connotations can affect a reader’s response to the argument


1. Ask students to fill out the chart below with partners. Add these words and phrases to the word wall.

2. Read Jenkins’s article aloud, asking students to pay special attention to these words and how they influence their reaction to what Jenkins is asking. Then ask them to do the activity below in groups. Alternatively, post the words around the room and give students colored dots to mark the positive words (red) and negative words (green). Then have them discuss the rhetorical purpose questions in pairs or triads.


Activity 12D: Analyzing Stylistic Choices

The choices writers make when they choose words create certain effects for their readers. In your group, write a brief definition or synonym next to these words from Jenkins’s “On Punishment and Teen Killers.” If your group isn’t certain of the meaning of a word, look it up using an online dictionary. Put a plus (+) next to the words and phrases that have a positive connotation (emotional effect) and a minus (–) next to the words and phrases that have a negative connotation. Then collaborate to write an answer to the question. The first one is done for you.

culpability deserving blame; guilt -

lovingly treating someone with love +

violence-loving culture a society that loves actions that cause physical harm -

alarming frightening or disturbing -

intelligent very smart +

bragging boasting; telling people how good you are -

traumatic horrible and shocking -

justice fairness in how someone is treated +

enlightened especially wise +

victim someone who has suffered -

repeat violent offenders people who commit violent crimes again and again -

propaganda information that is false but designed to convince people

-

nobility being good or generous +

misleading information that is not true - Rhetorical purpose: With your group, discuss why Jenkins uses so many words with strong emotional impact. How does her use of them effect you as a reader? Is she completely fair and objective, or is she trying to appeal to your emotions? Why?

She uses emotionally charged words to try to persuade her readers to agree with her that teens who commit horrible crimes should always be charged as adults. She is appealing to our emotions (pathos). If she were appealing to our reason (logos), she would use more neutral words. These words have strong positive and negative connotations. Jenkins is trying to make us feel sad about what happened to her sister and her unborn baby, so we will agree that the law about life in prison for juveniles does not get changed.

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Day 9

Activity 21: Examining the Structure of the Text Purpose: To analyze how a writer structures a text to make it persuasive


1. “On Punishment and Teen Killers” by Jennifer Bishop Jenkins is an open letter on the Web site, Juvenile Justice Information Exchange. Jenkins’ letter is available for anyone to read who is interested in the issue of charging and sentencing juveniles as adults. At this point, let students know that they will be writing an open letter that could be published on a Web site for their final writing assignment. You can project the actual assignment if you wish:

Considering all the arguments that you have read and discussed during this module, write a thoughtful and well-documented open letter to be published on a Web site for those interested in the issue of juvenile crime, particularly California policymakers. In your opinion piece, explain your viewpoint about sentencing juveniles who commit serious crimes.

2. Remind students that when mapping the organizational structure of a text, thinking and reasoning

about organizational structure is more important than agreeing on where the lines should be drawn.

3. Have students work in small groups to number the chunks of the text and write Say/Does statements. When they are finished, have them write the overall content and purpose statement.

Activity 21: Examining the Structure of the Text

Map the organization of “On Punishment and Teen Killers” by taking the following steps:

1. Draw a line across the page where the introduction ends. Is it after the first paragraph, or are there several introductory paragraphs? Is it in the middle of a paragraph? How do you know that the text has moved on from the introduction?

2. Draw a line across the page where the conclusion begins. Is it the last paragraph, or are there several concluding paragraphs? How do you know that the text has reached the conclusion?

3. Discuss in your group why you drew the lines where you did.

4. Now draw lines between the other parts of the text. Look for shifts where Jenkins moves from making one part of her argument to making another. Discuss in your group and come to an agreement about where the lines belong. Number each chunk of the text.

5. Write Says/Does statements on a separate sheet of paper using the numbers that correspond to the chunks. Be as precise as possible as you describe what the text actually is saying and doing.

6. At the end of the text, describe the overall content and purpose of the text.

When you are finished, compare your descriptive outline with a partner and revise what you have written if you wish.


Activity 22: Considering the Rhetorical Situation Purpose: To consider the rhetorical situation and the strategies Jenkins uses to persuade her readers


1. Ask students to form triads and discuss the following questions. Have them select one member to be the recorder, one to be the researcher, and one to report their findings. Encourage them to use the Internet to find out more information about JJIE and Restorative Justice.

2. When they have had time to formulate their responses, call on one triad at a time to report their answers.

Formative Assessment: In their discussion and quickwrites, students should notice that Jenkins has a specific audience and that her letter is more personal than most academic essays. She moves from her own experience as the sister of a victim of a juvenile murderer to her responses to the arguments against mandatory life in prison (which was later ended by the US Supreme Court in 2012). Based on what students say, emphasize the importance of providing evidence and citing the sources of that evidence. At the same time, students can observe how effective personal stories can be when trying to persuade readers. Students should also note that introducing a new argument in the conclusion without developing it leaves readers wanting to know more instead of sending them away with a clear understanding of what the writer wants them to believe and do. You may decide to wrap up the activity with a whole-class discussion to make sure students have reached these understandings, which will be helpful when they write their own open letters.

Activity 22: Considering the Rhetorical Situation

Discuss the following questions in your group. Choose one person to be the recorder, one to be the researcher, and one to report out your responses. Develop in-depth responses and refer to specific evidence in the text of the letter.

1. Who is the letter written to? Where was it published? Look up JJIE online to find out more about the site.

The letter is intended for the people who are working on reforming juvenile sentencing, so juveniles will not be sentenced to life in prison. The letter was published on the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange. When I looked up the JJIE on line, I learned that it is a site that publishes information from all over the country about juvenile justice issues on a daily basis. So Jenkins wanted people who were interested in reforming juvenile sentencing to read her letter.

2. What rhetorical strategies does she use to persuade us?

Jenkins uses her own powerful personal story and she establishes a strong ethos as a high school teacher who can talk about what she has learned working with teenagers. She also uses statistics, for example, the statistic that 1300 teen killers have been sentenced as adults to life in prison. She cites experts like Charles Stimson, an expert in criminal law at the Heritage Foundation. She uses the example of the Innuit to illustrate her claim that we have “a violence-loving culture.”

3. How effective is the evidence that she offers?

I don’t think she provides enough convincing evidence. For example, she says, “The actual science does not, according to experts such as Professor Stephen Morse, and others, in any way negate criminal culpability.” She doesn’t tell us who Professor Morse is or why we should believe

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him. And now that we have read “Beautiful Brains,” we know that current brain research shows that teenage brain actually is different from the adult brain. Then she says, “The offender in our case was a serial killer in the making,” but she doesn’t tell us how she knows this. He was smart and privileged according to her, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t have been rehabilitated. She says that a few other nations treat teenagers worse than the U.S., but she implies that most nations treat them better. I think we should be a model for other nations in how we treat juveniles, not among the minority who treat them badly. Also, when I looked up the Heritage Foundation online, I found that it is very conservative, and so even though she says he is an expert, Charles Simpson may not be objective about teens who commit crimes.

4. Jenkins concludes by saying “Restorative Justice offers us a way out.” Look up restorative justice online. How effective is this conclusion to her argument?

By looking at Wikipedia, I’ve found out that restorative justice brings together criminals and their victims to work out a satisfactory solution that both agree to. It says it gives criminals “before the opportunity to right their wrongs and redeem themselves.” That sounds like a really good way to hold teenager criminals accountable but not just give up on them. But that isn’t what Jenkins was arguing for in her article. She wants a law that says teens who commit murder and other serious crimes to be sentenced for life in prison without any chance of rehabilitating themselves. That’s not a good conclusion for her argument because it seems to contradict everything that has come before.

5. What do you notice about the style of the letter?

Her style is very emotional. You can tell that she is devastated by her sister’s death and very angry at the idea that the teenager who killed her sister might not spend life in prison. She uses lots of extreme language like “alarming rates,” “a serial killer in the making,” “no words adequate,” “not a dime,” “with absolutely no regard” to express her outrage. She also varies her sentences, using short sentences for impact: “They do not.” “Bragging to friends led to his arrest.” “Some never recover.” “Our pleas have fallen mostly on deaf ears.”

6. When you have finished discussing the questions in your group, respond to the following quickwrite.

Quickwrite: What have you learned from analyzing the structure and rhetorical strategies that Jenkins uses that will help you write your own open letter? How is an open letter different from an academic essay?

Homework: Make an entry for Jenkins’s “On Punishment and Teen Killers” on your Charting Multiple Texts chart. Fill it out as they you with the other articles you have read and the video you watched. When you reach the entry for “How does this text connect to other texts?” briefly describe the ways in which Jenkins contributes to the debate about juvenile incarceration.


Text 4 & Audio Text 1 – Ralston, “Furious” Day 9 Designated

Activity 13D: Reading for Understanding Purpose: To give students practice in listening to and analyzing a literary text and responding in that genre Suggested Time: 20 minutes 1 Tell students that you are going to play a poem being read by Cameron Delane Ralston., who

was a juvenile in incarceration when he wrote it. (Click “Listen” button at www.npr.org/2016/05/28/479722459/out-of-juvenile-corrections-poems-of-fury-loss-and-lingering-beauty) Ask them to listen carefully and try to picture what the poet is describing. When the poem is finished, ask students to talk to a partner about what they think Ralston is writing about.

2 Pass out the printed copy of the poem and let them listen to it again. Now ask them to respond to the poem by drawing the images that they see or writing about how the poem makes them feel. After 5 minutes, collect a few responses. Collect and project some of the drawings and read aloud some of the responses. Then return them to the makers.

3 Tell the class how the poem came to be written—that it was one of the winners in the Words Unlocked poetry contest in 2016 out of more than 1,000 poems written by young people in juvenile correctional facilities across the country. Ask students to turn to a partner and discuss the questions in the activity.

Activity 13D: Reading for Understanding

Draw pictures of what you think the poet is describing or write about how the poem makes you feel.

Talk with a partner about the following questions:

• What is Ralston describing?

It sounds like he might be describing being in “a secure facility.” He is describing being incarcerated in “a white box” with “a green door.” He says he feels like he is just a number which makes sense since prisoners get numbers.

• Who is “they” in the next to last line? What are they doing?

They are all the people who are in charge of him. They are “dissecting” him, studying him like he was a bug or a frog. He feels like no one sees him as a person.

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• Why is he so furious? What other feelings does he experience?

He’s furious because he is locked up, but he may also be furious at himself for whatever he did to get himself arrested and sent to juvenile detention. He says, “When I speak to my father, I leave ashamed. I try to do my best but anger, stress, sadness are hidden in my chest, heart, soul.”

Activity 14D: Considering the Rhetorical Situation

Purpose: To analyze the persona created by the poet Ralston


An important element of the rhetorical situation is the speaker (or writer) and the ethos or persona that that person presents to his or her audience. Students have interacted with several texts about how juveniles are punished when they commit crimes or about how the brains of juveniles are different from the brains of adults. Now students are ready to think about how the persona of the writer makes a difference in how they respond to the texts. Ask students to construct the persona of C.R. by discussing the following questions about his ethos.

Activity 14D: Considering the Rhetorical Situation

When we write, we create our ethos, the image that we want our readers to have of us. When we speak, our voice becomes a part of our ethos. Understanding the ethos of a poet is particularly important in unlocking the meaning of a poem. In a small group, discuss the following questions about the ethos of Ralston.

• What do we know and what can we infer about Ralston? What evidence can we find in his poem that tells us about him?

He is in juvenile detention. He sounds like he might be African American. In the poem, we learn he is filled with different emotions—anger, stress, sadness—and he’s also ashamed to be incarcerated. He is violent—he punches the walls—maybe because he doesn’t understand why he acts and feels like he does and why he is being treated as he is. His behavior reminds me of what we learned about teenage brains. He is impulsive and filled with emotions that he doesn’t understand. But he also sounds like he could mature into a good person if he had the right chances.

• What is his relationship to us, his audience? How does he want us to react to his poem and to his situation?

He is talking directly to us, telling us what it feels like to be locked up.

• Why does he use the words “I” and “they”?

He uses “I” so we know he is talking about his personal experience. “They” are all the people that work in the facility. By just calling them “they,” it seems like he doesn’t have a real relationship with any of them, and he doesn’t think they see him as a real person.

• What does it say about Ralston that he was a winner in the Words Unlocked poetry contest?


He is talented and has a lot of potential.

• What has Ralston contributed to the ongoing debate about how juveniles who commit crimes should be treated? What might he say about charging and sentencing juveniles as adults?

I think he’s arguing indirectly through his poem that just because someone is incarcerated, it doesn’t mean they aren’t a human being who needs to be understood and helped. I think he would say that juveniles can learn from what they did and be rehabilitated. He wasn’t sentenced to adult prison, and he is still suffering. Think how much more he would suffer in adult prison, and he would have fewer chances for rehabilitation.

Questioning the Text Activity 15D: Summarizing and Responding – Replying with a Poem Purpose: To respond to Ralston’s poem through poetry and to personalize the people students have been reading about by addressing them directly


This activity is designed to enable students to be creative in how they respond to Ralston’s poem. You can determine how much weight you want to place on the assignment. If you are having students create a portfolio for the module or for the course, you may want to treat it as an actual writing assignment. In that case, you may want to ask students to provide feedback to one another and give them a chance to revise and edit before they add it to their portfolio notebook.

Activity 15D: Summarizing and Responding – Replying with a Poem Write a brief poem of your own addressing one of the people you have met during this module. Examples include but are not limited to the following:

• Lionel Tate

• The child that Tate killed

• David Dobbs’ son

• The sister of Jennifer Bishop Jenkins

• Cameron Delane Ralston

Give the poem a title and address the person directly, beginning the poem with the word “You...” Be as creative as you want to be. Your poem will be posted in class and read by your classmates, so you will want it to represent your best work.

Homework: Finish writing the poem addressing one of the people you have met during the module. Recopy it so it can be posted. Add “Furious” to your Charting Multiple Texts chart if you wish.

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Text 5 – Human Impact Partners, Juvenile InJustice: Charging Youth as Adults Is Ineffective, Biased, and Harmful – Executive Summary


Activity 23: Making Predictions and Asking Questions Purpose: To preview the text in preparation for reading it


1. Since students have already extensively dealt with the key concepts around juvenile incarceration, they are well-prepared to independently make predictions based on the title and the picture that accompanies the text they are going to read and to consider the ethos of its authors. After students have read the information below about how the report was created, ask them to discuss the questions with a partner. Debrief by asking volunteers to briefly share their responses.

2. Discuss the term “judicial waiver” in the box after paragraph 8 about types of juvenile transfer. Explain that in California, a juvenile court judge has the authority to transfer a defendant or suspect (someone accused of a crime) to the adult court system if the defendant is 14 years of age or older. Before doing this, the judge needs to consider the following:

• Seriousness of the offense

• Impact on the victim or the victim’s family

• The suspect’s criminal history

• The suspect’s past attempts at rehabilitation

If you are teaching this module outside California, you will want to determine how juveniles are sentenced in your state. Use the search term “juvenile sentencing” and the name of your state to access the most recent information.

Activity 23: Making Predictions/Asking Questions

Quickwrite: Look at the picture and title. What argument are the writers making? What is your opinion about their argument?

An Executive Summary briefly presents the main points of a long document, so readers know what it will be about before they read the entire document. You are about to read the Executive Summary of a policy report entitled Juvenile InJustice: Charging Youth as Adults is Ineffective, Biased, and Harmful, but before you do, read the following description about how the document was written, taken from pages 1-2 of the report.

Excerpt from the full report:

This report aims to centralize the experiences of incarcerated youth of color, formerly incarcerated individuals, and their family members. Much has been written about juvenile system reform in general and juvenile transfer laws in particular. All too often, the voices of


system-involved youth and their families—the people most impacted by these policies—are absent from these accounts and analyses. By contrast, the content of this report is grounded in the personal narratives of focus group participants, the expertise of community organizations that work with system involved families on a daily basis, and public health research.

We employed the following methods:

• Eight focus groups held in three California cities (Oakland, Stockton, and Los Angeles) with 43 individuals directly affected by the juvenile court system and/or direct file. Focus group participants ranged from 14 to 66 years old. See Appendix A for a more detailed summary of demographic data.

- 11 individuals who were tried in adult court when they were juveniles

- 21 family members of youth tried as adults

- 4 individuals who were tried in both juvenile and adult courts

- 5 youth currently on probation

- 2 community organizers who work closely with direct filed youth and families

• Interviews (6) with professionals who have detailed knowledge of California’s juvenile court system, including: two public defenders, a former probation officer, a former chief probation officer, an adolescent mental health specialist, and a probation camp literacy educator.

• An extensive review of peer reviewed and non-peer reviewed literature. For a review of research concerning juvenile transfer laws, see UCLA School of Law 2010.

Now read the headings and subheadings in the Executive Summary. Then discuss the following questions with your partner:

• What do you predict about the report now that you have read who contributed to its content?

I predict that it is going to be about how unfair it is to sentence juveniles to adult prisons, especially since this happens mostly to juveniles of color.

• What does the quotation from Malachi suggest about what the text will be about?

Malachi is asking whether we want to send juveniles to adult prisons which can turn them into hardened criminals or try to educate them and help them grow up to be good people.

• What are some of the points that it will make about the juvenile justice system?

It will say that it is biased against juveniles of color, that it doesn’t work, and that it ignores the way poverty contributed to juveniles committing crimes. It will also talk about how bad incarceration is for the health of the juveniles and their families.

• What does the section marked References tell you about the text you are going to read?

It is going to be based on academic research and not just the writers’ opinions.

• How is this report going to be different from the other texts you have read?

It is written by the people who are actually involved with incarcerated juveniles, including those who were incarcerated as juveniles. They will know what it is really like.

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Reading Purposefully Annotating and Questioning the Text

Homework: Read and annotate the entire Executive Summary.

Focus for Annotation: What new arguments does this text contribute to the conversation about how the criminal justice system can best deal with juveniles who commit serious crimes? What kind of evidence supports the arguments? Annotate the arguments the text makes and the evidence for them.

Questioning the Text Day 10 Designated

Activity 15D: Summarizing and Responding – Replying with a Poem (continued) Purpose: To share the poems that students have written addressing people impacted in different ways by juvenile crime


Form triads. Have students read their poems aloud to the members of their group. When everyone has had a chance to read their poem, then ask them to respond to the quickwrite below.

Quickwrite: What did you learn about juveniles who commit crimes and the people affected by those crimes by writing your own poem and listening to the poems of other students?

Reading Purposefully Activity 16D: Negotiating Meaning – Sentence Unpacking Purpose: To introduce necessary vocabulary and key concepts that will enable students to read the Executive Summary independently; to practice sentence unpacking and look at how comparisons are constructed


1. Ask students to form groups of three and unpack the following sentence in the activity using the process they have used in earlier to unpack sentences. Remind them to use an online dictionary to look up words that are not familiar.

2. When students are finished unpacking the sentence and responding to the questions that ask them to use comparatives, ask them to share some of their responses. Have them write them on the board or project them. Ask them to reflect on how the use of comparatives enables the authors to compare what happens to different groups (adults vs. teens, black teens vs. white teens, teens tried in adult court vs. teens tried in juvenile court) and make claims that are accurate about those groups. They will want to comparatives in the same way in their open letters.

Formative Assessment: Remind students to apply the sentence unpacking skills they have developed to challenging sentences that they find as they read the entire Executive Summary, Your observations of the groups during the sentence unpacking activity will give you a sense of how well


students can process the dense, information-packed sentences that have use vocabulary specific to the topic of juvenile incarceration. You may need to provide additional instruction, but only after students have worked to apply the strategies they have learned, including sentence unpacking, for dealing with difficult text as they read the Executive Summary.

Activity 16D: Negotiating Meaning – Sentence Unpacking

In your group, unpack the following sentence using the process you have used in earlier to unpack sentences. Use an online dictionary to look up words that are not familiar.

Original sentence: Several large-scale studies have found higher recidivism rates among juveniles tried and sentenced in adult court than among youth charged with similar offenses in juvenile court.

• Several large-scale studies (What are studies? Who is probably being studied? What is a study that is large-scale?)

“Studies” are when scientists gather information. They are probably gathering information about juveniles in the justice system. Large-scale” means they are gathering information about a lot of juveniles, so the results are more reliable.

• have found higher recidivism rates among juveniles (What does recidivism rate mean? If you don’t know, look it up in an online dictionary like Dictonary.com. What does the word “higher” indicate is going to follow? What did the studies show?)

Dictionary.com says “recidivism” means “relapse, as into crime.” “Relapse” means to fall back, so recidivism means to commit another crime. “Higher” with an –er ending shows that a comparison is being made. Rate means how often it happens. The studies showed that juveniles more often committed another crime.

• tried and sentenced in adult court

The juveniles that had the higher rates of committing another crime were in the adult justice system.

• than among youth charged with similar offenses in juvenile court. (What does the word “than” tell you is going to follow? Who is being compared? What are “similar offenses?”

“Than” is introducing the other half of the comparison. What follows will tell us “higher than what.” Juveniles in the adult system are being compared to juveniles in the juvenile system. “Similar offenses” are “similar crimes,” like two teens who each commit murder.

Now ask someone in your group to read the whole sentence. Do you all understand what it means or do you still have questions?

Recall the video about Lionel Tate and in your group respond to the questions below. Ask someone to record your answers.

• If two teens are both accused of murder, what is less likely to happen to the one who was in the juvenile system after he or she is released?

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• What is more likely to happen to the one who was transferred to the adult system after he or she is released?

The teen who was in the juvenile system is less likely to commit another crime. The teen who was in the adult system is more likely to commit another crime.

• How does Lionel Tate fit the pattern that the writers of Juvenile InJustice are describing? What was more likely to happen to him? Use the words more likely…than.

• What was more likely to happen to him because he was Black?

He was more likely to be in the justice system than a white juvenile.

• What was more likely to happen to him in the justice system?

He was more likely to be transferred to the adult system than a white juvenile.

• What was more likely to happen to him after he was charged with murder and tried as an adult?

He was more likely to be found guilty of murder than a white juvenile who committed the same crime.

• What was more likely to happen to him after he was released from adult prison?

He was more likely to commit another crime after he was released than a white juvenile who committed the same crime.

Rhetorical Purpose: Why do the writers of Juvenile InJustice use so many comparatives when talking about what happens to youth of color in the juvenile justice system?

They want us to compare what happens to juveniles who are sentenced to adult prison compared to those sentenced to juvenile facilities and what happens to juveniles of color compared to white juveniles, so we can see how unjust the policy is.

Reading Purposefully Day 11

Activity 24: Reading for Understanding Purpose: To give students an opportunity to review the text they read independently and articulate the argument it presents


Debrief what students discovered by reading the text. Begin by giving them a few minutes to review their annotations. Then ask partners to discuss the following questions. When students are done, compile a list of arguments the text makes and ask students to talk about how the perspective of Juvenile InJustice on juvenile sentencing is different from the other texts they have read. You will want to ensure that they understand that the various people who contributed to it have very different perspectives and experiences compared to Padowitz, Holloway, and Jenkins and that the focus on the inequity of the juvenile justice


system for young people of color has been missing from the earlier texts. On the other hand, if they read “Furious,” they can note that Ralston is probably not unlike some of the contributors to the report and that Lionel Tate could have contributed to it as well.

Activity 24: Reading for Understanding

With a partner, discuss the following questions.

• What arguments does the Executive Summary of Juvenile InJustice contribute to the conversation about how the criminal justice system can best deal with juveniles who commit serious crimes?

The most important is that it argues that the juvenile justice system is unfair for juveniles of color. They are more likely to be tried and sentenced as adults and to be given harsh sentences. It also discusses the effect of poverty on young people and the way it makes them more likely to commit crimes. It talks about how poor families are powerless to help their incarcerated children and the money it takes to try to help makes them even poorer.

• What kind of evidence supports the arguments?

It provides evidence from research which is listed in the Reference section. It does not use personal experience or appeal to the reader’s emotions.

Activity 25: Considering the Rhetorical Situation Purpose: To evaluate the rhetorical choices made by the writers of Juvenile InJustice


1. Students have analyzed the intended audience for Juvenile InJustice. Now they can consider how the writers of the text have made rhetorical choices to persuade that audience. Ask students to form triads (probably different from the previous day’s groups) and collaborate in responding to the following questions with one student serving as recorder.

2. Once most of the groups have finished, ask each group to report their response for one question, asking other groups to chime in if they have something to add.

3. Conclude by asking the whole class to discuss why the writers chose the title of their report. Why did they write InJustice with two capital letters? Why did they use a colon and then add to the title? How does the poster in the picture relate to the title?

All the articles we have read talk about the juvenile justice system, so to see it called the juvenile injustice system is shocking and makes you want to know more. Spelling InJustice with two capital letters is also surprising and attracts the reader’s attention. After the colon is the main claim of the report. The writers want you to know immediately what their point of view is and that they are taking a very strong stand. The poster tells you that the writers want the juvenile justice (injustice) system to be reformed (change) so that youth are not sent to adult prisons (chains).

Activity 25 Considering the Rhetorical Situation

Select a recorder and collaborate to answer the following questions about the rhetorical choices that the author of Juvenile InJustice have made. Be prepared to report on the group’s answers.

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1. Why did the writers include an Executive Summary? What will the effect be on the intended audience?

The writers want as many people as possible to read their report and be convinced by their arguments. The Executive Summary makes it easy for people to understand the main arguments and proposed solutions. Once people have read it, they may be more likely to read the whole report.

2. What design features (the way the text is set up on the page) appeal to the intended audience?

The pages are designed to appeal to the readers and make it easy to see the arguments and solutions at a glance. The arguments are laid out in the headings and subheadings. The solutions are in a box. There are wide margins and space between paragraphs, so the text doesn’t look like it will be hard to read. The numbers for the sources are tiny, so they aren’t distracting, but they are also hard to read if you want to locate a source in the references.

3. What kind of evidence did the writers provide? How did they let readers know that their evidence was based on research, not opinion? Give some examples. What effect will this have on the intended audience?

The evidence is often based on research. For example, after the claim that “rampant racial inequities are evident in the way youth of color are disciplined in school,” there is a little number that links to the source in the reference list. That way readers know this is not just an opinion. In the same paragraph, they say, “Research shows that youth of color receive harsher sentences...” Indicating that their opinions are backed up by research will make their arguments more persuasive for an audience of professionals.

4. Why did the writers tell their readers that “This report aims to centralize the experiences of incarcerated youth of color, formerly incarcerated individuals, and their family members?” in the About This Report section at the beginning? Why did they include the quotation from Malachi right below the title? What is the effect?

They want readers to know that their report is different from others because they have talked to the people who have the most direct experience with the juvenile justice system, the formerly incarcerated people and their family. Hearing their perspectives (starting with Malachi in the heading under the title) will be interesting for the professionals because they have probably read lots about what people who study the system say but never what people who have experienced it say.

5. Have the writers appealed to their readers’ emotions? Why or why not? If they have, give some examples.

The writers have appealed to their readers’ emotion of outrage at something that is obviously unfair. The picture on the cover appeals to our emotions by showing people of color protesting against what they think is unfair, and we can see their anger. The writers then tell us about the unfairness by making comparisons between the way white juveniles and juveniles of color treated. They also appeal to our emotions by talking about the environment that juveniles live in and how it is unfair. For example, they live in poverty, parents are often absent, and they experience violence and trauma in ways that juveniles in richer communities don’t.


Questioning the Text Activity 26: Synthesizing Multiple Perspectives – Charting Multiple Texts (Executive Summary) Purpose: To give students an opportunity to make the final entry to their Charting Multiple Texts charts in preparation for using the chart to write the open letter


Now have students make an entry for Executive Summary, Juvenile InJustice: Charging Youth as Adults is Ineffective, Biased, and Harmful on their Charting Multiple Texts chart. Then ask students to compare their completed charts with a partner, and discuss how they are the same or different. Tell them they can make additions or changes to their chart if they wish.

To enhance students’ ability to synthesize the multiple perspectives of the texts they have read during this module, consider holding a student-led discussion. See Protocols for High Impact Strategies – How to Bring an ELD Approach to Any Text for discussion options.

Reading Purposefully Day 11 Designated Activity 17D: Considering the Rhetorical Situation – Evaluating Ethos Purpose: To evaluate author statements, in other words the ethos that writers construct, and invite students to consider how they want to position themselves as writers on the topic of juvenile justice


1. Form groups of three to five students. Assign half of the groups to read to work with Holloway’s statement and half to work with Dobbs’s. Ask one member of each group to read the author statement aloud and another to record the group discussion about what the author statement reveals about the ethos or persona of the writer.

2. Ask each reporter to share their group’s response to one or more questions. Then talk about the purpose of an author statement. Point out that in addition to any material we can learn about the writer from an author statement, we make inferences from the text itself. Note that Dobbs actually incorporated personal information into his article and discuss why a personal story can be a powerful part of making an argument. Then brainstorm with the class what kinds of expertise each writer offers in the debate about juvenile incarceration.

3. You can determine how much weight you want to place on the assignment asking students to write their own author statements. If you are having students create a portfolio notebook for the module or for the course, you may want to treat it as an actual writing assignment. In that case, you may want to ask students to write at least half a page and give them feedback and a chance to revise and edit before they add it to their portfolio notebook.

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Activity 17D: Considering the Rhetorical Situation – Evaluating Ethos

Read the author statement you are assigned below. Then talk about the following questions with your group. The recorder should take notes and be prepared to report your group’s answers to the class.

Author Statement #1 – Phillip Holloway

The IMDb Web site has provided the following information about Phillip Holloway:

Philip Holloway is the founder of the Holloway Law Group, based in Cobb County, Georgia. A former prosecutor and police officer, he has a wide range of experience in legal matters, both as a practicing attorney and as a media analyst.

Philip Holloway is a contributor and legal analyst to CNN and WXIA / 11Alive News in Atlanta, Georgia. Philip has also appeared as a media legal analyst on most major television networks and local and nationally syndicated radio as well including News 95.5 & AM 750 WSB and NewsRadio 106.7 in Atlanta.

Holloway's primary focus is criminal law, and he appears regularly in various courts in the state of Georgia. His cases include criminal defense, juvenile law, police law (including police brutality), military law and select civil litigation. He is a legal adviser to a Georgia sheriff's office and maintains his certification with the Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council.

A native Georgian, former police instructor and certified flight instructor, Holloway began his legal career after graduating summa cum laude in 1996 from South Texas College of Law, where he was on law review and the varsity mock trial team. He went on to serve as an officer and judge advocate in the U.S. Navy.

While on active duty, Holloway, then a lieutenant, graduated from the Naval Justice School's trial advocacy course and earned certification as trial and defense counsel. Holloway has also served as an assistant district attorney, president of the Cobb County Bar Association's criminal law section and has sat as a substitute judge. He has been an adjunct professor of criminal justice at Kennesaw State University.

He is admitted to practice law in Georgia, Ohio and the federal courts and is a member of the Bar of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Holloway, Phillip. “Phillip Holloway Mini-Biography.” IMDb.com, 2019, www.imdb.com/name/nm6363771/bio. Accessed 30 June 2019.

Author Statement #2 – David Dobbs

The following information comes from the personal Web site of David Dobbs.

David Dobbs is the author of My Mother’s Lover, an Atavist story that became a Top 20 Kindle and a #1 best-selling Kindle Single, and of books describing vicious fights over trees, fish, and Darwin’s reefs. Oliver Sacks [called] Reef Madness, his tale of Darwin’s reefs, “brilliantly written, almost unbearably poignant.”

His features and essays for National Geographic, The New York Times, The NYT Book Review, Slate, Pacific Standard, and other publications regularly win awards and spots in annual “Best of” anthologies. “The Social Life of Genes,” for instance, his Sept 2013 Pacific Standard cover story,

http://daviddobbs.squarespace.com/articles/

http://www.amazon.com/Northern-Forest-David-Dobbs/dp/0930031814/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1457369671&sr=8-1&keywords=the+northern+forest

http://www.amazon.com/Great-Gulf-Fishermen-Scientists-Struggle/dp/1559636637/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

http://www.amazon.com/Reef-Madness-Charles-Alexander-Agassiz/dp/0375421610

http://www.amazon.com/Reef-Madness-Charles-Alexander-Agassiz/dp/0375421610

http://pinterest.com/david_dobbs/my-work/

http://www.psmag.com/health/the-social-life-of-genes-64616/


was chosen by editor Deborah Blum for the The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2014; it also won the 2014 AAAS/Kavli Prize for Magazine Writing. He is currently working on projects about blindness, madness, transplants, autopsies, and how we get lost and found.

He lives in Vermont, with frequent trips to New York, London, DC, and other points distant. You can find some selected work here. You may also take pleasure or waste time perusing his Twitter, Tumblr, or Instagram.

Dobbs, David. “Official Site: About.” Neuron Culture, 2019, daviddobbs.net/smoothpebbles/about-david-dobbs. Accessed 27 Feb. 2019.

• What do we know and what can we infer or guess about the writer from the author statement?

Holloway is a lawyer and was a police officer. He prosecuted criminal cases, but he also does criminal defense, and he advises police groups, so he probably has an understanding of different perspectives on the question of juvenile sentencing. We know from the article that he is a parent, so he probably knows about how kids behave and how they change as they grow up, but we don’t learn that from his author statement.

• How does he want us to react to the author based on the statement?

Holloway wants us to believe that Holloway is a professional with a lot of experience, so his views on the subject of sentencing juveniles are very credible.

• Does the writer use “I”? Why?

The writer uses the third person (“he”). I think this makes what he says seem more objectives.

• What does the writer want to accomplish with the writer’s statement?

To let us know that Holloway is an authority on the topic of juvenile sentencing and that what he says is credible.

Quickwrite: From participating in the Juvenile Justice module and analyzing what you know about the traits of teenagers from your own reading and personal experience, you are to some degree an “expert” on teenage behavior. You are ready to create your own ethos, so you can write with authority about the topic and have your views taken seriously by their readers.

Write your own author statement as if you were going to post it on your personal Web site for your audience to read. Make clear to your readers who you are and what your expertise is on the subject of incarcerating juveniles.

http://daviddobbs.net/smoothpebbles/major-features-essays-from-the-times-natgeo-atlantic-others/

https://twitter.com/David_Dobbs

http://www.tumblr.com/blog/daviddobbs

http://instagram.com/daviddobbs

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Questioning the Text Day 12

Activity 27: Reflecting on Your Reading Process Purpose: To ask students to think metacognitively about how readers adjust their reading processes as they read different genres of texts


Ask students to consider and then write a reflection in response to the questions below. Observe how well they are able to describe the differences in reading different text types (genres) and reading for different purposes. They may also choose to talk about the difference between reading collaboratively and reading independently, including to what extent they could apply what they learned in one process to the other. Alternately, they may talk about how they negotiated meaning when they encountered difficulties in reading one or more of the texts. They may confess that they did not read one or more of the texts, or they did not read them well.

Formative Assessment: Use what you learn from reading students’ reflections to tailor your future instruction or provide feedback in reading conferences with small groups of students.

Activity 27: Reflecting on Your Reading Process

You have read the following texts during this module:

• “Should 11-Year Olds Be Charged with Adult Crimes?” by Phillip Holloway

• “Beautiful Brains” by David Dobbs

• “Furious” by Cameron Ralston

• “On Punishment and Teen Killers” by Jennifer Bishop Jenkins

• Juvenile InJustice: Charging Youth as Adults is Ineffective, Biased, and Harmful – Executive Summary

Reflection: Think about the process you used to read short argumentative opinion pieces like Holloway and Jenkins compared to a longer, informational text like Dobbs, the difference between reading argumentative texts compared to the executive summary of a research report, and the difference between reading these texts and a poem. Then respond to some or all of the questions below.

• How was your reading process different and how it was the same? What have you learned from the experience of reading the different selections that will help you in the future?

• What have you learned from reading texts collaboratively?

• What have you learned from pausing in your reading to unpack long, dense sentences?


Preparing to Respond Discovering What You Think Activity 28: Considering Your Task and Your Rhetorical Situation Purpose: To invite students to read and carefully analyze what the writing task for this module is asking them to do and to support them in developing an authentic purpose for writing


Read the writing task aloud and lead a discussion about what students are being asked to do. Provide a handout of the assignment, due dates for drafts, and the success criteria (see Activity 31), rubric, (or other way in which you will evaluate the open letters). Once students have written their notes, have them share some of their ideas in small groups. Then respond to their questions or comments.

Activity 28: Considering Your Task and Your Rhetorical Situation

Read the writing assignment for this module and make notes in response to the questions that follow.

In California since 2016, a judge can charge juveniles as adults for certain violent crimes. The judge must consider multiple criteria, including the seriousness of the crime and its impact on the victim or the victim’s family, the suspect’s criminal history, and the suspect’s past attempts at rehabilitation. This is a compromise between charging all juveniles who commit these violent crimes as adults and never charging juveniles as adults regardless of the type of crime they commit.

Considering all the arguments that you have read and discussed during this module, write a thoughtful and well-documented open letter to be published on a Web site for those interested in the issue of juvenile crime, particularly state policymakers. In your open letter, explain your viewpoint about sentencing juveniles who commit serious crimes and provide evidence that supports your position. Respond to the arguments of those who have different perspectives. Be sure to respond to all the different major arguments that you have read. Make clear whose ideas or words you are using by including author names and titles, but an open letter does not require in-text citations (page numbers) or a reference list.

To prepare to write, take notes on your responses to the following questions.

• Now that you have read all the texts for this module, what is your position about whether juveniles should be charged as adults when they commit serious crimes?

• What will your purpose be in writing your own open letter?

• You are writing your open letter for publication on a Web site. Who do you imagine will be the readers of that Web site? How will you take into account their knowledge, values, and assumptions?

• How will you develop your own credibility (ethos) as someone knowledgeable on the subject of juvenile justice?

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Activity 29: Gathering Relevant Ideas and Materials Purpose: To encourage students to review what they have written up to this point in preparation for drafting their open letter


If students have been keeping a portfolio notebook during the module, ask them to review what is in the notebook. Otherwise, have students assemble the following:

• Charting Multiple Texts chart

• Annotated copies of the texts

• Quickwrites

Tell them to further annotate, perhaps in a different color of ink, what they have read and written, so they can easily locate important evidence and quotations in each of the texts as they write their open letter. Remind them that they need to address all the major arguments, not just the ones with which they agree. Students can begin this process in class, but they will probably need to finish it as homework.

To prepare students to provide evidence for their own arguments in their open letters, you may want to create three posters for the wall: Always Try Juveniles as Adults; Sometimes Try Juveniles as Adults; and Never Try Juveniles as Adults. Assign one source to each student and ask them to find evidence (quotations or paraphrases) to put on the appropriate posters. Remind them to consider the counterarguments in the text as well as the writer’s arguments and let them know they may want to put evidence from a single text on more than one chart.

Homework: Finish reviewing and annotating the Charting Multiple Texts chart, the annotated copies of the texts, and the quickwrites.

Day 12 Designated

Activity 18D: Developing a Position – Three Corners Purpose: To give students an opportunity to articulate different positions on the question of how juveniles should be sentenced so they can refine their own position


1. Reread the writing topic aloud and help students as a class identify the three major positions on whether juveniles should be sentenced to life in prison and which writers take which position.

• Juveniles should always be tried and sentenced as adults for serious crimes like murder. (Jenkins)

• Juveniles should be tried and sentenced as adults if a judge believes they meet certain criteria, including the seriousness of the crime and its impact on the victim or the victim’s family, the suspect’s criminal history, and the suspect’s past attempts at rehabilitation (Holloway)

• Juveniles should never be tried and sentenced as adults (Juvenile InJustice).


2. Give each table group (five or six students) a piece of poster paper. Assign them one of the three positions and tell them to write it at the top of the paper and then list arguments in favor of that position.

3. When students have finished, have them place their posters in three corners of the room (more than one group will be in each corner). Have half the class stay with their posters while the other half circulates to read and talk about the different arguments. Then have the other half stay with their posters while those who previously remained now circulate.

When students are finished, debrief by asking them what they learned by listening to the different arguments. Give them time to take notes to use when they write their open letter.

Then ask them to do the following quickwrite (10 minutes).

Quickwrite: If you committed a serious crime, do you think it would be fair for you to be punished the same way an adult who committed the same crime would be?

Return or have them get out and read the quickwrites they did on Day 1 in response to the Lionel Tate video. Then ask them to talk to a partner about how their views have changed or become more informed because of the work they have done during the module.

Collect the quickwrites as students go out the door. Scan them to see if students are able to use the various arguments they have read to take a position of their own. If it appears students will have problems, you may want to spend time helping them further formulate their positions by providing instruction in writing effective thesis statements, Activity 32.

Writing Rhetorically Composing a Draft Day 13

Activity 30: Making Choices about Learning Goals

Purpose: To create learning goals specific to the task of writing an open letter on sentencing juveniles

Time: 10 minutes

Now that students have read the writing topic and gathered the materials they will use as they write, they are ready to create learning goals that are specific to the task ahead. If you used an alternative process for metacognitive reflection at the beginning of the module, follow up with it here.

Activity 30: Making Choices about Learning Goals

As you consider what you want to learn as you write and revise your open letter, respond to some of the following questions or to priorities of your own:

• What strategies will I want to use to plan and complete my open letter?

• What will I do when I encounter difficulties with writing my open letter?

• How can I make the best use of the feedback I get from my peers and my teacher?

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• How can I apply what I’ve learned about creating an argument that will be convincing for a specific audience?

Choose two or three of these goals or create others that are important for you. In your notebook, add them to your earlier goals. Explain what they are and why you have chosen them. Keep your goals in mind as you write and revise your proposal so that when you are finished, you can reflect on how well you accomplished them.

Activity 31: Making Choices as You Write – Genre of the Open Letter Purpose: To invite students to analyze an open letter as a mentor text and then create success criteria for evaluating their own letters Suggested Time: 40 minutes

1. Locate an example of open letter such as the ones below. These are provided as examples, but students will be most engaged by a letter written about an issue that is current when you teach the module. You can find current open letters online by using the search term “What is an open letter?” Smith, Anna. Anna Smith: An Open Letter to California’s New Governor. Bakersfield.com, 24 Feb.

2019, www.bakersfield.com/news/anna-smith-an-open-letter-to-california-s-new-governor/article_4bc4c290-370c-11e9-b268-3fa8fa7b8cbc.html. Accessed 27 Feb. 2019.

Watkins, D. “Colin Kaepernick’s Brave Decision: An Open Letter to the 49ers Quarterback.” Salon. 9 Sept. 2016, www.salon.com/2016/09/02/colin-kaepernicks-brave-decision-an-open-letter-to-the-49ers-quarterback. Accessed 27 Feb. 2019.

2. Ask them to discuss in triads the questions below about the open letter you are using as a mentor text. Point out that the questions are similar to the ones that they responded to about Jenkins’ open letter in Activity 22: Considering the Rhetorical Situation.

3. Invite students to create a set of success criteria to evaluate the effectiveness of open letters.

4. When all the groups have come up with several criteria for an effective open letter, as a class create a poster, “Success Criteria for an Open Letter.” Tell students that you will evaluate their open letters using the success criteria that they generate (unless, of course, you are using a rubric or other form of assessment). You will want to guide them in creating criteria that look something like the ones below:

Success Criteria for an Open Letter

• Advocates for an issue that the writer feels strongly about

• Addresses a person or group of people who can bring about the desired change but is also intended for the general public

• Makes a clear argument for the writer’s proposed solution

• Develops the analysis by selecting the most significant and relevant facts, details, quotations, or other information or examples including personal information

• Uses precise description, selection of effective details, and vivid vocabulary

• Concludes with a call to action

• Follows the conventions of a published open letter including careful editing


Activity 31: Making Choices as You Write

An open letter is a fairly common kind of writing that people do when they feel strongly about an issue. The writer addresses a specific person or group of people who can do something to solve a problem or improve a situation. The writer intends to publish the letter so the intended audience is not just the person to whom the letter is addressed but everyone who has a stake in the issue. One of the most famous open letters is Martin Luther King’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail” in which he defends non-violence as a way to fight racism.

With your group, talk about the letter you have just read.

1. Who is the letter written to? Where was it published?

2. What issue has caused the writer to write the letter? How does he or she feel about that issue?

3. How effective is the evidence the writer uses?

4. What rhetorical strategies does the writer use to persuade us?

5. What do you notice about the style of the letter?

6. How does the writer conclude the letter?

7. How is the letter different from an academic essay?

Now collaborate with your group to create success criteria for an open letter. List several characteristics that you think all effective open letters should have, based on your review of Jenkin’s letter and the one you have just analyzed.

Success Criteria for an Open Letter

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Day 13 Designated

Activity 19D: Negotiating Voices – Incorporating Quotations Purpose: To support students in using language to incorporate quotations effectively


1. Students will be incorporating quotations from the texts they have read in their own writing. Post the chart below where students can use it while writing or supply each student with a copy. Clarify the meaning of any unfamiliar words.

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Introducing every quotation with “He said...” or “She said…” will produce boring and repetitive writing and will not allow the writer to indicate the stance of the person being quoted. Below are some verbs writers use to add variety and precision.

Verbs to Introduce Quotations

reports notes insists emphasizes describes

points out observes stresses finds remembers

explains argues maintains suggests discusses

contends claims believes recommends questions

admits suggests asserts advises explores

reflects feels doubts that shows asks

concludes hopes demonstrates argues denies

questions (+ wh- word) 2. The following examples illustrate that these words have precise meanings and need to be chosen

carefully or they will misrepresent the stance or position of the writer. Project and discuss examples 1 and 2, which use precise and accurate verbs and compare them to examples 3 and 4, which use verbs that misrepresent the writer’s stance.

Quotation: “There has been a drastic shift from notions of rehabilitation to quests for revenge and vengeance regardless of the age of the accused.” (Phillip Holloway, “Should 11-Year Olds Be Charged with Adult Crimes?”, paragraph 21)

Verbs that Reflect the Writer’s Stance Accurately

• Phillip Holloway, author of “Should 11-year olds be charged with adult crimes,” argues, “There has been a drastic shift from notions of rehabilitation to quests for revenge and vengeance regardless of the age of the accused.”

• He maintains, “There has been a drastic shift from notions of rehabilitation to quests for revenge and vengeance regardless of the age of the accused.”

Verbs that Misrepresent the Writer’s Stance

• He doubts that “There has been a drastic shift from notions of rehabilitation to quests for revenge and vengeance regardless of the age of the accused.”

• He questions whether “There has been a drastic shift from notions of rehabilitation to quests for revenge and vengeance regardless of the age of the accused.”

(Note: “Questions whether” introduces a statement. “Questions...” introduces a question.)

3. After discussing the difference in meaning of the verbs and phrases used to introduce the quotation, point out how the author and article is identified in the first example. After the first time, the pronoun “he” is used. Draw students’ attention to how the quotations are punctuated.


4. Ask students to number the paragraphs of Holloway’s “Should 11-Year Olds Be Charged with Adult Crimes?” (beginning with “An 11-year-old boy in Tennessee...”) and write a sentence incorporating each quotation.

5. Have students to compare their answers with a partner or in a small group and talk about why they chose the verb they did to introduce the quotation. Allow them to revise, and ask them to double check their punctuation of the quotations.

6. Debrief by projecting some of the students’ sentences and discuss the shades of meaning that would make one choice preferable to another.

Activity 19D: Negotiating Voices – Incorporating Quotations

Locate the following quotations in the article. Taking the speaker’s stance into account, use precise and varied verbs to introduce them. Give the full name of the author and the title of the text one time, but after the first time, you can simply use the author’s last name to introduce each following quotation. Punctuate the quotations with a comma after the introductory verb and quotation marks outside the quotation (at the beginning and after the punctuation at the end). Capitalize the first word of the quotation if it is a complete sentence.

1. Prosecuting a very young child for murder and sending him to prison for life is tragic in and of itself (par. 2).

Holloway insists, “Prosecuting a very young child for murder and sending him to prison for life is tragic in and of itself.”

2. Except for extraordinary circumstances no child under the age of at least 17 should be sentenced to lengthy incarceration in adult jails (par. 6).

He asserts, “Except for extraordinary circumstances no child under the age of at least 17 should be sentenced to lengthy incarceration in adult jails.”

3. Why... would anyone think it is appropriate to apply adult consequences to the choices made by children? (par. 7).

He questions whether “anyone would think it is appropriate to apply adult consequences to the choices made by children.”

4. Sometimes there may be evidence the person knew and understood the nature and consequences of their actions (par. 13).

Holloway admits, “Sometimes there may be evidence the person knew and understood the nature and consequences of their actions.”

5. Children in adult prisons do not fare well at all (par. 16).

Holloway stresses that “children in adult prisons do not fare well at all.”

6. This decision should be left to judges with the help of psychiatrists and psychologists. (par. 23)

He concludes, “This decision should be left to judges with the help of psychiatrists and psychologists.”

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Day 14

Activity 32: Making Choices as You Write – Evaluating Thesis Statements Purpose: To guide students in evaluating thesis statements in preparation for writing an effective thesis statement for their open letter


Based on your assessment of students’ ability to formulate an effective thesis statement, you can decide if you want to offer the additional instruction provided in this activity. Review the guidelines for developing thesis statements and guide the class in a discussion of Holloway’s thesis statement. Then ask students in triads to evaluate the student thesis statements that follow.

Activity 32: Making Choices as You Write – Evaluating Thesis Statements

Using the guidelines below for developing effective thesis statements, evaluate Holloway’s thesis statement. Then evaluate the thesis statements taken from student essays below. Label them “very effective,” “OK,” or “not effective,” and briefly explain each of your decisions.

Guidelines for Developing Thesis Statements

• A thesis reflects the writer’s position on a question that has more than one side. After reading the thesis, the reader should be able to explain what the issue is and what side of the argument the writer is on.

• Develop a thesis statement that makes the topic and your position on the topic clear to your reader.

• Choose one side of the issue if your topic requires it, but you may qualify your position.

• If the topic asks “to what extent” you agree or disagree with a statement, be sure to explain how strongly you agree or disagree. You may include a “because” statement, but you do not need to list all the reasons for your position.

• Neither a factual statement nor a question makes an effective thesis because they do not reflect the writer’s position on the issue.

Holloway’s Thesis

I suggest that except for extraordinary circumstances, no child under the age of at least 17 should be sentenced to lengthy incarceration in adult jails.

This is an effective thesis statement because it reflects Holloway’s position very clearly. He is very specific about how he defines a juvenile and makes clear that juveniles should not be sent to adult jails for a long time “except for extraordinary circumstances.” He even says, “I suggest” so we know it is his opinion.

Student Thesis Statements

1. Juvenile offenders are young people under the age of 18 who commit crimes.

Not effective. This is just a fact, not the writer’s position.


2. Sentencing juveniles to mandatory life in prison is necessary because it keeps them from committing more crimes. Also, it’s what the families of victims want, and it holds the teen murderers accountable for what they did.

OK, but it would be better if the writer combined the three reasons in a single overall statement such as, “Sentencing juveniles to mandatory life in prison is necessary for the sake of society and their victims.

3. Juveniles must be held accountable for their crimes, but they must be treated differently than adults.

Effective, but it would be even better if it stated precisely how juveniles should be treated differently—by not sentencing them to adult prisons.

4. Sentencing juveniles to life in prison is both good and bad.

Not effective. This thesis does not take a position. It would be better if the writer indicated when juveniles should be sentenced to prison based on their age or other criteria such as the ones used by California.

5. Young people’s crimes should not be brushed off, but it is not right to throw children who don’t even understand the enormity of the crime that they have committed into an adult prison for life.

OK, but it would be even better if it specified what should happen instead of what should not happen. The use of colloquial language may be appropriate depending on the writer’s purpose and audience but probably is too informal.

6. With a growing number of young adults being tried and sentenced as adults for violent crimes, the question arises, “Why did they commit these crimes?”

Not effective. This thesis does not respond to the topic and does not take a position.

Now write a working thesis for your open letter. You can later revise it once you have written your open letter—that is why it is called a working thesis. Make sure it fits the guidelines for an effective thesis.

My working thesis:

Activity 33: Making Choices as You Write – First Draft

Purpose: To provide time for students to write the first draft of the open letter


Ask students to assemble the writing assignment, the texts they have read and annotated, and their Charting Multiple Texts chart. Invite students to use the remainder of the class to begin drafting their open letter. Assign them to finish it as homework.

Collect the drafts of your students’ open letters. Read and provide feedback to your students using the Success Criteria for an Open Letter to guide your comments. Pay particular attention to the areas that you focused your instruction on such as the following:

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• Their thesis statements and how well they follow the guidelines

• The selection and incorporation of quotations

• The structure of the letter

• The genre of the letter

Formative Assessment: Based on what you have observed, determine what additional instruction and practice would be most beneficial.

Homework: Continue drafting the open letter.

Revising Rhetorically

Day 14 Designated

Activity 20D: Analyzing Your Draft Rhetorically – Reflecting on the Drafting Process

Purpose: To provide additional time and instruction, as needed, for drafting the open letter


Debrief the process of writing the first draft of the open letter. Ask students to respond in writing to some of the following questions, so you can determine where students would like additional guidance. After skimming them, use what you discover to decide how best to use the remaining class time. You may want students to work independently on their drafts, or you may want to provide additional instruction and feedback on a particular element of writing before students continue drafting.

Activity 20D: Analyzing Your Draft Rhetorically – Reflecting on the Drafting Process

Reflect on the process you used to write the first draft of your open letter and respond to the questions below.

• What were you most successful doing as you wrote your first draft? Were you able to finish your letter?

• Underline your thesis statement. How well does it follow the guidelines for effective thesis statements?

• How satisfied are you with the quotations that you used? Do you think you could find better ones?

• What was your conclusion? Did you make a recommendation to the legislators and other policy makers who might read your open letter? What was it?

• How well do you think you achieved the success criteria for an open letter?


Activity 21D: Gathering and Responding to Feedback – Revising Thesis Statements (optional activity if needed )

Purpose: To provide additional support for students in creating strong thesis statements


Ask students to take out the guidelines they received in the ELA class for writing effective thesis statements and write their thesis statements on a separate sheet of paper. Collect them in two stacks, one for the A-side and one for the B-side. Form triads of A-side students and give them a set of B-side thesis statements. Give the B-side thesis statements from the A-side. Ask them to evaluate their set of thesis statements and write suggestions for the writers to use in revising. When students have evaluated each other’s statements, collect a few to project for the whole class to evaluate. Provide feedback as needed.

Day 15

Activity 34: Analyzing Your Draft Rhetorically – Incorporating and Elaborating on Quotations Purpose: To allow students to evaluate their own incorporation and analysis of quotations after looking at a student mentor text


1. It is likely that students incorporated quotations into their draft without fully analyzing how they contribute to their argument. Read aloud the following paragraph adapted from a student essay. Point out that the writer read different articles than your students have. Then ask students in triads to read the paragraph silently and then discuss the questions that follow.

2. Circulate to observe what students are saying and to answer any questions. Tell students to attach any notes or revisions they have made on a separate page to their draft. Have them use any remaining time to continue to revise.

Activity 34: Analyzing Your Draft Rhetorically – Incorporating and Elaborating on Quotations

Read the paragraph below adapted from a student essay. Then discuss the questions that follow with your group.

Adapted from a student essay:

The main reason why children should not be convicted as adults for a crime such as murder or rape comes down to pure factual evidence. Kids’ brains are not as fully developed as adults. As Paul Thompson states in his article, “Startling Finds on Teenage Brains,” “these frontal lobes, which inhibit our violent passions, rash actions, and regulate our emotions, are vastly immature throughout the teenage years” (6). Marjie Lundstrom, author of “Kids Are Kids-Until They Commit Crimes,” similarly stated, “kids are different. Their reasoning is not fully developed” (14). This support leads back to the scientific facts about how different the adolescent’s brain is from the adult’s brain. If teenagers do not have the same capability as adults do to understand the enormity of their actions then it doesn’t make sense to say that they should receive the same sentence as an adult. Even though it is

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obviously wrong for any person, adolescent or adult, to commit a heinous crime such as murder, it is very important to remember that children’s brain structures are different from their parents, and they ultimately do not have the same logic or reasoning as adults do.

1. Underline or highlight the quotations that the writer used. What point do the quotations make?

Both quotations refer to the brain research that shows that teenagers’ brains are not fully mature.

2. Does the writer tell you the sources for the quotations?

Yes, the writer has told us the name of the author and the title of the articles, used quotation marks, and given us a page reference.

3. How has the writer elaborated on these quotations? What does the writer want us to understand about them?

She wants us to know that teenagers are not able to understand the consequences of their actions in the same way that adults can, so they should not be sentenced in the same way although they should still be accountable.

4. What verbs or verb phrases could the writer have used instead of repeating “stated” twice?

Explains, stresses, or others.

Look at your draft open letter and make any needed changes on the draft or on a separate sheet of paper.

• Have I given the name of the writer and the title of the text the first time I quote from it?

• Have I used precise and varied verbs to introduce my quotations?

• Have I punctuated my quotations with a comma before the quotation and quotation marks at the beginning and end?

• Have I elaborated on my quotations so that my readers know what I want them to understand about them? (You may write additional elaboration on a separate page and add it to your next draft.)

• Are there other quotations that would make my point better? Are there other quotations that I would like to add to make my argument stronger?

Day 15 Designated

Activity 22D: Analyzing Your Draft Rhetorically – Structure of Your Text Purpose: To give students an opportunity to analyze how a writer structures a text to make it persuasive


1. Remind students about the process of analyzing the structure of a text that they applied to Jennifer Bishop Jenkins’s open letter. Now ask them to apply the same process to the draft of their own open letter.


2. Once students have analyzed the structure of their own text, ask students to write a note to themselves on their draft about how they want to modify the structure of their text in the light of what they have learned. Give students any remaining time to continue to revise.

3. Remind students to turn in their drafts to the teacher of their ELA with Integrated Instruction class the next day.

Formative Assessment: Using your observations of students’ descriptive outlining process and what they wrote about revising the structure of their letters will enable you to provide quick interventions for students who are still unsure how best to structure their essays. You can also plan what kind of instruction in text structure would be most beneficial in the next module you teach.

Activity 22D: Analyzing Your Draft Rhetorically – Structure of Your Text

1. Draw a line across the page where the introduction ends.

2. Draw a line across the page where the conclusion begins.

3. Draw lines after each chunk in the body of the text. Remember that chunks each have a rhetorical purpose and may include more than one paragraph.

4. Number the sections. On a separate sheet of paper, specify what the section says (a summary of the content) and, then, what it does (what you want the chunk to accomplish).

5. At the end of the text, describe the overall content and purpose of your text.

Day 16 Activity 35: Independent Reading Check-in Purpose: To give students support for their independent reading while providing accountability Suggested Time: 50 minutes Confer with students who are not in the designated class in groups of three about the independent reading they are doing while other students read independently. Use students’ reading logs as the basis for the conferences. Those in the designated class will confer with their ELD teacher in groups of three during that time.

Day 16 Designated

Activity 23D: Independent Reading Check-in

Purpose: To give students support for their independent reading while providing accountability


Confer with students in groups of three about the independent reading they are doing. Use students’ reading logs as the basis for the conferences. Other students read independently.

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Day 17

Activity 36: Gathering and Responding to Feedback – Teacher and Peer Feedback Purpose: To ensure that students consider your feedback and understand how you want them to apply it to their open letter; to enable students to receive feedback from a peer Suggested Time: 50 minutes 1. Return the draft student letters to students with your comments in the light of the Success Criteria for

Open Letters and suggestions for revision. Ask them to write their response to what you have advised them to do on the back of their draft. Circulate and answer questions.

2. Have students in pairs review the Success Criteria poster and take turns reading the current draft of their open letter to their partner and ask their partner for advice about what they still need to do as they revise. Then switch so both students have a chance to read their open letter aloud and ask for advice.

3. Circulate to answer questions and intervene with advice as needed. Based on your assessment of how well pairs will function as peer reviewers, you may want to join some pairs to provide additional input.

Activity 36: Gathering and Responding to Feedback – Peer Feedback

Review the Success Criteria poster. Read your open letter aloud to your partner. Then listen and take notes on your draft as your partner responds to the following questions about your open letter.

• Restate the position the writer is taking. Is his or her position on the topic of juvenile sentencing clear? If you have trouble restating the writer’s position, discuss how revision of the thesis statement could make it more effective.

• Is the letter structured so it is easy to follow the writer’s argument? What suggestions do you have for improving the structure of the letter?

• Has the writer used well-chosen evidence to support his or her position? Do you know the source of the evidence? Do you know what the writer wants us to understand about the ideas or quotations that they have used as evidence? What suggestions do you have?

• What other suggestions do you have for your partner?

When you are done receiving feedback from your partner, follow the same process to give him or her feedback.

Homework: Revise your open letter, using the feedback you have received from your teacher and peers. Remember to read the notes that you have taken on your draft to guide you.


Editing

Day 17 Designated Activity 24D: Editing Your Collaborative Text Reconstruction Purpose: To give students practice by having them edit their collaborative text reconstruction before they apply what they have learned to their own writing


1. Re-establish the pairs or triads that collaborated to write the Collaborative Text Reconstruction at the beginning of the module. Return the original reconstructions to each group, and ask students to edit based on what they’ve learned by doing the activities in the module.

2. Ask students to fill in the chart below for the original paragraph that you read. They should notice that there are no coordinating conjunctions at all. Have them do the same for their paragraphs. Once most groups have finished, project a few. Project the original and discuss how the student versions compare with it.

Original paragraph

In all 50 states, youth under the age of 18 can be tried in adult criminal courts and sent to adult prisons. In California, youth as young as 14 can be tried as adults when the juvenile court judge decides to order it. When young people are transferred from the juvenile system, they are more likely to be convicted. If they are tried in the adult system, they are more likely to receive a longer sentence than juveniles who are charged with the same crime in juvenile court. The purpose of the adult justice system is punishment while the purpose the juvenile system is rehabilitation. Furthermore, trying juveniles as adults leads to racial inequities because youths of color are more likely to be tried as adults than white youth. In California in 2015, 88% of juveniles who were tried as adults were youths of color.

3. Give students the remainder of the time to edit their own drafts.

Activity 24D: Editing Your Collaborative Text Reconstruction

Return to the text you constructed collaboratively at the beginning of the module.

1. Combine words, phrases, and clauses in your paragraph when appropriate, using connecting words to express the correct logical relationship between ideas.

2. You may begin a sentence with a coordinating word, but be sure you can explain the rhetorical purpose.

3. You will want to leave some short sentences since they can also be rhetorically effective.

4. Check your punctuation when you are finished.

5. Now your teacher will project the original paragraph, so you can fill in the chart below for the original paragraph and for your paragraph. Did you make the same choices as the writer for combining sentences or did you combine sentences differently? Which do you prefer and why?

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Original paragraph

Connecting word Logical relationship

1. when time or sequence

2. when time or sequence

3. if comparison or contrast

4. while time or sequence

5. furthermore, addition

6. because cause or reason

Your paragraph

Connecting word Logical relationship

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Day 18

Activity 37: Editing Your Draft – Editing a Sample Student Essay Purpose: To give students practice editing a piece of student writing before they apply what they have learned to their own writing


1. Have students independently edit the sample student essay below. Rather than recopying, have them simply write their edits on this copy. If they want to rewrite two sentences to combine them, they can write the new version at the bottom of the page. Remind them to refer to the wall chart of coordinating conjunctions, subordinating conjunctions, and transitions.

2. When most students have finished, co-create an edited version as a class, talking about the effects of different options. Encourage students to experiment with subordination rather than simply relying on “and” and “but” and to notice the way in which the different options are punctuated. Then read the edited version aloud to the class, asking them to notice how much more effective it is compared to the original.


3. Have students apply the same process to their own open letters. Circulate to answer questions as students work. Remind them about what they have learned about editing in previous modules. When they have finished, collect several, project them and ask students to talk about what the writers chose to edit. Take suggestions for alternative and perhaps more effective options.

4. Ask students to choose the features they want to focus on as they edit their own essays. Once you and they have agreed, ask them to write their editing focus on the draft, so you will be able to tailor your feedback in the light of their chosen emphases.

Activity 37: Editing Your Draft - Editing a Sample Student Essay

Read the following student essay on the topic of sentencing juveniles to life in prison. Make several passes through your work as you edit the passage, editing for one feature at a time. Combine clauses with coordinating words, subordinating words, and transitions to create more interesting, information dense sentences. Circle the connecting words you use to combine independent clauses and check that you have punctuated your sentences correctly.

Garinger has the belief that violent children are able to “grow out of crime.” There is a child in prison facing a life sentence. He killed his abusive parents. He can sit there. He can take steps towards improvement. Scott Anderson told the story of Greg Ousley, who killed both his parents. He was in prison. He worked to improve himself. Ousley was able to get an education. He made sense of what he did. It took many sessions of psychological counseling. He was determined to understand why he committed his crime. That is someone who does not want to continue going into the pits of darkness. There are not many young offenders who are willing to work for years to find peace. Greg Ousley put in that kind of effort. His reward should be eligibility for parole. Everyone must be punished for committing crimes. Those who work to improve themselves should be given another chance to live a better life. Some troubled teenagers cannot be saved. There are others who can turn into adults who can help children like themselves. They can help in ways that no one else could.

Sample Edited Version

Garinger has the belief that violent children are able to “grow out of crime.” A child killed his abusive parents and is now in prison facing a life sentence. He can either sit there, or he can take steps towards improvement. Scott Anderson told the story of Greg Ousley, who killed both his parents. While he was in prison, he worked to improve himself. Ousley was able to get an education and made sense of what he did. It took many sessions of psychological counseling; however, he was determined to understand why he committed his crime. That is someone who does not want to continue going into the pits of darkness. There are not many young offenders who are willing to work for years to find peace. Because Greg Ousley put in that kind of effort, his reward should be eligibility for parole. Although everyone must be punished for committing crimes, those who work to improve themselves should be given another chance to live a better life. Some troubled teenagers cannot be saved, but others can turn into adults who can help children like themselves. They can help in ways that no one else could.

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Activity 38: Preparing Your Draft for Publication Purpose: To engage students in determining collaboratively the final design and formatting specifications for their open letters


Guide students in considering the format and design of their open letter that will be appropriate for a Web site for people interested in issues of juvenile justice. Emphasize that the appearance and readability of their document will be important in order to achieve their intended purpose. Review the Success Criteria for an Open Letter and any specific requirements you have established for the appearance of students’ letters including margins and font size.

Homework: Complete a polished final draft of your open letter using the feedback from your teacher and peers and what you learned based on the editing that you did in class.

Day 18 Designated

Activity 25D: Editing Your Draft – Open Letter

Purpose: To support students as they edit their open letters


Allow students to finish editing their essays based on their selected editing focuses and to get any additional feedback needed before they create their polished final draft.

Give them any remaining time to prepare for the independent reading book talks during the next class. Tell them they will be discussing in groups the following questions:

• What is the book that you are reading or have finished?

• Why did you choose it?

• What is most interesting or surprising about it?

• Then make a sales pitch for the book. Why would you recommend it to the members of your group?

Day 19

Activity 39: Reflecting on Your Learning Goals Purpose: To encourage students to reflect on what they have learned about reading, writing, and participating in academic discussion during the module that they can transfer to subsequent modules and to their work in other classes


Tell students that the final step for this module is to consider what they have learned about reading, writing, and participating in academic discussion during the time they have worked on it. Ask them to reread the goals they set for themselves and then complete the following reflection. Emphasize that in


their reflection they are making an argument about what they have learned and, as with all arguments, they need to persuade their audience by providing concrete evidence to support their generalization.

When they have finished, collect and read the reflections along with the final drafts of the open letters to help you guide students as they set goals for their next module. If students have created a module portfolio notebook or are creating a portfolio for the course, ask them to add their reflections as well as the final draft to their portfolio and turn it in to you.

In order to support ELs in their reflective process, work with them to collaboratively write a reflection that provides specific examples of learning before they write their own independent reflections.

Formative Assessment: Reviewing students’ portfolios for the course or the module will enable you to assess their development in the light of the goals you have set for your course and the goals they have set for themselves. Making notes for yourself about what you learn in the process can help you tailor your feedback and determine what you will emphasize in upcoming modules. In addition to providing individual feedback, you may want to recap for the class as a whole what they accomplished and what work needs to be done.

Activity 39: Reflecting on Your Learning Goals

Go back to your notebook and read what you wrote about each goal that you chose. Then write a reflection.

• How well did you achieve each goal? What evidence do you have of your progress? Give specific examples. You may wish to quote from writing that you did, describe discussions that you took part in, or discuss what you learned as you participated with your peers.

• What goals do you want to continue working on during the next module or what new goals do you now have?

• What have you learned during this module that has helped you become more ready for college or for a career?

Day 19 Designated

Activity 26D: Independent Reading Book Talks

Purpose: To give students an opportunity to talk to an audience of peers about the books they have read independently


Form triads and ask students to take turns talking to each other about the books they have been reading independently, using the following questions to guide the discussion:

• What is the book that you are reading or have finished?

• Why did you choose it?

• What is most interesting or surprising about it?

• Then make a sales pitch for the book. Why would you recommend it to the members of your group?

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Reflecting on Your Teaching Process Once you have read the final drafts of your students’ open letters, their self-assessments of how well they have accomplished their learning goals, and reviewed the goals that you set for yourself at the beginning of teaching this module, reflect on how well you helped students achieve their goals and those that you had for them. How successfully did you meet the needs of all your students, including your ELs? In what ways did you develop your ability as a teacher to make the experience of the module productive for all students, including ELs? What goals do you have for yourself as you begin the next module?


Appendix A: Charting Multiple Texts

Text Information

What is the text’s big issue?

What claim does the text make?

What are the examples/

quotations from the text?

What do you think about the

text’s claim?

What are your examples?

How does this text connect to

other texts?

Title: Author: Genre:

Title:

Author:

Genre:

Title:

Author:

Genre:

Title:

Author:

Genre:

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Appendix B: Guidelines for Collaborative Reading Process Students work in groups of three to four (or pairs) to divide text into logical sections and complete specific tasks on a rotating basis. Students should develop expertise in the process of Reciprocal Teaching (RT) so they can apply it in new and varied situations. Almost any text can be processed using RT.

Students assume responsibility for completing one (or more) of three to four key tasks for each text section as they collectively read a shared text. Students rotate through these tasks so they get the opportunity to learn and practice new skills. Everybody reaches consensus before anything is written on the guide.

Key Considerations Group composition requires careful consideration.

The purpose of the activity requires careful consideration.

The level of difficulty of the text requires consideration.

Specific tasks should help students achieve specific goals.

For a typical “first read” activity, students may perform four tasks: 1. First, Student A reads the given selection (usually one paragraph) aloud while students B, C and D

follow along by placing their fingers on the text being read.

2. Next, all students discuss the text, ask/answer questions and note new/ unfamiliar vocabulary. If appropriate, students write down these words and then guess about their meanings (given the context in which the words appear).

3. Then, Student B offers a summary of the selection read by Student A.

4. Students discuss the offered summary/paraphrase and develop a version on which they can all agree. If appropriate, all students write this summary in a log/note-taking guide.

5. Then, Student C asks a “right there” question. The answer to this question appears “right there” in the text and students should be able to POINT at the answer(s) to this question.

6. Students discuss answers to the previous question

7. Finally, Student D answers the “right there” question and all students accept an answer on which they can agree.

Important Pointers Individual accountability is key. This means EACH student should be responsible for recording information along the way and this information should be submitted to teacher for “quality control” and review. Consider entering key elements (like vocabulary) if it helps students to scaffold the task.

Clear understanding of the tasks is imperative. Consider labeling index cards with A, B, C and D—and then summarizing the task on the back side of the card. Students should ROTATE the cards, physically, so responsibility for tasks is clear.


As students work in groups to negotiate their responses, the teacher can circulate and unobtrusively make notes about the language that students are using to agree, disagree, offer suggestions and revisions, seek clarification, and other types of oral academic language. At the end of the Activity, the teacher can then give feedback (without naming individual students), so that students see which types of language are valued and effective and which are unproductive). You may want to use the Rubric for Academic Language Use (Appendix E) to give students feedback during this and other group and class discussions.

This activity is inspired by Palincsar and Brown’s Reciprocal Teaching and asks students to take responsibility for different aspects of making meaning of the text.

Palincsar, Annemarie. S., and Ann L. Brown. “Reciprocal Teaching of Comprehension-Fostering and Comprehension-Monitoring Activities.” Cognition and Instruction, vol.1, no. 2, 1984, pp. 117-75.

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Appendix C: Teacher-Like Conversation Skills that Students Can Learn (Zwiers & Crawford, 2011)

In their book, Academic Conversations: Classroom Talk That Fosters Critical Thinking and Content Understandings, Zwiers and Crawford posit that teachers can (and should) teach their students to facilitate conversations using the same strategies and language they themselves use to foster classroom discussion. They offer the following chart (77) to illustrate both the conversational skills and accompanying sentence-stems for students to learn in order to move towards more independent, student controlled academic conversations.

Teacher-Like Skill Possible-Things to Say

Pose a thought-provoking question to get the conversation going or make it go deeper.

Why….? How….? In your opinion….?

Let the partner say as much as he or she can; encourage the partner to think aloud.

That’s interesting, please keep going. Tell us what you are thinking. Tell me more about…

Keep the goal or topic in mind; get the conversation back on track; maintain focus.

What are we trying to do? What is our goal? Remember, our central question is…

Value others’ thinking; remember what a person said earlier and connect to it.

Great idea! Let’s write that down. Connecting back to what you said about…we can… Do you think that…?

Don’t pick one side of an issue; be impartial and inquisitive; encourage open-mindedness and value different perspectives.

Then again, we need to remember… What about…? What are other points of view?

Question a source; challenge an idea. Where did that evidence come from? What makes that a reliable source?

Generate theories, big ideas, and truths about the world, history, life, and so on.

We might interpret this as… One theory could be that…

Clarify another person’s or your own idea (when you see wondering faces and wandering minds).

Interesting, so what you are saying is… In other words….

Paraphrase, emphasizing that the idea helped to move the discussion forward.

Okay, so you are saying…That helps us. Juan highlighted that…Let’s build on this.

Be specific, clear, brief and sincere. Specifically, I mean that….

From Assignment Template Appendix E, Expository Reading and Writing Course, 2nd ed.


Appendix D: Words That Connect Ideas

Logical Relationship

Coordinating Words

Subordinating Words/Phrases

Transition Words/Phrases

Addition and, not only… but also, both… and

in addition, furthermore, moreover, also, besides

Concession or Contrast

but, yet although, though, while, even though, in spite of the fact that, despite the fact that

however, nevertheless, on the other hand, still, in contrast, instead, on the contrary

Alternatives, Choice, or Option

or, nor, either… or, neither… nor

alternatively, on the other hand

Cause or Reason for because, since, as, in that

therefore, consequently, thus, for that reason

Result so so that, such that as a result, therefore, thus, consequently, for this reason

Purpose so that, in order that, (in order) to

Condition if, even if, unless, provided that, as long as, when(ever), wherever

otherwise

Time or Sequence when, after, before, until, till, as, while, since, once, now that, whenever, as

then, first, second, third, finally, next, afterwards, after that, before that,

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Logical Relationship

Coordinating Words

Subordinating Words/Phrases

Transition Words/Phrases

soon as, by the time that

meanwhile, at first, eventually

Place where, wherever

Comparison or Contrast

but whereas, if similarly, likewise, in contrast

Restatement in other words, that is

Example, Generalization, or Conclusion

for example, for instance, in general, overall, in conclusion

Ching, Roberta. “Juvenile Justice: Rhetorical Grammar Teacher Version.” CSU Expository Reading and

Writing Course. 2nd ed., 2013.


Appendix E: Rubric for Academic Language Use in Group Discussion

Inadequate Proficient Strong

Collaborative Discussion

Does not participate in discussions or participates only occasionally; seldom includes other in discussion.

Participates in discussions; sometimes includes others in discussion.

Initiates and participates in discussions in groups; reaches out to include others in discussion.

Listening Does not listen carefully to what others say; may not understand what others have said.

Listens to what is said and occasionally refers to the ideas of others.

Listens carefully to what is said and regularly refers to the ideas of others.

Evidence Offers little evidence from either own experience or texts.

Draws on own experience; occasionally refers to texts for evidence.

Draws appropriately on own experience; regularly refers to texts for evidence.

Questioning Seldom asks or responds to questions.

Asks questions to clarify understanding; responds briefly to questions.

Asks questions about the evidence and reasoning of others; responds fully to questions.

Vocabulary and Syntax

Does not try to use academic sentence starters, new vocabulary, or even simple sentence structures.

Attempts to use a limited number of academic sentence starters, new vocabulary, and sentence structures.

Attempts to use a range of academic sentence starters, new vocabulary, and more complex sentence structures.

Ching, Roberta, and Adele Arellano. “Modifying the ERWC Assignment Template for English Learners

at the Expanding and Bridging Levels.” CSU Expository Reading and Writing Course. 2nd ed., 2103, writing.csusuccess.org/content/online-resources. Accessed 27 Feb. 2019.

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Works Cited Ching, Roberta. “Appendix D: Words that Connect Ideas.” “Juvenile Justice: Rhetorical Grammar

Teacher Version.” CSU Expository Reading and Writing Course. 2nd ed., 2013, pp. 100-101, writing.csusuccess.org/content/online-resources. Accessed 27 Feb. 2019.

Ching, Roberta, and Adele Arellano. “Appendix E: Rubric for Academic Language.” “Modifying the ERWC Assignment Template for English Learners at the Expanding and Bridging Levels.” CSU Expository Reading and Writing Course. 2nd ed., 2013, p. 21, writing.csusuccess.org/content/online-resources. Accessed 27 Feb. 2019.

Fletcher, Jennifer. “Appendix A: Charting Multiple Texts.” “The Value of Life: Teacher Version.” CSU Expository Reading and Writing Course. 2nd ed., 2013, p. 64. writing.csusuccess.org/content/online-resources. Accessed 27 Feb. 2019.

Juvenile Law Center. “Juvenile Life without Parole (JLWOP).” 2018, jlc.org/issues/juvenile-life-without-parole. Accessed 26 Feb. 2019.

Palincsar, Annemarie. S., and Ann L. Brown. “Reciprocal Teaching of Comprehension-Fostering and Comprehension-Monitoring Activities.” Cognition and Instruction, vol.1, no. 2, 1984, pp. 117-175.

Schoenbach, Ruth, Cynthia Greenleaf, and Lynn Murphy. “Classroom Close-up 4.2: Don’t Freak Out.” Reading for Understanding: How Reading Apprenticeship Improves Disciplinary Learning in Secondary and College Classrooms. 2nd ed., Jossey-Bass, 2012, p. 96.

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