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Significant sentence or phrase Explain the significance of each sentence or phrase to the speaker's argument
"If my cup won't hold but a pint and your holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half-measure full?" This sentence provides one of Truth's reasons for her argument that women should have the same rights as men. Truth is saying that even if one group isn't as smart as another (their cup only holds a pint), each group should be able to use their full potential.

Share significant sentences/phrases

Share in pairs or trios

Ask students to take a few minutes to share their two-column note chart with a partner. As students are sharing, circulate around the room and identify two-three students whose work it would benefit the class to see. Ask those students if they would copy their two-column chart onto a transparency and share their work and thinking with the class.

It will be important for at least one English learner to write on the transparency and share his or her work to ensure that EL students are included in the central, whole-group activities of the class. In order to make English learners feel more comfortable sharing their ideas with the whole class, be sure to ask them if they would like to do so before initiating the whole-group discussion.

Share in whole group

Invite students to share their sentences/phrases with the whole group before asking the students you identified in the previous activity to share their work at the overhead. Encourage students to notice the sentences/phrases that precede or follow the ones they identified as significant and consider the extent to which they support or call into question the explanation of the selected sentence/phrase.

Calling attention to the text surrounding the selected sentence/phrase will help students see how ideas are linked or developed across sentences. This may be a particularly valuable scaffold for novice readers especially English learners.

Reflect on sojourner truth's argument

Ask students:

Now that you have heard a range of sentences/phrases and explanations related to Sojourner Truth's speech, how do you understand her argument?

Reflect on explanations of significant sentences/phrases

Invite students to think back on the sentences/phrases and corresponding explanations they wrote and/or heard today. You may want to display the presenters' transparencies on the overhead to refresh students' memories. Ask students to respond to the following questions in their Reader's/Writer's Notebooks :

  • How did you decide which sentences or phrases to select and how to explain them? Which one or two of the sentences/phrases and explanations shared today (your own or someone else's) helped you the most to make sense of Sojourner Truth's argument?
  • Why? What specific characteristics of those examples made them effective?
A rubric with corresponding examples for "Ain't I a Woman?" is provided with the Teacher Resources. Consider sharing the rubric and examples with students as you work through the Characteristics of Effective Explanations of Significant Sentences/ Phrases.
Students are more likely to internalize and use criteria for quality work if they generate the criteria themselves based on their collective sense-making experiences. Display the student-generated charts throughout the unit so students can refer and make connections to them.

While students are writing, label a sheet of chart paper "Characteristics of Effective Explanations of Significant Sentences/ Phrases." Then encourage students to articulate what made made the explanations that were shared effective. Chart their responses.

Stepback: think about learning

Invite students to step back and reflect on the tasks, texts, and talk they have engaged with today and consider the ways they have been working and thinking. Ask:

  • What are some things you noticed about the work you did today?
  • What are some things you learned and how did you learn them?
  • What supported your learning?
Having students notice the ways they were working with these texts and reflecting on their learning helps them to develop an awareness of their own cognitive processes, making them more likely to repeat these processes in other situations and with other texts. Because English learners are in the process of acquiring language proficiency and content knowledge, invite reflections on both.

Homework: interpreting truth's speech

Distribute the handout, Interpreting Sojourner Truth's Speech . Read through the handout with students and answer any questions.

Having students interpret and then deliver an already constructed speech allows them to get practice speaking in front of their peers in a safer and more comfortable way.

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Source:  OpenStax, Selected lessons in persuasion. OpenStax CNX. Apr 07, 2008 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col10520/1.2
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