Two Texts, One Recommendation
A Secondary 5 enriched ESL class is preparing a 200-word recommendation to the borough council on a proposal to turn a commercial street into a pedestrian zone. Students read two documents: a 500-word city planning report that projects a 10 to 30 percent drop in car traffic and notes two years of construction disruption, and a 250-word letter from a bakery owner who says her deliveries were late during a pilot weekend and that customers will disappear. The report includes a table of survey results; the letter uses one anecdote and an emotional appeal. One student writes that the report proves traffic will fall by 30 percent and ignores the construction period; another treats the baker's single weekend as representative of all businesses. The teacher has one 60-minute lesson for reading, discussion, and planning, and the recommendation is assessed for comprehension, synthesis, and argumentation.
1. What comprehension and reinvestment demands should the teacher make explicit before students plan their recommendation?
Read the worked answer
Before planning, the teacher should make visible the reading moves the task requires. Students need to distinguish claim from evidence, identify the source and genre of each document, note scope and certainty, and recognise what each source can and cannot support. The report can support statements about projected traffic ranges and construction disruption, but 30 percent is the top of a range, not a proven outcome. The letter can support a claim about one business's experience during a pilot weekend, but not a general claim about all businesses. The teacher should also make the synthesis demand explicit: the recommendation must use both sources, take a position, and answer a counterpoint. A graphic organiser with columns for claim, evidence, source, limitation, and use in my argument would help. The success criteria should include accurate attribution, calibrated language, and a concession. This makes the lesson about transferable reading and reinvestment, not about remembering the street proposal.
2. How should the teacher respond to the two students' drafts without simply correcting the content?
Read the worked answer
For the first student, the teacher should not simply say the number is wrong. Ask: Where in the report does 30 percent appear, and what words surround it? Is it a prediction, a result, or the top of a range? What does the report say about construction, and how would that affect your recommendation? The student should revise with a range and a condition, for example traffic may fall by 10 to 30 percent after construction. For the second student, ask: How many businesses did the baker survey? What would you need to know before generalising? The student can keep the baker's concern as a local risk but must not present one weekend as representative. Both students should annotate each claim in their draft with its source. The teacher can then confer briefly and require one concession sentence. This feedback teaches warrants and calibration instead of replacing the student's argument with the teacher's.
3. Design a short oral activity that would reveal whether students can synthesise the two sources before they write.
Read the worked answer
A short role-based council meeting would reveal synthesis. Put students in pairs or threes: one speaks for the planning report, one for the baker, and one is the councillor who must decide. Each speaker has one minute to present the strongest evidence and one limitation. The councillor must then summarise both positions and propose a condition, such as phased pedestrianisation with delivery windows. The teacher listens for source attribution, calibrated language, use of both documents, and a concession. A checklist can be used: names the source, states what it can support, acknowledges a limitation, answers the other side. This task is not a memory quiz because students must transform the documents into positions and a decision. It also gives the teacher evidence of oral interaction before the written recommendation. If time is short, run two rounds and take notes on four students per round.