Reciprocal Teaching

The task

Build a shared evidence plan about acting despite fear. Connect Ada’s final action and its cost to your claim. Use the guards’ threat to strengthen your explanation. Plan the paragraph without writing a shared paragraph.

Grouping

Groups of four

Roles

• Predictor: Suggest which details could support the group’s claim.
• Questioner: Ask teammates to defend an evidence-to-claim connection.
• Clarifier: Help teammates explain confusing details and word meanings.
• Summarizer: Bring the group’s reasoning together without retelling events.

Teacher directions

• Minute 0–1: Have groups open the named earlier work, assign roles, and read the two evidence selections.
• Minutes 1–3: Run the first discussion round using the Context selection. Each role contributes briefly, and teammates respond to the questioner.
• Minutes 3–5: Rotate every role one seat clockwise. Run the second round using the Ending selection alongside Context.
• Minutes 5–8: Have groups complete one shared planning chart. Require a claim, both exact quotations, and an explanation connecting the threat, final action, and cost.
• Minute 8–9: Ask two teammates to offer competing explanations of one detail. The group challenges one connection and revises its explanation using resolve and falter.
• Listen for retelling after quotations. Give task-level feedback: 'Your explanation names the action. Explain why that detail supports your claim despite the risk.'
• Leave the chart available for independent drafting. Remind students to write their own paragraph rather than copy group wording.

Student directions

• With your group: open “Whiteboard: Departure → Limit” at “Departure sentence”.
• Open “Ada’s Final Decision” at “Return and revise”.
• Assign the four roles listed on the Discussion cards.
• Read Context and Ending in Evidence Selections.
• Discuss Context using each role’s first prompt.
• Rotate roles one seat clockwise for the second round.
• Discuss Ending using each role’s second prompt.
• Complete one shared chart using both selections and your earlier work.
• Compare two teammates’ explanations of the same quoted detail.
• Challenge one connection using the Questioner’s frame.
• Revise the chart’s explanation using resolve and falter.
• Keep the chart ready for your own paragraph draft.

Discussion stems

• Predictor: “I expect ___ will support our claim because ___.”
• Questioner: “How does ___ support our claim about ___?”
• Clarifier: “Here, ___ means ___ because ___.”
• Summarizer: “The detail ___ supports our claim because ___.”

What to look for

• Students use earlier work as a starting point while adding the guards’ threat to their reasoning.
• Roles rotate, and students respond to one another rather than deliver unrelated answers.
• Students distinguish resolve from the disappearance of fear or danger.
• Students explain why leaving the ferry to find Tomas supports their claim, including the cost of missing departure.
• The revised explanation makes an evidence-to-claim connection more precise rather than adding another event.

Success criteria

• Our claim answers how people can act despite fear.
• Our chart includes exact quotations from Context and Ending.
• Our explanation connects quoted details to the claim instead of retelling events.
• Our revision uses resolve and falter accurately to explain Ada’s choice.
• Each teammate helps test or improve an evidence-to-claim connection.