Big Idea:
Can you help make writing better?

As students enter the room, they will have a seat, take out their Problem of the Day (POD) sheet and begin to work on the question on the SMARTboard. The POD also allows students to use MP 3 continually based on the discussions we have about the problem each day. We will use this problem later in the lesson to help explain Write It Wednesday.

POD Prompt: Lisa took some friends to the movies for her birthday. She spent a total of $34.00. Tickets to the movies cost $3.75 each and she spent $15.25 for snacks. How many tickets did she buy? Explain your answer.

Learning Target

The target for the day is also on the SMARTboard each day when students enter the room. The target for today’s lesson is for students to review and critique answers and to provide feedback for improvement.

Yesterday’s lesson was an introduction to the Better Answers/Answer Sandwich strategy to answer short answer and extended response questions. We will use this strategy the entire year to build my students’ competence in supporting their answers with reasoning.

We will review the strategy to ensure students have understanding of the steps involved and can apply the steps to justify their answers. Using the POD, I will introduce the Reviewer Form that students will use to provide feedback to classmates. We will discuss what "good" feedback is versus just telling somebody they did a "good job". We can brainstorm sample statements on the board and talk about the differences between some of the volunteered statements. I want them to get into the habit of providing substantive feedback and I want them to know how to help improve their answers. This feedback will be used to help students improve their answers as they apply the strategy to their work. After students provide feedback to a classmate, we will create a complete answer using the answers students created and the feedback provided. We will use the rubric to score our complete answer as a class.

Resources (2)

Resources

I chose this question as an opportunity for students to expand the answer using the strategy we are learning. The students may reach the same numerical answer as Michael, but I want them to formulate a Better Answer and show evidence of using the Answer Sandwich.

Michael was given this problem to model using a picture: 4 x 2/3. Explain your answer.