At the beginning of a social studies unit focused on analyzing influential historical speeches, a middle school SEI teacher wants to help students recognize key elements of persuasive speeches. To this end, the teacher plans to lead students in reviewing excerpts of historical speeches to identify a main topic or argument, reasons that support the argument, facts or examples used by the speaker to validate the reasons, and the speaker's conclusion or call to action. Which of the following differentiation strategies would be most effective in helping the English learners in the class comprehend the speeches at the discourse level to facilitate their successful achievement of the goals of this lesson?
  1. Ensuring that each speech excerpt selected for analysis by the English learners includes at least two types of persuasive appeals.
  2. Reviewing for the English learners the difference between facts and opinions and providing examples of facts (e.g., statistics, expert opinions) that speakers may use to support an argument.
  3. Providing the English learners with an overview of the backgrounds of each of the speakers and the historical context in which each speech was given.
  4. Modeling for the English learners how to use a graphic organizer for persuasive text to help track each speaker's argument or claim, supporting evidence, and conclusion.
Explanation
Correct Response: D. The intent of the social studies unit in this scenario is to use the context of influential historical speeches to make students aware of persuasive text structures. Analyzing the structures of these speeches at the discourse level requires students to pay attention to their coherence and cohesion as whole texts. Modeling how to use a graphic organizer to create a visual outline of the components of each persuasive speech will facilitate English learners' comprehension of how this type of text is organized from beginning to end. A focuses on the selection criteria for the excerpts and is inappropriate as a means of scaffolding because asking English learners to follow multiple types of persuasive appeals would make the task more confusing than clarifying. B is incorrect because it focuses students' attention on evaluating the quality of individual samples of supporting evidence (by distinguishing facts and opinions) rather than on determining how the key components of a speech work together to build an argument and persuade an audience. C is incorrect because it provides the English learners with background knowledge that might be useful for comprehending the speeches in terms of content but not in terms of structure.
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