Are We Fooling Ourselves? Grade 11

english language arts Are We Fooling Ourselves? Grade 11

UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH

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Table of Contents 5

Table of Contents

Introduction

Overview What is this unit about?...... 9 What content and concepts will students learn?...... 9 What practices will students use?...... 9 How long will it take to engage students in the unit?...... 9

Unit Outline...... 10

Materials by Task...... 11

TEXT 1: Excerpt from Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

TASK 1.1: Conceptual Vocabulary...... 15

TASK 1.2: Comprehension...... 20

TASK 1.3: Furthering Comprehension...... 28

TASK 1.4: Analysis...... 33

TASK 1.5: Application...... 42

TEXT 2: “The Backfire Effect” by David McRaney

TASK 2.1: Comprehension...... 51

TASK 2.2: Interpretation Across Texts...... 57

TASK 2.3: Analysis...... 62

TASK 2.4: Application...... 67

Writing Across Texts

Lesson...... 75 Student Sample...... 81 Decision Tree Scoring Guide...... 84 Annotated Student Sample...... 85 Scored Student Sample...... 88

Appendix

What is our approach to vocabulary instruction?...... 91 How does the unit provide support for English learners?...... 93 Obtaining Copyright Permission...... 94

Instructional Resources Reader/Writer Notebook...... 95 Reader/Writer Notebook Suggested Feedback System...... 96 Pedagogical Rituals and Routines...... 97 Accountable Talk® Moves and Functions in ELA...... 98 Inquiry-Based Discussion...... 99

Introduction 9

Overview

What is this unit about? In this unit, students read two texts: an excerpt from Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman1 and “The Backfire Effect” by David McRaney2. Both Kahneman and McRaney explore the concept of rationality and the ways in which our cognitive functioning can impair our ability to reason. The first text is comprised of sections from two chapters of Thinking, Fast and Slow. In this text Kahneman—a psychologist, researcher, and Nobel prize winner—explores the two thinking systems used by our brains and delves into one cognitive fallacy: the illusion of validity. The second text, a blog post by David McRaney, who is a journalist and self- described psychology nerd, examines another kind of cognitive bias: the backfire effect.

Framed by Aristotle’s assertion that “man is the rational animal,” this unit asks students to study these texts for what they reveal about our capacity to be rational beings. Additionally, students view these texts from a writer’s perspective to analyze the ways these writers work with language and construct their texts for their audiences. Students also explore additional biases through independent research. The concluding unit task asks students to conduct their own “sidewalk neuroscience” to collect observations about their own or other’s reasoning to confirm, challenge, or extend what Kahneman and McRaney offer about rationality.

What content and concepts will students learn? Students will learn about:

• what it means to be rational. • the science supporting different perspectives on how humans think. • the impact of the cognitive biases on our thinking. • how these writers use language and construct their texts for their purposes and audiences.

What practices will students use? Students are supported to develop practices and habits such as how to:

• comprehend, analyze, and interpret complex informational texts with assistance and independently. • read, reread, annotate, and take notes on sections of texts and texts in their entirety as a means to enhance comprehension. • examine writing at both global and local levels to analyze how these writers use language to meet their purposes for their audience. • participate in routines such as maintaining a Reader/Writer Notebook, completing quick writes, sharing in pairs/trios, and participating in whole group discussions.

How long will it take to engage students in the unit? This unit spans approximately 12-15 instructional days, assuming a 45- to 60-minute class session. The tasks in the unit are designed to be implemented sequentially in order to support students to achieve the instructional goals. As such, the pacing of the lessons will depend on the time students need to achieve these goals.

1 Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. (pp. 19-26, 209-212). New York, NY: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.

2 McRaney, D. (2011, June 10). The backfire effect. Retrieved from http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/06/10/the-backfire-effect/

Unit Outline3 Overarching Questions • What does it mean to be a rational human being and what impacts our rationality? • How do audience and purpose influence the ways these writers use language and construct their texts? How do the ways these texts are constructed influence our experience of reading and our understanding of these writers’ ideas? TEXT 1 TEXT 2 From Thinking, Fast and Slow “The Backfire Effect” by Daniel Kahneman by David McRaney 1.1 Conceptual Vocabulary 2.1 Comprehension The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) said What more do you learn about how humans think that “man is the rational animal.” To what extent do from McRaney’s text? What places are getting in you agree or disagree with Aristotle’s assertion and the way of your understanding of what McRaney is why? trying to say? 1.2 Comprehension 2.2 Interpretation Across Texts What do we learn from Kahneman about how we, as Using your understanding of both Kahneman’s and humans, think? What places are getting in the way McRaney’s texts, revise your response to Task 1.1. of your understanding of what Kahneman is trying to After you revise, go back and view your revision say? through the lens of McRaney’s discussion of the confirmation bias and/or the backfire effect and/ 1.3 Furthering Comprehension or Kahneman’s illusion of validity: what do you Kahneman details System 1 and System 2 thinking notice about the rationality of your own ideas in this in this text. What are the benefits and liabilities of revision? each? What is the relationship between the two? 2.3 Analysis 1.4 Analysis How does audience and purpose influence the How do audience and purpose influence the ways ways this writer uses language and constructs his this writer uses language and constructs his text? text? How is this text similar to and different from How do you as a reader respond to this text? To what Kahneman’s? How do you as a reader respond to extent does this text influence your understanding of this text? To what extent does this text influence and your ideas about humans as rational beings? your understanding of and your ideas about humans 1.5 Application as rational beings? In what ways and to what extent do your experiences 2.4 Application with visual illusions illustrate the ideas in Kahneman and McRaney discuss just some of the Kahneman’s text? many kinds of cognitive biases that can impact our thinking. Research another cognitive bias and share your findings with the class. Writing Across Texts Conduct your own sidewalk neuroscience to collect some observations about the extent to which you and/or others you know are rational. Based on your sidewalk neuroscience and your understanding of the unit texts, draft an essay in which you explain how the results of your research confirm, challenge, and/or extend what these articles say about humans’ ability to be rational animals.

3 The questions guiding the work of the unit have been carefully and collaboratively crafted to support student engagement with the texts under study and student achievement of the learning goals of the unit. Changing the language of a question may alter the intellectual rigor and/or change the lesson’s or unit’s intention and purpose.

Materials by Task

Task Materials

• Handout: “Man is the Rational Animal”? • Chart: To What Extent Are Humans Rational? 1.1 • Reader/Writer Notebook • Chart paper and markers • Excerpt from Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman • Handout: Comprehension of Thinking, Fast and Slow 1.2 • Chart: Kahneman: How Humans Think • Reader/Writer Notebook • Chart paper and markers • Excerpt from Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman • Chart: Kahneman: How Humans Think • Handout: System 1 and System 2 Thinking 1.3 • Chart: Kahneman: System 1 and System 2 • Reader/Writer Notebook • Chart paper and markers • Excerpt from Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman • Handout: Analysis of Thinking, Fast and Slow 1.4 • Chart: Kahneman as a Writer • Reader/Writer Notebook • Chart paper and markers • Excerpt from Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman • Handout: Visual Illusions and Kahneman’s Ideas • Visual Illusions 1.5 • Chart: Kahneman: How Humans Think • Handout: Writing Across Texts • Reader/Writer Notebook • Chart paper and markers • “The Backfire Effect” by David McRaney • Handout: Comprehension of “The Backfire Effect” 2.1 • Chart: McRaney: How Humans Think • Reader/Writer Notebook • Chart paper and markers • “The Backfire Effect” by David McRaney • Excerpt from Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman • Handout: Interpretation Across Texts • Chart: McRaney: How Humans Think 2.2 • Chart: Kahneman: How Humans Think • Quick writes from Task 1.1 • Reader/Writer Notebook • Chart paper and markers

Task Materials

• “The Backfire Effect” by David McRaney • Handout: Analysis of “The Backfire Effect” • Chart: McRaney as a Writer • Excerpt from Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman 2.3 • Handout: Analysis of Thinking, Fast and Slow • Chart: Kahneman as a Writer • Reader/Writer Notebook • Chart paper and markers • “The Backfire Effect” by David McRaney • Excerpt from Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman • Handout: Cognitive Biases • Chart: McRaney as a Writer 2.4 • Handout: Writing Across Texts • Observation Notes from Part 1 of the WAT Task • Reader/Writer Notebook • Chart paper and markers • “The Backfire Effect” by David McRaney • Excerpt from Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman • Handout: Writing Across Texts • Handout: Gr 11 Writing Across Texts: Decision Tree Scoring Guide • Chart: Kahneman: How Humans Think Writing Across Texts • Chart: McRaney: How Humans Think • Chart: Kahneman as a Writer • Chart: McRaney as a Writer • Handouts from Peer Presentations in Task 1.5 • Reader/Writer Notebook • Chart paper and markers

Overarching Questions • What does it mean to be a rational human being and what impacts our rationality? • How do audience and purpose influence the ways these writers use language and construct their texts? How do the ways these texts are constructed influence our experience of reading and our understanding of these writers’ ideas? TEXT 1 TEXT 2 From Thinking, Fast and Slow “The Backfire Effect” by Daniel Kahneman by David McRaney 1.1 Conceptual Vocabulary 2.1 Comprehension The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) said What more do you learn about how humans think that “man is the rational animal.” To what extent from McRaney’s text? What places are getting in do you agree or disagree with Aristotle’s assertion the way of your understanding of what McRaney is and why? trying to say? 1.2 Comprehension 2.2 Interpretation Across Texts What do we learn from Kahneman about how we, as Using your understanding of both Kahneman’s and humans, think? What places are getting in the way McRaney’s texts, revise your response to Task 1.1. of your understanding of what Kahneman is trying After you revise, go back and view your revision to say? through the lens of McRaney’s discussion of the confirmation bias and/or the backfire effect and/ 1.3 Furthering Comprehension or Kahneman’s illusion of validity: what do you Kahneman details System 1 and System 2 thinking notice about the rationality of your own ideas in this in this text. What are the benefits and liabilities of revision? each? What is the relationship between the two? 2.3 Analysis 1.4 Analysis How does audience and purpose influence the How do audience and purpose influence the ways ways this writer uses language and constructs his this writer uses language and constructs his text? text? How is this text similar to and different from How do you as a reader respond to this text? To what Kahneman’s? How do you as a reader respond to extent does this text influence your understanding of this text? To what extent does this text influence and your ideas about humans as rational beings? your understanding of and your ideas about humans 1.5 Application as rational beings? In what ways and to what extent do your experiences 2.4 Application with visual illusions illustrate the ideas in Kahneman and McRaney discuss just some of the Kahneman’s text? many kinds of cognitive biases that can impact our thinking. Research another cognitive bias and share your findings with the class. Writing Across Texts Conduct your own sidewalk neuroscience to collect some observations about the extent to which you and/or others you know are rational. Based on your sidewalk neuroscience and your understanding of the unit texts, draft an essay in which you explain how the results of your research confirm, challenge, and/or extend what these articles say about humans’ ability to be rational animals.

Thinking, Fast and Slow 15

Conceptual Vocabulary TASK 1.1 The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) said that “man is the rational animal.” To what extent do you agree or disagree with Aristotle’s assertion and why?

Situating the Task Duration TEXT 1 1 class session From Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman 1.1 Conceptual Vocabulary Why This Task Now? The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) said This first task asks students to articulate what that “man is the rational animal.” To what extent do they already know and believe about what it you agree or disagree with Aristotle’s assertion and means to be rational. In later tasks, students why? will come back to this work, revise their ideas, 1.2 Comprehension and take stock of their learning. The purpose of What do we learn from Kahneman about how we, as this task is to provide students an opportunity humans, think? What places are getting in the way to share what they already know in order to of your understanding of what Kahneman is trying to establish a starting point on which to build new say? learning. 1.3 Furthering Comprehension Kahneman details System 1 and System 2 thinking in this text. What are the benefits and liabilities of each? What is the relationship between the two? 1.4 Analysis How do audience and purpose influence the ways this writer uses language and constructs his text? How do you as a reader respond to this text? To what extent does this text influence your understanding of and your ideas about humans as rational beings? 1.5 Application In what ways and to what extent do your experiences with visual illusions illustrate the ideas in Kahneman’s text?

Materials • Handout: “Man is the Rational Animal”? • Chart: To What Extent Are Humans Rational? • Reader/Writer Notebook • Chart paper and markers

TASK Teaching Approach 1.1 Setting Up the Task: Whole Group (2-3 minutes) Purpose: To provide students with clear directions and expectations for the conceptual vocabulary task that will introduce the unit.

• Provide each student with the handout titled “Man is the Rational Animal”? (found on page 19).

Thinking, Fast and Slow 19

“Man is the Rational Animal”? TASK 1.1

Purpose Over the course of the next couple of weeks, we are going to read two texts about rationality and the ways our cognitive functioning can impair our ability to be rational. The purpose of this task is for you to examine what you already know and think about what it means to be rational, and to hear your classmates’ ideas about the concept. Your thinking and the class discussions will provide a starting point for this unit, and you’ll revisit and revise this first thinking later in the unit as we learn more together.

Task Look up the dictionary definition of the wordrational .

Using your understanding of the word rational and your own experiences and observations, compose a quick write in response to the following question:

The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) said that “man is the rational animal.” To what extent do you agree or disagree with Aristotle’s assertion and why?

Be prepared to share your ideas with the whole class.

• Review the “Purpose” and “Task” sections of the handout with students, giving them an opportunity to ask questions and clarify expectations.

Teacher Note This task uses a familiar quotation from Aristotle in order to spark student thinking. It is not necessary for students to have any background knowledge about Aristotle in order to access this task since they are responding only to his assertion after considering the dictionary definition of the wordrational . Remind them of this if you find that your students are unfamiliar or unnecessarily struggling with who Aristotle was or what he did as an ancient philosopher.

Students will revisit and revise this writing later in the unit. We recommend use of a Reader/ Writer Notebook for such writing, so that students have it (and all other work from the unit) readily accessible for later revision and for the final Writing Across Texts task.

Monitoring Student Thinking: Individual Work (4-6 minutes) Purpose: To provide students with the opportunity to engage independently with the task to establish a starting point in regard to what they know and understand about what it means to be rational.

• Ask students to complete the task, following the directions on “Man is the Rational Animal”? handout. • Circulate around the room to monitor students’ progress. Be on the lookout for students who are having difficulty getting started and quietly encourage or redirect them as needed.

Differentiation TASK If you notice that students are struggling a bit with understanding the definition of “rational,” 1.1 you might ask them to take a minute or two in writing or talk to put the definition in their own words before they continue the task and relate it to Aristotle’s quotation and their ideas about what it means to be rational.

Monitoring Student Thinking: Pair Work (3-5 minutes) Purpose: To provide a safe environment with high accountability for students to share their ideas and hear the ideas of others regarding what it means to be rational.

• Ask students to meet in pairs to share their quick writes. Have them listen for the similarities and differences in their ideas. • Circulate around the room and listen in on students’ thinking. Make mental notes of the range of student ideas so that you can be sure that these ideas are explored and discussed in the upcoming discussion.

Setting Up the Inquiry-Based Discussion: Whole Group (3 minutes) Purpose: To provide clear expectations for student and teacher roles in the upcoming inquiry-based discussion.

• Bring students together as a whole group. Ask them to put their desks in a horseshoe or circle so they can see each other. • Explain to students that they will engage in an inquiry-based discussion to discuss the extent to which they agree and disagree with Aristotle’s assertion. • Let students know that this is an opportunity for them to share their interpretations with their peers, to hear what their peers think and how their peers understand what it means to be rational, and to reshape their own thinking about the concept. • Let students know that you will not be a direct participant in the discussion. That means that students should talk to each other, not to or through you.

Facilitating Student Sensemaking: Whole Group Inquiry-Based Discussion (15 minutes) Purposes: To provide students the opportunity to engage in an academic discussion with their peers to explore their ideas about what it means to be rational and the extent to which they agree and disagree with Aristotle. To provide students the opportunity to practice and to reinforce their understanding about how to develop, support, and explain an idea using evidence from their experiences and from the dictionary definition of the word.

• Facilitate an inquiry-based discussion in which students share their responses to the following question: o The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) said that “man is the rational animal.” To what extent do you agree or disagree with Aristotle’s assertion and why? • Record students’ responses on chart paper. Title the chart To What Extent Are Humans Rational?. • As the discussion is winding down, ask the class to help you summarize the ideas that surfaced during the discussion, adding to the chart as needed.

TASK Teacher Note 1.1 Remember, your role as the facilitator of the discussion includes:

• encouraging all students to participate. • reminding students, when necessary, to anchor their ideas in evidence—in this case they will draw on their experiences and the dictionary definition of rational. • reminding students, when necessary, to explain how their evidence supports or links to their ideas. • tracking students’ ideas so that you can share the ideas that have been offered and track the progress of the discussion. • reminding students to talk directly to each other; agree, disagree, or otherwise build on each other’s ideas; use textual evidence to support their ideas; and request textual evidence from peers when they offer unsupported ideas.

Additional support for leading an inquiry-based discussion is included in the Appendix.

Facilitating Metacognitive Work: Whole Group StepBack (5 minutes) Purpose: To make visible for students how their ideas have changed as a result of discussing them with their peers.

• Ask students to reread and revise their quick writes about what it means to be rational and the extent to which they agree or disagree with Aristotle. • Then ask students to discuss whether and how their thinking changed as a result of discussing their thinking with their peers.

“Man is the Rational Animal”? TASK 1.1

Task Look up the dictionary definition of the wordrational .

Using your understanding of the word rational and your own experiences and observations, compose a quick write in response to the following question:

The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) said that “man is the rational animal.” To what extent do you agree or disagree with Aristotle’s assertion and why?

Be prepared to share your ideas with the whole class.

TASK Comprehension 1.2 • What do we learn from Kahneman about how we, as humans, think? • What places are getting in the way of your understanding of what Kahneman is trying to say?

Situating the Task Duration TEXT 1 2 class sessions From Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman 1.1 Conceptual Vocabulary Why This Task Now? The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) said This second task asks students to read that “man is the rational animal.” To what extent do Kahneman’s excerpt to (a) determine what they you agree or disagree with Aristotle’s assertion and can learn about how humans think and (b) mark why? moments that are confusing and difficult to 1.2 Comprehension understand. This is the first of several readings What do we learn from Kahneman about how we, as students will do. The purposes of this task are humans, think? What places are getting in the way two-fold: of your understanding of what Kahneman is trying to say? • The purpose of “a” is for students to get the 1.3 Furthering Comprehension gist of Kahneman’s ideas so that they have Kahneman details System 1 and System 2 thinking a foundation from which to work for later in this text. What are the benefits and liabilities of tasks that ask them to examine the text in each? What is the relationship between the two? more detail and determine ways the author works with language to create his text. 1.4 Analysis • The purpose of “b” is for students to How do audience and purpose influence the ways this writer uses language and constructs his text? identify places of difficulty to unpack with How do you as a reader respond to this text? To what a partner and for teachers to learn what extent does this text influence your understanding of aspects of the text students are finding and your ideas about humans as rational beings? difficult. 1.5 Application In what ways and to what extent do your experiences with visual illusions illustrate the ideas in Kahneman’s text?

Materials • Excerpt from Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman • Handout: Comprehension of Thinking, Fast and Slow • Chart: Kahneman: How Humans Think • Reader/Writer Notebook • Chart paper and markers

Teaching Approach TASK Setting Up the Unit: Whole Group (3 minutes) 1.2 Purpose: To introduce students to the two texts and the overarching questions of the unit.

• Introduce students to Are We Fooling Ourselves? unit. • Let students know that in the next couple of weeks they will read, write about, and discuss two nonfiction texts: o The first text is comprised of sections from two chapters from Daniel Kahneman’s book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, which was published in 2013. o The second text, “The Backfire Effect,” was first published as a blog by David McRaney in 2011, and was later included in a book of his compiled blogs, You Are Now Less Dumb, in 2014. • Share the two overarching questions that guide the work in the unit: o What does it mean to be a rational human being and what impacts our rationality? o How do audience and purpose influence the ways these writers use language and construct their texts? How do the ways these texts are constructed influence our experience of reading and our understanding of these writers’ ideas? • Remind students that the task they just completed was to provide a starting point, and that they will be building upon these ideas as they move through the upcoming tasks in the unit.

Teacher Note Both of these unit texts are long and may contain vocabulary and concepts that are unfamiliar to students. At the same time, the nature of the structure and language used in these texts makes them accessible for students even while they remain complex and challenging.

The first text, sections from two chapters fromThinking, Fast and Slow, is first for study in this unit because it provides background about different types of thinking before diving into one of the cognitive biases, the illusion of validity. This is in contrast to the second text, “The Backfire Effect,” which begins by exploring another cognitive bias. In this way, this first text helps to situate the larger ideas about how humans think for the students before they examine specific ways in which our thinking processes may inhibit our rationality.

Setting Up the Task: Whole Group (3 minutes) Purpose: To provide students with clear directions and expectations for the comprehension task on Thinking, Fast and Slow.

• Provide students with the handout titled Comprehension of Thinking, Fast and Slow (found on pages 26-27).

TASK 26 Thinking, Fast and Slow TASK Comprehension of 1.2 1.2 Thinking, Fast and Slow Purpose Today you will read two sections from Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist who won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2002. This is the first of several readings you’ll do of this text. The purpose of today’s reading is for you to get the gist of the ideas Kahneman explores in this text. This will provide you with a foundation for later tasks that ask you to examine Kahneman’s ideas and writing in more detail. You’ll also identify moments in the text that you find difficult or confusing; this will alert you to places to reread and unpack.

Task Step 1: As you read Thinking, Fast and Slow, please do two things:

1. Make note of places where you learn something from Kahneman about how we, as humans, think. Mark places where Kahneman states his ideas directly and places where you can infer his ideas through the examples, research, and other information he provides. 2. Identify moments in the text where you are confused or unsure of what Kahneman is trying to say. Don’t mark every unknown word. Instead, mark places where you are having difficulty figuring out the gist of what Kahneman is writing.

Be prepared to share your marked places with a partner.

• Review the “Purpose” and “Task” sections with students, giving them an opportunity to ask questions and clarify expectations.

Preparing Students to Read: Whole Group (10 minutes) Purpose: To prepare students to read the excerpt from Thinking, Fast and Slow by discussing two things that may make this text challenging: the length and unfamiliar vocabulary.

• Review the “Tips for Reading Thinking, Fast and Slow” section of the Comprehension of Thinking, Fast and Slow handout with students.

Thinking, Fast and Slow 27

Tips for Reading Thinking, Fast and Slow TASK As you’ve probably noticed, this is a long excerpt. It also contains some words that you may not 1.2 know. Here are some tips to help you manage the length and unfamiliar vocabulary as you read.

Length

• Jot notes in the margins as you read to track what you’re learning. • Underline important or recurring ideas. • Stop every so often to make sure you understand what you’re reading. Jot a few notes to capture your ideas.

Unknown Vocabulary

• Skip over the word, especially when you’re able to get the gist of the sentence or passage. • Figure out what the word represents or describes. For example, does it represent or describe a job or career, a psychological condition, or research method? Is it a proper noun, such as an unfamiliar city or a name? Sometimes that information is enough to get the gist of a sentence or passage. • Read the words before and after the unfamiliar word to see if Kahneman defines it. • Mark places where your overall comprehension is halted and move on. You can return to those places at a later time.

Step 2: Work with your partner to

• share and discuss places where you are learning something about how humans think. Try to restate these parts in your own words. • share places where it was difficult to understand what Kahneman is trying to say. • figure out unfamiliar vocabulary. Talk through trouble spots to restate the sentence or section in more familiar terms.

• Invite students to share additional tips for dealing with long texts and unfamiliar vocabulary. • Remind students not to get hung up by the unfamiliar terms. Assure them that it’s okay not to know them. Instead, they should focus on getting the overall gist of the text during this first reading.

Monitoring Independent Reading: Individual Work (40 minutes) TASK Purpose: To give students practice in reading a complex text on their own. 1.2 • Ask students to read the excerpt from Thinking, Fast and Slow following the directions for Step 1 on the Comprehension of Thinking, Fast and Slow handout. • As students are reading, circulate around the room to monitor students’ progress. Be on the lookout for students who are having difficulty with staying focused or marking the text. If necessary, pull small groups of students together to read the text or review marking the text.

Differentiation If this kind of work with a text of this length and difficulty is new to your students, you might want to consider modeling the task with a small section of the text. The purpose of this would be to show students how they should mark the text when reading and to make sure they are ready to read the text independently.

• Tell students that you will begin reading the text aloud as they follow along. Remind them of the two things they should be marking while reading: 1. Places where they learn something about how we, as humans, think from Kahneman’s text 2. Moments where they are confused or unsure of what Kahneman is trying to say • Display an enlarged copy of the text. Begin reading aloud. As you read, mark the text in the same manner that students will mark their copies. • Stop reading after a few minutes. Ask students to share what they’ve learned so far about how humans think from Kahneman’s text. • Then have a few students share a few moments where they were confused or unsure of what Kahneman is saying. Tell students to hold on to their questions and confusions for now since some may become clear further in the text, others may become unimportant, and a few may need further unpacking later.

If after this first section your students have the gist of the text thus far and understand how they should be marking the text, have them finish the reading on their own. If not, read another section of the text aloud and repeat the steps above until students are ready to read the remaining text independently. It’s important that the students have the opportunity to independently read as much of this text as possible.

• Have students finish reading and marking the text for homework if they do not finish in class.

Important Engage students in the rest of the lesson after they have finished readingThinking, Fast and Slow.

Monitoring Student Thinking: Pair Work (15 minutes) Purpose: To provide a safe environment with high accountability for students to share and continue to develop their ideas.

• Review Step 2 of the Comprehension of Thinking, Fast and Slow handout. • Ask students to work in pairs on Step 2.

TASK • Circulate around the room to listen in on students’ conversations. Identify students who are doing a 1.2 good job of unpacking Kahneman’s ideas about how humans think and untangling areas of difficulty.

Differentiation Monitor students’ ideas during the pair work and make mental notes of students’ misunderstandings about the text and places where they struggled. Use this knowledge to determine points that might need to be clarified during the upcoming whole group discussion.

Guiding Students to Consensus: Whole Group (10-15 minutes) Purpose: To enable students to reach a common understanding about the text and to determine what students find difficult, surprising, and interesting about the text.

• Bring students together as a whole group. • Begin by asking students to share some of the most interesting or surprising things they learned from this text. Collect a few responses. Use this as a way to get students to begin talking about this text. • Next, invite students to share what they learned about how humans think from this text. Students should draw on their marked moments. • Record students’ responses on a chart titled Kahneman: How Humans Think. • Next, invite a few students to share moments that got in the way of their understanding of what Kahneman is trying to say. Support students to articulate what about the moment they found difficult or confusing. After one person shares, ask if there are others who marked the same moment and why, and what they did to untangle it with their partner.

Learning Target Here are some points students might say they learned about how humans think from Kahneman’s text.

• We experience two types of thinking: fast and slow (lines 9-50). • Fast thinking (System 1) is intuitive and happens without conscious thought or effort; this is the kind of thinking other animals possess (lines 51-85). • Slow thinking (System 2) requires effort and attention as it draws from memory and knowledge to work toward implementation (lines 86-140). • These two types work together well (lines 141-175), except when they do not (lines 176- 202). • When there is conflict between these two types, our ability to be rational humans is compromised (lines 176-202). • One cognitive illusion is called the illusion of validity, where our fast thinking’s desire for ease and coherence overrides our slow thinking’s desire for evidence and reasoned judgment (WYSIATI—what you see is all there is) (lines 204-211). • Even when we are presented with, and accept, evidence of our irrationality, it does not change our ability to be more rational the next time (lines 273-280).

Important: Students will likely mention the illusion of validity during this discussion; however, if they do not, do not let the discussion close without this being added to the list and discussed.

Teacher Notes TASK Note pertaining to Systems 1 and 2: Task 1.3 explores Systems 1 and 2 in much more depth, so 1.2 talk of these systems in this discussion can be handled quickly.

Note pertaining to untangling places of difficulty or confusion: The goal here is to support independent sensemaking without providing an explanation of the meaning of the text.

• In order to support independence, the use of resources should be done quickly and sparingly to provide just enough clarity to move forward. Ask students, “Do you really need to know more about that to get the basics of what’s happening here?” • Emphasize to students that readers do not need to know every word or reference in a text in order to learn or move to deeper work. Excursions into these tangential areas are likely to sidetrack the work with the text at hand. • Remind students that there will be several more studies of this text, and that this later work will reveal what more, if anything, needs to be understood or researched.

Facilitating Metacognitive Work: Whole Group StepBack (3 minutes) Purpose: To make students aware of the mental processes they used to comprehend the text so that they can apply those processes to reading texts in the future.

• Remind students of the earlier conversation they had about text length and vocabulary. • Have students share how they managed these challenges. Encourage students to share and record any new tips they have.

TASK Comprehension of 1.2 Thinking, Fast and Slow

Purpose Today you will read two sections from Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist who won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2002. This is the first of several readings you’ll do of this text. The purpose of today’s reading is for you to get the gist of the ideas Kahneman explores in this text. This will provide you with a foundation for later tasks that ask you to examine Kahneman’s ideas and writing in more detail. You’ll also identify moments in the text that you find difficult or confusing; this will alert you to places to reread and unpack.

Task Step 1: As you read Thinking, Fast and Slow, please do two things:

Be prepared to share your marked places with a partner.

continued on the next page

Length

Unknown Vocabulary

Step 2: Work with your partner to

TASK Furthering Comprehension 1.3 Kahneman details System 1 and System 2 thinking in this text. • What are the benefits and liabilities of each? • What is the relationship between the two?

Situating the Task Duration TEXT 1 1 class session From Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman 1.1 Conceptual Vocabulary Why This Task Now? The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) said Now that students have read the text once and that “man is the rational animal.” To what extent do worked alone and with others to develop their you agree or disagree with Aristotle’s assertion and comprehension of the big ideas, they are ready why? to continue their study of the text to examine in 1.2 Comprehension more detail Kahneman’s ideas about Systems 1 What do we learn from Kahneman about how we, as and 2 thinking. The purpose of this third task is humans, think? What places are getting in the way for students to understand these two kinds of of your understanding of what Kahneman is trying to thinking and determine their relationship to each say? other. 1.3 Furthering Comprehension Kahneman details System 1 and System 2 thinking in this text. What are the benefits and liabilities of each? What is the relationship between the two? 1.4 Analysis How do audience and purpose influence the ways this writer uses language and constructs his text? How do you as a reader respond to this text? To what extent does this text influence your understanding of and your ideas about humans as rational beings? 1.5 Application In what ways and to what extent do your experiences with visual illusions illustrate the ideas in Kahneman’s text?

Materials • Excerpt from Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman • Chart: Kahneman: How Humans Think • Handout: System 1 and System 2 Thinking • Chart: Kahneman: System 1 and System 2 • Reader/Writer Notebook • Chart paper and markers

Teaching Approach TASK Connecting to the Previous Lesson: Whole Group (5 minutes) 1.3 Purpose: To refresh students’ memories about the big ideas in the excerpt of Thinking, Fast and Slow.

• Begin by asking a few students to share what they learned about how humans think from reading Thinking, Fast and Slow. • If students need support, display the Kahneman: How Humans Think chart.

Setting Up the Task: Whole Group (5 minutes) Purpose: To provide students with clear directions and expectations for the next task on Thinking, Fast and Slow.

• Provide students with the handout titled System 1 and System 2 Thinking (found on page 32).

32 Thinking, Fast and Slow

TASK System 1 and System 2 Thinking 1.3

Purpose In the previous task, you worked independently and together to get the gist of Kahneman’s ideas about how humans think. In this task, you’ll explore Kahneman’s ideas about System 1 and System 2 thinking in more detail. The purpose of this task is for you to deepen your understanding of these two kinds of thinking and the relationship between them.

Task Step 1: Revisit the text and mark places where Kahneman discusses System 1 and System 2 thinking. Make notes about how each of these systems function and under what circumstances.

Step 2: After you review the text and your notes, compose a quick write in response to the following questions in your Reader/Writer Notebook:

• Kahneman details System 1 and System 2 thinking in this text. What are the benefits and liabilities of each? • What is the relationship between the two? (If it’s helpful to you, create a visual to show the relationship between the two systems.)

• Review the handout with students, giving them an opportunity to ask questions and clarify expectations.

Monitoring Student Thinking: Individual Work (15 minutes) Purpose: To provide students with the opportunity to work individually to study Kahneman’s ideas about System 1 and System 2 thinking and to use writing as a tool for thinking—a way to pull their thoughts together and discover what they know and think.

• Ask students to complete the System 1 and System 2 Thinking task. • Circulate around the room to monitor students’ progress. Be on the lookout for students who are having difficulty getting started.

Differentiation If the discussion during Task 1.2 focused on the details of Systems 1 and 2, then students may be able to skip Step 1 of the task and move directly to responding to the quick write question.

If students are having difficulty with this text and this task, you might have students work in pairs or you might bring students together in small groups or as a whole group to guide and prompt their thinking rather than having them work independently.

TASK Monitoring Student Thinking: Pair Work (5 minutes) Purpose: To provide a safe environment with high accountability for students to share their ideas about 1.3 System 1 and System 2 thinking and to hear the ideas of others.

• Ask students to share their quick writes with a partner. Have them listen for the similarities and differences in their responses.

Important Monitoring ideas during pair work can help you structure the whole group discussion to maximize learning and student-to-student interaction. Work to identify the range of responses. Structure the discussion so that the full range of ideas are heard and examined in order to reach consensus about Systems 1 and 2.

Guiding Students to Consensus: Whole Group (10 minutes) Purpose: To provide students an opportunity to share ideas and draw conclusions about Systems 1 and 2.

• Facilitate a discussion about the benefits, liabilities, and relationship between Systems 1 and 2, using students’ quick writes as a starting place. It might be useful to have a display copy of the text so the class can examine sections of the text together. • Add student thinking to a chart titled Kahneman: System 1 and System 2.

Learning Target The following are some possible responses related to the benefits and liabilities of System 1 and System 2 thinking.

Benefits Liabilities System 1 • Automatic • All of the benefits can become • Fast liabilities in certain circumstances • Effortless • Not based on evidence or • No conscious thought needed reasoning • No real attention needed • Cannot be turned off • Based on impressions, intuition, • Can be at odds with System 2 feelings • Can do multiple simple/automatic tasks at once • Makes us functional in daily life System 2 • Draws from memory and • All encompassing knowledge • Requires great effort and attention • Based on evidence or reasoning • Can’t do multiple tasks at once • Makes sense and order of things • Can become “blind” to what we • Maintains control are not attending to • All of the benefits can become liabilities in certain circumstances • Can be turned off • Can be at odds with System 1

Relationship TASK These two systems can work alone when a task requires just one kind of thinking, or they 1.3 can work together when it’s clear that both are needed. When they work well together, they keep each other balanced and in-check, with System 2 analyzing the impressions, intuition, and feelings of System 1 to form beliefs and actions using evidence and memory and knowledge; in this way, energy is spent on areas needing the slower processing of System 2 while taking advantage of the faster moments offered by System 1. However, these two systems can be in conflict with one another, and this causes moments of irrationality for us.

If we imagine these two types as characters, in the way that Kahneman does in his book, it seems that both would like to think they can do the job on their own, but for the complicated kind of thinking most of us do on a daily basis, we need the balance each type brings to the other, and even then we may find ourselves in moments of irrationality, preferring the reasoning of one system to another or not being able to change even when we see the evidence of a problem with our thinking, like the illusion of validity.

Facilitating Metacognitive Work: Whole Group StepBack (5 minutes) Purpose: To make students aware of the mental processes they used to comprehend the text so that they can apply those processes to reading texts in the future.

• Ask students to discuss how this deeper exploration into the two types of thinking influenced their thinking and understanding of the text.

TASK System 1 and System 2 Thinking 1.3

Task Step 1: Revisit the text and mark places where Kahneman discusses System 1 and System 2 thinking. Make notes about how each of these systems function and under what circumstances.

Step 2: After you review the text and your notes, compose a quick write in response to the following questions in your Reader/Writer Notebook:

Analysis TASK 1.4 • How do audience and purpose influence the ways this writer uses language and constructs his text? • How do you as a reader respond to this text? • To what extent does this text influence your understanding of and your ideas about humans as rational beings?

Situating the Task Duration TEXT 1 2 class sessions From Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman 1.1 Conceptual Vocabulary Why This Task Now? The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) said Now that students have read and reread the that “man is the rational animal.” To what extent do text and worked alone and with others to you agree or disagree with Aristotle’s assertion and comprehend the text and study Kahneman’s why? ideas about how humans think, they are ready to 1.2 Comprehension examine the ways in which Kahneman works as What do we learn from Kahneman about how we, as a writer to create his text for his audience. The humans, think? What places are getting in the way purposes of this task are for students to of your understanding of what Kahneman is trying to • study the relationships among audience, say? purpose, and language for how they 1.3 Furthering Comprehension o interact and influence each other, Kahneman details System 1 and System 2 thinking o influence a reader’s response to in this text. What are the benefits and liabilities of the text, each? What is the relationship between the two? o influence a reader’s understanding of 1.4 Analysis the ideas in the text. How do audience and purpose influence the ways • practice writing an explanation. this writer uses language and constructs his text? How do you as a reader respond to this text? To what This task also scaffolds students toward the extent does this text influence your understanding of Writing Across Texts assignment. and your ideas about humans as rational beings? 1.5 Application In what ways and to what extent do your experiences with visual illusions illustrate the ideas in Kahneman’s text?

Materials • Excerpt from Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman • Handout: Analysis of Thinking, Fast and Slow • Chart: Kahneman as a Writer • Reader/Writer Notebook • Chart paper and markers

TASK Teaching Approach 1.4 Setting Up the Task: Whole Group (3 minutes) Purpose: To provide students with clear directions and expectations for the next task on Thinking, Fast and Slow.

• Provide students with the handout titled Analysis of Thinking, Fast and Slow (found on pages 40-41).

40 Thinking, Fast and Slow

TASK Analysis of Thinking, Fast and Slow 1.4

Purpose This next task builds from the work you have already done with Thinking, Fast and Slow. Up to now, you have read and reread and worked alone and with others to comprehend the text and study Kahneman’s ideas about how humans think. Now you will examine the ways in which Kahneman works as a writer to create his text for his audience and analyze how that construction influences a reader’s response to it as well as a reader’s understanding of the ideas in it. This task also gives you an opportunity to practice writing an explanation and will help to prepare you for the Writing Across Texts assignment.

Task Step 1

Working individually, review the text with an eye to the way Kahneman has constructed this text. Take some notes about your observations:

• What do you notice about the way Kahneman has crafted his text? You might consider some or all of the following: o word choice o tone o structure of sentences and paragraphs o text features o use of figurative language o what counts as evidence or expertise o use of examples o how he positions himself as the writer o use of narrative o how he positions the reader

If you find yourself getting stuck, you might think about how this text is different from other informational texts you have read (different from articles or textbooks, for example), or think about what surprised you about how this text was written as you were reading it.

Step 2

Working in trios, share and discuss your observations about how Kahneman’s text is constructed. Chart your combined list, and then review it as a group before discussing, and coming to some consensus about, the following questions:

• Who seems to be Kahneman’s intended audience? • What seems to be Kahneman’s purpose in this text? • What about the text leads you to your conclusions about audience and purpose?

Add these to your chart and post for our gallery walk and discussion.

• Review the “Purpose” and “Step 1” of the task on the handout with students, giving them an opportunity to ask questions and clarify expectations.

Differentiation There are several ways to engage students in this task depending on students’ proficiency and experience with talking about matters of writers’ craft and construction. The approach below provides scaffolding to support students in how to approach the task and how to generate and organize their ideas.

• Steps 1 and 2 provide scaffolding for the heart of the task, which is Step 3. Some students might be able to skip Steps 1 and 2, or move very quickly through them alone, and begin the task with Step 3. • Some students may need your support or the support of their peers, so you may also want to consider switching some of the individual work to pair work.

Monitoring Student Thinking: Individual Work (15 minutes) Purpose: To provide students with the opportunity to work independently to examine how Kahneman has constructed his text.

• Ask students to complete Step 1 the Analysis of Thinking, Fast and Slow task. • As students are working, circulate around the room to provide support and assistance as needed.

Learning Target TASK Below are some possible observations about how Kahneman has crafted his text (Step 1): 1.4

Chapter 1:

• First chapter written using 2nd person (“you”)—conversational, like he’s talking just to me. • Uses pictures. • Uses bullets/lists. • Uses academic language. • Uses everyday examples (angry woman, math problem, driving, etc.) (lines 1-9, 10-18, 53- 64, 87-100, 117). • Provides tasks/examples for readers to try (math problem, Figure 2). • First sentence is a command to the reader—actively brings you into text (line 1). • Personifies the systems—makes them characters in the book (lines 40-41).

Chapter 20:

• Chapter 20—shifts to 1st person. • Uses narrative and less academic language—the story about his time in the army to help explain his ideas (lines 212-259). • More figurative language and imagery (lines 212-213, 225-226, 239-240, 244-245). • Shows his own fallibility in experiment with soldiers (lines 212-259). • Self-effacing (lines 286-296).

Both Chapters:

• Authoritative but inclusive in tone (e.g., lines 42-44). • Seems very certain of his ideas (e.g., lines 2-9). • Isn’t “evidence” like we’re used to seeing in informational texts (very few researchers or research cited, although he does include gorilla study and later Nisbett & Borgida). • Is an expert in the field. • Uses sections with headings. • Uses varying paragraph lengths. • Uses varying sentence lengths. • Uses dash to help reader understand (defines or explains). • No parenthetical citations or footnotes citing where information is coming from.

Monitoring Student Thinking: Trio Work (10 minutes) Purpose: To provide a safe environment with high accountability for students to share their observations about Kahneman’s construction of his text and consider the relationship to audience and purpose.

• Ask students to get into trios. • Review Step 2 of the Analysis of Thinking, Fast and Slow task on the handout, giving students an opportunity to ask questions and clarify expectations.

TASK 40 Thinking, Fast and Slow TASK Analysis of Thinking, Fast and Slow 1.4 1.4 Purpose This next task builds from the work you have already done with Thinking, Fast and Slow. Up to now, you have read and reread and worked alone and with others to comprehend the text and study Kahneman’s ideas about how humans think. Now you will examine the ways in which Kahneman works as a writer to create his text for his audience and analyze how that construction influences a reader’s response to it as well as a reader’s understanding of the ideas in it. This task also gives you an opportunity to practice writing an explanation and will help to prepare you for the Writing Across Texts assignment.

Task Step 1

Working individually, review the text with an eye to the way Kahneman has constructed this text. Take some notes about your observations:

Step 2

• Who seems to be Kahneman’s intended audience? • What seems to be Kahneman’s purpose in this text? • What about the text leads you to your conclusions about audience and purpose?

Add these to your chart and post for our gallery walk and discussion.

• Ask students to complete Step 2 of the task. Circulate around the room and listen in on students’ thinking, providing support as needed.

Facilitating Student Sensemaking: Whole Group Gallery Walk (5 minutes) Purpose: To provide a safe environment with high accountability for students to share their ideas and see the ideas of others.

• Have students participate in a gallery walk to view all of the charts. As they view the charts, ask them to think about the similarities and differences among them.

Important Monitoring ideas during group work and the gallery walk can help you structure the whole group discussion to maximize learning and student-to-student interaction. Work to identify the range of responses represented in the charts. Structure the discussion so that the full range of ideas is heard and examined, and so that any misconceptions can be explored further.

• If most students’ observations are substantial, comprehensive, and accurate, then you might simply have students note the similarities and differences. • If there are only a few students who have substantial, comprehensive, and accurate observations, you might consider asking those students to explain their charts and their discussion.

Facilitating Student Sensemaking: Whole Group (10 minutes) Purposes: To provide students the opportunity to engage in an academic discussion with their peers to explore their observations about Kahneman’s crafting of the text and its audience and purpose, and to enable students to practice orally supporting and explaining ideas using textual evidence.

• Bring students together as a whole group and facilitate a discussion about the similarities and differences they noticed in the groups’ charts. • Gather ideas that run across the charts onto a chart titled, Kahneman as a Writer. • Review Step 3 of the Analysis of Thinking, Fast and Slow task on the handout, giving students an opportunity to ask questions and clarify expectations.

Thinking, Fast and Slow 41 TASK Step 3 TASK Working individually, compose an explanation in response to the following questions. Be sure to 1.4 ground your explanation in evidence from the text and include reasoning to link the evidence to 1.4 your ideas:

• How does audience and purpose influence the ways this writer uses language and constructs his text? • How do you as a reader respond to this text? Did you find it convincing? Engaging? Something else? What about the text’s construction accounts for your response?

Please be prepared to share and discuss your quick write with your peers.

Learning Target Below are some possible observations about Kahneman’s audience and purpose (Step 2):

Audience:

• Kahneman is writing for people who are not experts on the brain. o He uses everyday language and everyday examples (for example, lines 10-18). o He directly addresses the reader by using “you.”

Purpose:

• Kahneman is writing to inform non-experts about how the brain works. o He uses headings and easy-to-understand lists as well as definitions that anyone can understand (e.g., lines 30; 35-39; 51-64). o He helps the reader understand his ideas about the brain through using relatable examples of the cognitive systems (e.g., lines 125-140).

Monitoring Student Thinking: Individual Work (15 minutes) Purposes: To provide students with the opportunity to work independently to synthesize their understanding of and observations about how Kahneman has constructed his text given his audience and purpose, and explain the impact on them as readers and on their understanding of how humans think. To provide students with the opportunity to use writing as a tool for thinking, a way to pull their thoughts together and discover what they know and think.

• Ask students to work individually to complete Step 3 of the Analysis of Thinking, Fast and Slow task. • As students are working, circulate around the room to provide support and assistance as needed.

TASK Learning Target 1.4 Below is one possible response to the quick write: In these excerpts from Kahneman’s book, Kahneman seems to be writing as an expert but for a non-expert, everyday audience so that they can understand the ways in which our brains work and sometimes don’t work so well. The way he has written this text provides clues as to his intended purpose and audience. His language is engaging and appeals to those who might not be familiar with heavy research or academic talk. One of the ways he does this is by directly addressing the reader with the use of “you” and by using everyday examples (e.g., lines 10-18), his personal story (lines 212-280), along with features like headings, bulleted lists, and embedded definitions (e.g., lines 160-162) to help the reader. Even though his readers know he is an expert and he maintains a tone of certainty, he also shows his own fallibility in experiencing cognitive bias, which makes him more relatable. Even though this text is different from some other informational texts I have read, like articles in The New Yorker or The Atlantic that contain a lot of information cited from different sources and experts, I find his text to be interesting and convincing while also being inviting and friendly.

Facilitating Student Sensemaking: Whole Group Inquiry-Based Discussion (15-20 minutes) Purpose: To provide students the opportunity to engage in an academic discussion with their peers to explore their understanding about how audience and purpose influence the ways Kahneman uses language.

• Bring students together as a whole group. Ask them to put their desks in a horseshoe or circle so they can see each other. • Facilitate an inquiry-based discussion in which students share their responses to the quick writes. • Encourage students to ask each other questions and press each other for evidence and reasoning. • Add any additional thoughts as needed to the Kahneman as a Writer chart. • Close the discussion by asking students: o Given all that you’ve noticed and we’ve discussed, to what extent does this text influence your understanding of and your ideas about humans as rational beings? Why?

Facilitating Metacognitive Work: Whole Group StepBack (5 minutes) Purpose: To make visible for students how their ideas have changed as a result of rereading and discussing them with their peers.

• Ask students to reread and make some notes about how they might revise their quick writes as a result of discussing them with their peers. • Ask students to discuss their revision ideas.

Differentiation TASK If students need practice in writing effective explanations, have them revise their quick 1.4 writes for homework. As part of their revisions, students should work to provide explanations that include clearly stated ideas, relevant textual evidence to support their ideas, and clear reasoning that articulates how the evidence supports or links to their ideas.

Collect students’ explanations now or in the following lesson. Review their explanations to gauge their understanding of the text; to determine what support students need in order to develop, support, and explain their ideas effectively; and to identify student samples that may serve as models of effective explanations.

Effective explanations will include clearly stated ideas, relevant textual evidence to support their ideas, and clear reasoning that articulates how the evidence supports or links to their ideas. Use this knowledge and the student samples to plan follow-up mini-lessons focused on supporting students to write effective explanations.

We suggest using the samples in the following way:

Identify the aspects of writing an effective explanation that many students are finding difficult. For example, many students have difficulty providing clear reasoning that articulates how the evidence supports or links to their ideas. Locate papers that do this effectively, and in different ways, so that students can see there are various ways to incorporate and explain evidence. Ask the authors of those papers you identified if you can share their work with the class. Photocopy those papers without students’ names, and ask the class to talk about where and how the author explains how the evidence they selected supports or links to their ideas.

TASK Analysis of Thinking, Fast and Slow 1.4

Task Step 1

Working individually, review the text with an eye to the way Kahneman has constructed this text. Take some notes about your observations:

Step 2

• Who seems to be Kahneman’s intended audience? • What seems to be Kahneman’s purpose in this text? • What about the text leads you to your conclusions about audience and purpose?

Add these to your chart and post for our gallery walk and discussion.

Step 3 TASK Working individually, compose an explanation in response to the following questions. Be sure to 1.4 ground your explanation in evidence from the text and include reasoning to link the evidence to your ideas:

Please be prepared to share and discuss your quick write with your peers.

TASK Application 1.5 In what ways and to what extent do your experiences with visual illusions illustrate the ideas in Kahneman’s text?

Situating the Task Duration TEXT 1 1 class session From Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman 1.1 Conceptual Vocabulary Why This Task Now? The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) said Building from the work students have done to that “man is the rational animal.” To what extent do comprehend and analyze Thinking, Fast and you agree or disagree with Aristotle’s assertion and Slow, this final task asks students to apply their why? understanding of Kahneman’s ideas to their 1.2 Comprehension experiences with visual illusions. The purposes What do we learn from Kahneman about how we, as of this task are for students to humans, think? What places are getting in the way of your understanding of what Kahneman is trying to • analyze their experiences with visual say? illusions, 1.3 Furthering Comprehension • practice explaining something in writing, Kahneman details System 1 and System 2 thinking • demonstrate and extend their understanding in this text. What are the benefits and liabilities of of Kahneman’s text, and each? What is the relationship between the two? • bring some closure to their work with this text before students turn their attention to 1.4 Analysis the second text in the unit. How do audience and purpose influence the ways this writer uses language and constructs his text? This task also introduces the final Writing How do you as a reader respond to this text? To what Across Texts task and initiates students to Part 1 extent does this text influence your understanding of of the task. and your ideas about humans as rational beings? 1.5 Application In what ways and to what extent do your experiences with visual illusions illustrate the ideas in Kahneman’s text?

Materials • Excerpt from Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman • Handout: Visual Illusions and Kahneman’s Ideas • Visual Illusions (*see Important note below) • Chart: Kahneman: How Humans Think • Handout: Writing Across Texts • Reader/Writer Notebook • Chart paper and markers

Teaching Approach TASK 1.5 Important This task requires the use of visual illusions, which can be projected for the whole class or provided individually to students as handouts. The choice of illusions is up to you, but there are some well-known samples that are easily found via a Google image search that are particularly applicable to the ideas in Kahneman’s text. These include the Muller-Lyer, the Jastrow, the Fraser spiral, barberpole, Blivet, checker shadow, Ebbingehaus, Hering, and Zollner. An additional recommended resource for these illusions is MacDonald, M. (2008). Distortions and mismeasurements. Your brain: The missing manual. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media.

These illusions allow students to experience the struggle between Systems 1 and 2 as well as the inability to change what they think they see even after they understand what they are really seeing.

Setting Up the Task: Whole Group (3 minutes) Purpose: To provide students with clear directions and expectations for the final task onThinking, Fast and Slow.

• Provide students with the handout titled Visual Illusions and Kahneman’s Ideas (found on page 46).

46 Thinking, Fast and Slow

TASK Visual Illusions and 1.5 Kahneman’s Ideas

Purpose Now that you’ve completed your individual and group study of Kahneman’s ideas and methods as a writer, you are now ready to apply your understanding of his text to a new experience. The purpose of this task is for you to analyze your experiences with visual illusions, extend your understanding of Kahneman’s text, and bring some closure to our work with this text before we turn our attention to the second text in the unit.

Task Working with a partner:

Step 1: Review the visual illusions. Make note of your individual observations and challenges as well as similarities and differences in your experiences in viewing the illusions.

Step 2: Review the work we have done (class charts and your Reader/Writer Notebook) with Kahneman’s text to discuss how his ideas about how humans think apply to your experiences with the illusions. Take notes on your discussion.

Working individually:

Step 3: Compose a quick write in response to the following question:

• In what ways do your experiences with visual illusions illustrate the ideas in Kahneman’s text?

Please be prepared to share your response with the class during discussion.

• Review the handout with students, giving them an opportunity to ask questions and clarify expectations.

Monitoring Student Thinking: Pair and Individual Work (15 minutes) Purpose: To provide a safe environment with high accountability for students to share their experiences with the visual illusions and their ideas about how their experiences relate to the ideas in Kahneman’s text.

• Ask students to complete Steps 1 and 2 on the Visual Illusions and Kahneman’s Ideas task. As students are working, circulate around the room to provide support and assistance as needed. • When most students are finished with Steps 1 and 2, ask them to move to Step 3. • When students have finished their quick writes, have them share their ideas with their partners. • Listen in on students’ conversations as they are sharing their quick writes. Make mental notes of the range of student interpretations so that you can be sure that these interpretations are explored and discussed in the upcoming inquiry-based discussion.

TASK Facilitating Student Sensemaking: Whole Group Discussion (15 minutes) Purposes: To provide students the opportunity to engage in an academic discussion with their peers to 1.5 explore how their experiences with visual illusions relate to the ideas in Kahneman’s text. To enable students to practice developing, supporting, and explaining an idea using textual evidence.

• Facilitate an inquiry-based discussion in which students share their responses to the quick write. • Let students know that they will soon be turning their attention to the second text in the unit, “The Backfire Effect.” As a way to wrap up and take stock of their learning over the last few days, ask students to review the Kahneman: How Humans Think chart and share what else they should add. Record new responses on the chart.

Setting Up the Task: Whole Group (10 minutes) Purpose: To provide students with clear directions and expectations for their final task, which asks them to conduct their own investigation and apply their understanding of the two unit texts to make sense of their observations in order to synthesize their learning in this unit.

• Provide each student with the handout titled Writing Across Texts (found on pages 47-48).

Thinking, Fast and Slow 47

Writing Across Texts: TASK Thinking, Fast and Slow and 1.5 “The Backfire Effect”

Purpose During the last few lessons, we have been reading, writing about, and talking about Kahneman’s text, Thinking, Fast and Slow. We are about to turn our attention to “The Backfire Effect” by David McRaney, and will continue to consider each author’s ideas about humans’ ability to be rational animals. We will then read across the texts, considering where their ideas overlap, build, and diverge and also study and compare the ways in which Kahneman and McRaney work as writers to construct their texts for their audiences. All of this work will support you to engage in the three parts of this final task.

This final unit task, which you will start working on today, will require you to apply your thinking across both texts to your own “research” about our capacity to be rational animals. The purposes of this task are for you to (1) determine and explain how the results of your own research confirm, challenge, and extend the ideas in Kahneman’s and McRaney’s texts; (2) revisit and revise your own thinking about the concept of rationality; and (3) engage as a writer in work similar to that of Kahneman and McRaney to explain and support your own ideas for an audience of your peers. This task requires you to incorporate evidence from both texts.

Task Part 1

Robert Provine4 explains that sidewalk neuroscience is “a scientific approach to everyday behavior based on simple observations and demonstrations that readers, even advanced grade-schoolers, can use to confirm, challenge, or extend the reported findings.”

For the first part of this final task, engage in your own sidewalk neuroscience to collect some observations about the extent to which you and/or others you know are rational. You don’t have to devise a study or experiment. Instead, do what Provine’s researchers do: be alert to experiences that relate to the ideas we have and will be discussing from these texts.

Chances are these experiences happen more frequently than you might think. You’ll find them in places like your own living room or kitchen, on social media, in the comments sections of online articles or blogs, in school, at practice, at work, anywhere where people might be engaged in some

4 Provine, R. (2014). Curious behavior: Yawning, laughing, hiccupping, and beyond. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

• Ask students to read the entire handout. • Review each part of the task with students, giving them an opportunity to ask questions and clarify expectations.

Teacher Note Each of the three parts of the final task will be given additional attention as you move through the unit. It is okay at this point if students don’t have complete clarity about all the specifics of each part. What follows below delves more deeply into Part 1. Such attention will be given to Part 2 in Task 2.4 and to Part 3 in the instruction for the Writing Across Texts lesson.

Monitoring Student Thinking: Pair Work (5 minutes) Purposes: To provide students with individual time to manage their own learning and to consider how they will approach the work of Part 1 of the task; to identify what students know about how to tackle such assignments.

• Ask students to take a few minutes to work in pairs to reread Part 1 of the handout and generate a list TASK of the steps they might follow to work through this part (Part 1) of the task. • As students are working, circulate around the room to skim the steps students generate. Identify 1.5 students whose steps might benefit the entire class.

Facilitating Student Sensemaking: Whole Group (5-7 minutes) Purpose: To enable students to share and learn from others about effective ways to approach and manage Part 1 of this task.

• Ask the previously identified students to share the steps they listed. Hear from multiple students. Encourage active listening by asking students to have an ear tuned to the steps that they find most helpful. • Ask students to share the steps they found most helpful. If needed, work as a class to generate a list of the steps students might follow to work through the task. • Wrap up the conversation by negotiating a deadline with students for when they will bring in their research notes to share. Task 2.4 outlines the sharing of Part 1 and delving into Part 2 of the Writing Across Texts task.

Learning Target Ideally, students will generate steps similar to the ones below. Students might have additional steps or articulate the steps in very different language, but their steps should encompass the following ways of approaching and working through the task.

Students:

• reread the text, class charts, and their notes to identify moments that speak to Kahneman’s, and eventually McRaney’s, ideas about how humans think and their ability to be rational. • generate a list of possible situations where they or people they know might be engaged in a “rational” discussion, perhaps trying to convince another of something. • plan how they will capture these conversations: recording, note-taking, transcribing, etc. • try out their methods of capturing a conversation and revise as needed. • plan to gather conversations (more than needed) so that they have a variety from which to choose.

Teacher Note We have included in this unit a student sample of the Writing Across Texts task (see pages 81-83). Please know that this sample is not an exemplar model. Use knowledge of your students’ needs to decide when (if at all) seeing this sample might be beneficial for students. For instance, if students are struggling during Part 1 with imagining what kinds of moments they might examine, seeing this sample might help them see a couple of concrete examples.

TASK Visual Illusions and 1.5 Kahneman’s Ideas

Task

Working with a partner:

Step 1: Review the visual illusions. Make note of your individual observations and challenges as well as similarities and differences in your experiences in viewing the illusions.

Working individually:

Step 3: Compose a quick write in response to the following question:

• In what ways do your experiences with visual illusions illustrate the ideas in Kahneman’s text?

Please be prepared to share your response with the class during discussion.

Writing Across Texts: TASK Thinking, Fast and Slow and 1.5 “The Backfire Effect”

This final unit task, which you will start working on today, will require you to apply your thinking across both texts to your own research about our capacity to be rational animals. The purposes of this task are for you to (1) determine and explain how the results of your own research confirm, challenge, and extend the ideas in Kahneman’s and McRaney’s texts; (2) revisit and revise your own thinking about the concept of rationality; and (3) engage as a writer in work similar to that of Kahneman and McRaney to explain and support your own ideas for an audience of your peers. This task requires you to incorporate evidence from both texts.

Task Part 1

4 Provine, R. (2014). Curious behavior: Yawning, laughing, hiccupping, and beyond. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Over the next week or so, keep a notebook handy and work to collect three to five of these conversations. Be prepared to share and discuss your transcriptions and notes with your peers.

Part 2

For the next part of this final task, analyze two or three of your collected conversations. What do the interactions say about our abilities to be rational and the challenges we encounter in our pursuit of reason? Connect what you see in the evidence of your transcriptions and notes to the ideas discussed in the two unit texts and in class in order to make and support your interpretations of these interactions. As with Part 1, be prepared to share your interpretations with your peers.

Part 3

A few reminders for Part 3:

• You will have many notes in your Reader/Writer Notebook and on the texts themselves to support you to write your essay. Reread the texts and your notes before you begin planning your essay. • Your evidence for this essay should come from your research notes and the two unit texts— Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman and “The Backfire Effect” by David McRaney—as well as our class discussions and your peers’ research about additional cognitive biases. • Make sure to fully develop, support, and explain your ideas. Remember that an effective explanation includes clearly stated ideas, relevant textual evidence to support your ideas, and clear reasoning that articulates how the evidence supports or links to your ideas. • Your essay should be structured so that it is cohesive and easy-to-follow. How you organize your essay and the number of paragraphs you use to develop your ideas is up to you. • When you refer to a specific line from the texts, be sure to quote it accurately and provide the author’s name (if it is not clear from how you’ve introduced the quotation) and line number where the quotation can be found.

“The Backfire Effect” 51

Comprehension TASK 2.1 • What more do you learn about how humans think from McRaney’s text? • What places are getting in the way of your understanding of what McRaney is trying to say?

Situating the Task Duration TEXT 2 2 class sessions “The Backfire Effect” by David McRaney 2.1 Comprehension Why This Task Now? What more do you learn about how humans think This task asks students to read McRaney’s blog from McRaney’s text? What places are getting in to (a) determine what more they learn about the way of your understanding of what McRaney is how humans think and (b) mark moments that trying to say? are confusing and difficult to understand. This 2.2 Interpretation Across Texts is the first of several readings students will do. Using your understanding of both Kahneman’s and The purpose of this first task is two-fold: McRaney’s texts, revise your response to Task 1.1. After you revise, go back and view your revision • The purpose of “a” is for students to get through the lens of McRaney’s discussion of the the gist of the big ideas so that they have confirmation bias and/or the backfire effect and/ a foundation from which to work for later or Kahneman’s illusion of validity: what do you tasks that ask them to examine McRaney’s notice about the rationality of your own ideas in this ideas in more detail as well as ways he revision? works with language and structure to create 2.3 Analysis his text. How does audience and purpose influence the • The purpose of “b” is for students to ways this writer uses language and constructs his identify places of difficulty to unpack on a text? How is this text similar to and different from second reading and for teachers to learn Kahneman’s? How do you as a reader respond to what aspects of the text students are this text? To what extent does this text influence finding difficult. your understanding of and your ideas about humans as rational beings? 2.4 Application Kahneman and McRaney discuss just some of the many kinds of cognitive biases that can impact our thinking. Research another cognitive bias and share your findings with the class.

Materials • “The Backfire Effect” by David McRaney • Handout: Comprehension of “The Backfire Effect” • Chart: McRaney: How Humans Think • Reader/Writer Notebook • Chart paper and markers

TASK Teaching Approach 2.1 Teacher Note We placed “The Backfire Effect” as the second text in this unit because it builds upon the ideas initiated by Kahneman’s text and focuses on another cognitive bias. This text is in some ways an easier read in that it is a blog post, uses common language, draws from sources in ways that are familiar for students, and allows students to see the application of some of Kahneman’s ideas in common and relatable examples.

Connect to Previous Text: Whole Group (3 minutes) Purpose: To introduce students to the second text in the unit.

• Let students know that today they will continue their study of how humans think and their reading of informational texts by reading the second text: “The Backfire Effect,” a blog by David McRaney.

Setting Up the Task: Whole Group (5 minutes) Purpose: To provide students with clear directions and expectations for the comprehension task on “The Backfire Effect.”

• Provide students with the handout titled Comprehension of “The Backfire Effect” (found on page 56). • Review the handout with students, giving them an opportunity to ask questions and clarify expectations.

56 “The Backfire Effect”

TASK Comprehension of 2.1 “The Backfire Effect”

Purpose Today you will read “The Backfire Effect” by David McRaney. This is the first of several readings you’ll do of this text. The purpose of today’s reading is for you to get the gist of the ideas that McRaney explores in this text. This will provide you with a foundation for later tasks that ask you to examine these ideas and McRaney’s writing in more detail. You’ll also identify moments in the text that you find difficult or confusing; this will alert you to places to reread and unpack.

Task Step 1: Just like you did during your first reading of Kahneman’s text, as you read “The Backfire Effect” please do two things:

1. Make note of places where you learn something from McRaney about how we, as humans, think. Mark places where McRaney states his ideas directly and places where you can infer his ideas through the examples, research, and other information he provides. 2 Identify moments in the text where you are confused or unsure of what McRaney is trying to say. Don’t mark every unknown word. Instead, mark places where you are having difficulty figuring out the gist of what McRaney is writing.

Be prepared to share your marked places with a partner.

Step 2: Work with your partner to

• share and discuss places where you are learning something about how humans think. Try to restate these parts in your own words. • share places where it was difficult to understand what McRaney is trying to say. • figure out unfamiliar vocabulary. Talk through trouble spots to restate the sentence or section in more familiar terms. • prepare a response to the question: o What more do you learn from McRaney’s text about how people think?

• Remind students of the Tips for Reading that they used for reading Thinking, Fast and Slow on the Comprehension of Thinking, Fast and Slow handout.

Teacher Note TASK If students no longer have their Comprehension of Thinking, Fast and Slow handouts, you 2.1 may want to post the tips in a place where students can refer back to them as they read.

Length

Unknown Vocabulary

• Skip over the word, especially when you’re able to get the gist of the sentence or passage. • Figure out what the word represents or describes. For example, does it represent or describe a job or career, a psychological condition, or research method? Is it a proper noun, such as an unfamiliar city or a name? Sometimes that information is enough to get the gist of a sentence or passage. • Read the words before and after the unfamiliar word to see if McRaney defines it. • Mark places where your overall comprehension is halted and move on. You can return to those places at a later time.

Monitoring Independent Reading: Individual Work (30 minutes) Purpose: To give students practice in reading a complex text on their own.

• Ask students to read the “The Backfire Effect” following the directions for Step 1 on the Comprehension of “The Backfire Effect” handout. • As students are reading, circulate around the room to monitor students’ progress. Be on the lookout for students who are having difficulty with staying focused or marking the text. If necessary, pull small groups of students together to read the text or review marking the text. • Have students finish reading and marking the text for homework if they do not finish in class.

Important Engage students in the rest of the lesson after they have finished reading “The Backfire Effect.”

Monitoring Student Thinking: Pair Work (10 minutes) Purpose: To provide a safe environment with high accountability for students to share their ideas and hear the ideas of others.

• Ask students to meet in pairs to complete Step 2 of the Comprehension of “The Backfire Effect” handout.

TASK Differentiation 2.1 Monitor students’ ideas during the pair work. Make mental notes of students’ misunderstandings about the text and places where they struggled. Use this knowledge to determine points that might need to be clarified during the upcoming whole group discussion.

Guiding Students to Consensus: Whole Group (10-15 minutes) Purpose: To enable students to reach a common understanding about what more they learn from this text about how humans think, and to determine what students find difficult, interesting, and surprising about the text.

• Bring students together as a whole group. • Begin by asking students to share some of the most interesting or surprising things they learned from this text. Collect a few responses. Use this as a way to get students to begin talking about this text. • Ask students to share what more they learned from McRaney’s text about how humans think. Remind students to refer to specific places in the text to support their responses. • Record students’ responses on chart paper. Title the chart: McRaney: How Humans Think. • Next, invite a few students to share moments that got in the way of their understanding of what McRaney is trying to say. Support students to articulate what about the moment they found difficult or confusing. After one person shares, ask if there are others who marked the same moment, and why, and what they did to untangle it with their partner.

Learning Target Here are some possible responses for what more we learn from this text about how humans think:

• There are two other cognitive biases: confirmation bias and the backfire effect. • The backfire effect happens when we are confronted with information that challenges our existing beliefs and we find ways to become more deeply entrenched in our existing beliefs (lines 31-36; 101-105). • Humans tend to believe narrative scripts—stories we want to hear or those that conform to our beliefs—rather than stories that integrate new and potentially conflicting information or that problematize our thinking (lines 55-60; 69-72). • Confirmation bias and biased assimilation keep people from switching their beliefs. The way humans think about a subject is shaped by attitudes and ideologies, and they will interpret new information in a way that supports their thinking based on these attitudes and ideologies (lines 136-146; 153-167). • The technological age seems to have increased the likelihood that we will be impacted by the backfire effect, as we have access to our choice of information from which to build our beliefs, thereby strengthening our existing stance and rejecting any counter-information (lines 64-72; 101-105; 201-209).

Facilitating Metacognitive Work: Whole Group StepBack (3 minutes) TASK Purpose: To make students aware of the mental processes they used to comprehend the text so that they can apply those processes to reading texts in the future. 2.1

• Remind students of the earlier conversation they had about text length and vocabulary with Kahneman’s text. • Have students share how they managed these challenges with McRaney’s text. Encourage students to share and record any new tips they have.

TASK Comprehension of 2.1 “The Backfire Effect”

Task Step 1: Just like you did during your first reading of Kahneman’s text, as you read “The Backfire Effect” please do two things:

Be prepared to share your marked places with a partner.

Step 2: Work with your partner to

• share and discuss places where you are learning something about how humans think. Try to restate these parts in your own words. • share places where it was difficult to understand what McRaney is trying to say. • figure out unfamiliar vocabulary. Talk through trouble spots to restate the sentence or section in more familiar terms. • prepare a response to the question: o What more do you learn from McRaney’s text about how people think?

Interpretation Across Texts TASK 2.2 • Using your understanding of both Kahneman’s and McRaney’s texts, revise your response to Task 1.1. • After you revise, go back and view your revision through the lens of McRaney’s discussion of the confirmation bias and/or the backfire effect and/or Kahneman’s illusion of validity: what do you notice about the rationality of your own ideas in this revision?

Situating the Task Duration TEXT 2 2-3 class sessions “The Backfire Effect” by David McRaney 2.1 Comprehension Why This Task Now? What more do you learn about how humans think from Now that students have an understanding McRaney’s text? What places are getting in the way of your of the ideas in McRaney’s text, they are understanding of what McRaney is trying to say? ready to apply their understanding of the 2.2 Interpretation Across Texts two unit texts by revisiting their initial Using your understanding of both Kahneman’s and McRaney’s writings from Task 1.1. The purposes of texts, revise your response to Task 1.1. After you revise, go back this second task are for students to: and view your revision through the lens of McRaney’s discussion of the confirmation bias and/or the backfire effect and/or • synthesize their understanding of the Kahneman’s illusion of validity: what do you notice about the two unit texts. rationality of your own ideas in this revision? • apply their understanding of the 2.3 Analysis two unit texts to revisit and revise How does audience and purpose influence the ways this writer their initial responses from Task 1.1, uses language and constructs his text? How is this text similar which asked them to what extent to and different from Kahneman’s? How do you as a reader they agreed with Aristotle’s assertion respond to this text? To what extent does this text influence that we are rational animals. your understanding of and your ideas about humans as rational • review their revisions for evidence of beings? the cognitive biases discussed by the 2.4 Application two writers. Kahneman and McRaney discuss just some of the many kinds of • continue to practice writing cognitive biases that can impact our thinking. Research another explanations with textual evidence cognitive bias and share your findings with the class. and reasoning.

Materials • “The Backfire Effect” by David McRaney • Excerpt from Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman • Handout: Interpretation Across Texts • Chart: McRaney: How Humans Think • Chart: Kahneman: How Humans Think • Quick writes from Task 1.1 • Reader/Writer Notebook • Chart paper and markers © 2015 University of Pittsburgh – English Language Arts Unit, Grade 11: Are We Fooling Ourselves? 58 “The Backfire Effect”

TASK Teaching Approach 2.2 Setting Up the Task: Whole Group (5 minutes) Purpose: To provide students with clear directions and expectations for the next task on “The Backfire Effect” and Thinking, Fast and Slow.

• Provide students with the handout titled Interpretation Across Texts (found on page 61).

“The Backfire Effect” 61

Interpretation Across Texts TASK 2.2

Purpose Now that you have an understanding of the big ideas in McRaney’s text, you are ready to synthesize and apply your understanding of the two unit texts. The purposes of this task are for you to revise your initial response from Task 1.1, where you explain to what extent you agreed with Aristotle’s assertion that we are rational animals, and then review your revision for evidence of the cognitive biases discussed by the two writers. This task also gives you another opportunity to practice writing an explanation and will help to prepare you for the Writing Across Texts assignment. Task Step 1: Working individually,

• review both texts, your notes, and our class charts to refresh your memory of the big ideas of these two texts and our discussions of them. • review your initial quick write from Task 1.1. Then using your understanding of both Kahneman’s and McRaney’s texts and writing explanations, revise your response. • be prepared to share and discuss your revisions with the class. Step 2: Working in a trio, • have each person read both their original and revised quick writes aloud to the group, and then discuss the changes they made and the reasons for those changes. • listeners should press the writers for reasoning and ask questions as needed. • once everyone has had a chance to share, each person should make any additional revisions as needed. Step 3: Working individually, • reread your revision through the lens of McRaney’s discussion of the confirmation bias and/or the backfire effect and/or Kahneman’s illusion of validity. • compose a new quick write in response to the following question: o What do you notice about the rationality of your own ideas in this revision? Step 4: Working in your trio, • have each person share the new quick write and any observations about his/her own rationality. • listeners should press the writers for reasoning and ask questions as needed. • be prepared to share your discussion with the class.

• Review the handout with students, giving them an opportunity to ask questions and clarify expectations.

Monitoring Student Thinking: Individual Work (30 minutes) Purposes: To revise their ideas about the extent to which humans are rational by applying their new understanding of the two unit texts, and to use writing as a tool for thinking.

• Have students work alone on Step 1 of the Interpretation Across Texts task. • Circulate around the room as students are working to provide support and assistance.

Facilitating Student Sensemaking: Trio Work (20 minutes) Purpose: To provide students an opportunity to share and discuss their revisions and thinking with their peers about the concept of humans as rational animals, given their understanding of the unit texts.

• Have students work in trios on Step 2 of the Interpretation Across Texts task. • Once again, circulate around the room to get a sense of the full range of ideas and consider how to structure the upcoming whole group discussion so that these ideas are examined and discussed.

Differentiation TASK If students are new to providing feedback to their peers and asking questions about peer 2.2 writing, bring students together in small groups or as a whole group and model the process of conferring about a piece of writing.

• Ask for a volunteer to have his/her quick write reviewed by the group. • Display an enlarged copy of the student’s quick write. • Working as a group, review the quick write. Model asking—and helping students to ask—useful and specific questions about the student writing as well as helping students identify where reasoning may need to be added. • When you and the group have finished reviewing and providing feedback, ask the student to share what s/he learned from the group’s feedback and to talk about how s/he will revise the quick write given the feedback.

Monitoring Student Thinking: Individual Work (15 minutes) Purposes: To apply their new understanding about how humans think to analyze their own rationality in their revised quick write, and to use writing as a tool for thinking.

• Have students work alone on Step 3 of the Interpretation Across Texts task. • Circulate around the room as students are working to provide support and assistance.

Facilitating Student Sensemaking: Trio Work (20 minutes) Purpose: To provide students an opportunity to share and discuss their reflections about their own thinking with their peers, and to demonstrate and expand their understanding of the unit texts and concepts.

• Have students work again in their trios on Step 4 of the Interpretation Across Texts task. • Once again, circulate around the room to get a sense of the full range of ideas and consider how to structure the upcoming whole group discussion so that these ideas are examined and discussed.

Facilitating Student Sensemaking: Whole Group Inquiry-Based Discussion (15-20 minutes) Purpose: To provide students the opportunity to engage in an academic discussion with their peers to explore their understanding about how humans think and their own ability to be rational animals.

• Bring students together as a whole group. Ask them to put their desks in a horseshoe or circle so they can see each other. • Facilitate an inquiry-based discussion in which students respond to this question: o Based on your current understanding of the unit texts and concepts, what you’ve noticed about your own thinking, and your discussion in your trios, to what extent are humans rational animals? • Encourage students to ask each other questions and press each other for evidence and reasoning.

TASK Facilitating Metacognitive Work: Whole Group StepBack (10 minutes) Purpose: To make visible for students how their ideas have changed as a result of revising and discussing 2.2 them with peers and rereading the text.

• Ask students to discuss o how they revised ideas alone and after discussing them with their peers. o the process they used to analyze their own writings through the lens of the cognitive biases discussed by Kahneman and McRaney o what they learned about themselves and their own thinking, and about how they learned as a result of engaging in this lesson. o what they learned about writing and revising explanations.

Interpretation Across Texts TASK 2.2

Task Step 1: Working individually,

Step 2: Working in a trio,

• have each person read both their original and revised quick writes aloud to the group, and then discuss the changes they made and the reasons for those changes. • listeners should press the writers for reasoning and ask questions as needed. • once everyone has had a chance to share, each person should make any additional revisions as needed.

Step 3: Working individually,

• reread your revision through the lens of McRaney’s discussion of the confirmation bias and/or the backfire effect and/or Kahneman’s illusion of validity. • compose a new quick write in response to the following question: o What do you notice about the rationality of your own ideas in this revision?

Step 4: Working in your trio,

• have each person share the new quick write and any observations about his/her own rationality. • listeners should press the writers for reasoning and ask questions as needed. • be prepared to share your discussion with the class.

TASK Analysis 2.3 • How does audience and purpose influence the ways this writer uses language and constructs his text? • How is this text similar to and different from Kahneman’s? • How do you as a reader respond to this text? • To what extent does this text influence your understanding of and your ideas about humans as rational beings?

Situating the Task Duration TEXT 2 1 class session “The Backfire Effect” by David McRaney 2.1 Comprehension Why This Task Now? What more do you learn about how humans think from Now that students have read and McRaney’s text? What places are getting in the way of your reread the text and worked alone and understanding of what McRaney is trying to say? with others to comprehend the text 2.2 Interpretation Across Texts and study McRaney’s ideas about Using your understanding of both Kahneman’s and McRaney’s how humans think, they are ready to texts, revise your response to Task 1.1. After you revise, go examine the ways in which McRaney back and view your revision through the lens of McRaney’s works as a writer to create his text discussion of the confirmation bias and/or the backfire effect for his audience. The purposes of and/or Kahneman’s illusion of validity: what do you notice this task are for students to study the about the rationality of your own ideas in this revision? relationships among audience, purpose, 2.3 Analysis structure, and language for how they How does audience and purpose influence the ways this writer uses language and constructs his text? How is this text • interact and influence each other, similar to and different from Kahneman’s? How do you as • influence a reader’s response to a reader respond to this text? To what extent does this text the text, and influence your understanding of and your ideas about humans • influence a reader’s understanding as rational beings? of the ideas in the text. 2.4 Application Kahneman and McRaney discuss just some of the many kinds of cognitive biases that can impact our thinking. Research another cognitive bias and share your findings with the class.

Materials • “The Backfire Effect” by David McRaney • Handout: Analysis of “The Backfire Effect” • Chart: McRaney as a Writer • Excerpt from Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman • Handout: Analysis of Thinking, Fast and Slow • Chart: Kahneman as a Writer • Reader/Writer Notebook • Chart paper and markers

Teaching Approach TASK Setting Up the Task: Whole Group (3 minutes) 2.3 Purpose: To provide students with clear directions and expectations for the next task on “The Backfire Effect.”

• Provide students with the handout titled Analysis of “The Backfire Effect” (found on page 66). • Review the handout with students, giving them an opportunity to ask questions and clarify expectations.

66 “The Backfire Effect”

TASK Analysis of “The Backfire Effect” 2.3

Purpose This next task on “The Backfire Effect” builds from the work you have already done with this text and the analysis work you did on Kahneman’s text. Now you will examine the ways in which McRaney works as a writer to create or construct his text for his audience, and you will analyze how that construction influences a reader’s response to the text, as well as a reader’s understanding of the ideas in the text.

Task Step 1: Working with a partner, as you did for Kahneman’s text, review this text with an eye to the way McRaney has worked as a writer. Take some notes about your observations:

• What do you notice about the way McRaney has crafted his text? You might consider some or all of the following: o word choice o tone o organization o text features o structure of sentences and paragraphs o what counts as evidence or expertise o use of figurative language o how he positions himself as the writer

o use of examples o how he positions the reader o use of narrative • Discuss the following questions: o Who seems to be McRaney’s intended audience? o What seems to be McRaney’s purpose in this text? o What about the text leads you to your conclusions about audience and purpose? o What similarities and differences do you notice between McRaney’s text and Kahneman’s? What is the impact of those differences on you as a reader? • Choose what you see as your most significant observations about McRaney’s text and be prepared to share these during our discussion. Step 2: Working individually, compose a quick write in response to the following questions. Be sure to ground your explanation in evidence from the text and include reasoning that links the evidence to your ideas.

• How do you as a reader respond to this text? • Given all that you’ve noticed and we’ve discussed, to what extent does this text influence your understanding of and your ideas about humans as rational beings? Why?

Be prepared to share your quick write with the class.

Monitoring Student Thinking: Pair Work (15 minutes) Purpose: To provide students with the opportunity to work in pairs to examine how McRaney has constructed his text.

• Ask students to complete Step 1 of the Analysis of “The Backfire Effect” task. • As students are working, circulate around the room to provide support and assistance as needed.

Facilitating Student Sensemaking: Whole Group (10-15 minutes) Purposes: To provide students the opportunity to engage in an academic discussion with their peers to explore their observations about McRaney’s crafting of the text and its audience and purpose, and to enable students to practice developing, supporting, and explaining an idea using textual evidence.

• Bring students together as a whole group. • Ask each pair to share their significant observations, and encourage the rest of the class to ask questions and press for reasoning about those observations. • Gather ideas that run across the charts onto a chart titled, McRaney as a Writer.

TASK Learning Target 2.3 Below are some possible observations about how McRaney has crafted his text:

• starts with the “misconception” and “truth,” which gives the reader a preview of what’s coming • written using 2nd person (“you”); conversational, like he’s talking just to me • uses everyday, common language (even profanity) • uses examples from “science,” pop culture, and politics • seems very certain of the ideas he talks about (lines 96-105) • uses “evidence” like we’re used to seeing in informational texts (e.g., lines 10-28) • is not an expert in the field • doesn’t talk about himself or his own experiences • almost makes it seem like he doesn’t experience, or hasn’t experienced, this cognitive bias, thus setting himself apart from audience a bit (lines 237-238) • varies paragraph lengths • varies sentence lengths • moves quickly from one topic to another, one example to another • doesn’t include parenthetical citations or footnotes citing where information is coming from

Monitoring Student Thinking: Individual Work (5-7 minutes) Purpose: To provide students with the opportunity to use writing as a tool for thinking, a way to pull their thoughts together and discover what they know and think.

• Ask students to work individually to complete Step 2 of the Analysis of “The Backfire Effect” task. • As students are working, circulate around the room to provide support and assistance as needed.

• Continue the discussion by asking students to respond to the following questions: o How do you as a reader respond to this text? o To what extent does this text influence your understanding of and your ideas about humans as rational beings? o Given all that you’ve noticed and we’ve discussed, to what extent does this text influence your understanding of and your ideas about humans as rational beings? Why? • Encourage students to ask each other questions and press each other for evidence and reasoning. • Add any additional thoughts as needed to the McRaney as a Writer chart.

Facilitating Metacognitive Work: Whole Group StepBack (10 minutes) TASK Purposes: To make visible for students (a) what they learned about how these two authors constructed their texts, (b) what supported their learning, and (c) how they can use what they learned to write their own texts 2.3 in the future.

• Engage students in a whole group discussion in response to the following questions, and chart what students say: o What did you do to analyze how these writers constructed their texts, given their audience and purpose? What did you do first, second, third, etc.? o What did you learn from engaging in today’s work that will help you as a writer of texts in the future?

Differentiation If students need more practice in writing effective explanations, you could have them compose a quick write in response to the inquiry discussion questions before the discussion and perhaps revise it again after, as was done in Task 1.4. Students should work to provide explanations that include clearly stated ideas, relevant textual evidence to support their ideas, and clear reasoning that articulates how the evidence supports or links to their ideas.

TASK Analysis of “The Backfire Effect” 2.3

Task Step 1: Working with a partner, as you did for Kahneman’s text, review this text with an eye to the way McRaney has worked as a writer. Take some notes about your observations:

Step 2: Working individually, compose a quick write in response to the following questions. Be sure to ground your explanation in evidence from the text and include reasoning that links the evidence to your ideas.

Be prepared to share your quick write with the class.

Application TASK 2.4 Kahneman and McRaney discuss just some of the many kinds of cognitive biases that can impact our thinking. Research another cognitive bias and share your findings with the class.

Situating the Task Duration TEXT 2 2-3 class sessions “The Backfire Effect” by David McRaney 2.1 Comprehension Why This Task Now? What more do you learn about how humans think from Now that students have read and McRaney’s text? What places are getting in the way of your reread the unit texts and worked understanding of what McRaney is trying to say? alone and with others to comprehend 2.2 Interpretation Across Texts them and to comprehend how humans Using your understanding of both Kahneman’s and McRaney’s think, they are ready to independently texts, revise your response to Task 1.1. After you revise, go examine additional cognitive biases to back and view your revision through the lens of McRaney’s share with the class and to expand the discussion of the confirmation bias and/or the backfire effect class’s understanding of what impacts and/or Kahneman’s illusion of validity: what do you notice humans’ abilities to be rational. The about the rationality of your own ideas in this revision? purposes of this final task are for 2.3 Analysis students to: How does audience and purpose influence the ways this writer uses language and constructs his text? How is this text • research and study one of the similar to and different from Kahneman’s? How do you as many additional cognitive biases. a reader respond to this text? To what extent does this text • share their new understanding of influence your understanding of and your ideas about humans an additional cognitive bias with as rational beings? the class and make connections to 2.4 Application the unit texts and concepts. Kahneman and McRaney discuss just some of the many kinds This task also scaffolds students of cognitive biases that can impact our thinking. Research another cognitive bias and share your findings with the class. toward the final Writing Across Texts task by providing them an opportunity to also discuss their sidewalk neuroscience observation notes.

Materials • “The Backfire Effect” by David McRaney • Excerpt from Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman • Handout: Cognitive Biases • Chart: McRaney as a Writer • Handout: Writing Across Texts • Observation Notes from Part 1 of the Writing Across Texts task • Reader/Writer Notebook • Chart paper and markers

TASK Teaching Approach 2.4 Setting Up the Task: Whole Group (5 minutes) Purpose: To provide students with clear directions and expectations for the final task in the unit.

• Provide students with the handout titled Cognitive Biases (found on pages 71-72).

“The Backfire Effect” 71

Cognitive Biases TASK 2.4

Purpose Now that you have read and discussed the unit texts and these writers’ ideas about how humans think, you are ready to independently examine an additional cognitive bias that you will share with the class to expand their understanding of what impacts humans’ abilities to be rational. The purposes of this final task are for you to research one of the many additional cognitive biases/ fallacies and to share your new understanding of an additional cognitive bias with the class and make connections to the unit texts and concepts. Task Choose one of the cognitive biases (below) to research and plan a short presentation to your peers in which you address the following questions: • What is the name of the cognitive bias? • What happens to people’s thinking when they experience this particular cognitive bias? • What’s a concrete example of what this cognitive bias might look like in action? • What are the benefits and limitations of this cognitive bias for the person experiencing it? • How does this cognitive bias illustrate the concepts discussed by Kahneman and/or McRaney? • How is this cognitive bias different from what is discussed by Kahneman and/or McRaney? How you organize and present your information is up to you, but you’ll need to (1) get and keep your audience’s attention, (2) cite your sources responsibly, (3) provide some kind of handout and/ or visual to your audience so that they have something to use as a resource during their Writing Across Texts task.

• Review the handout with students, giving them an opportunity to ask questions and clarify expectations. • Wrap up the conversation by negotiating a deadline with students for when they will present their findings.

Differentiation This task is written as an independent and out-of-class assignment. If you find your students need additional support or scaffolding, you might consider having them do it in pairs and/or providing more structured class time in which to complete the research and planning for the presentations.

You might also consider alternate means of presenting the information, such as a class Wiki or discussion board.

Important Engage students in the rest of the lesson after they have completed the Cognitive Biases task.

Facilitating Student Sensemaking: Individual Presentations (5 minutes each) Purposes: To provide students the opportunity to share their research with their peers in an academic presentation in order to expand the class’s understanding of cognitive biases, and to make connections to the unit texts and concepts.

• As individual students present to the class, encourage listeners to take notes and ask the presenter questions.

Facilitating Retrospective Work: Individual Work (10 minutes) TASK Purpose: To provide an opportunity for students to individually reflect on what they learned throughout the unit and from their peers. 2.4

• Ask students to write a response to the following questions: o What were the most significant things you learned over the course of this unit and why were they significant? o How will you use what you learned? o What more are you interested in learning about?

Facilitating Retrospective Work: Whole Group (10 minutes) Purpose: To provide an opportunity for students to share their reflections on what they learned throughout the unit and from their peers.

• Facilitate a discussion in which students share their responses to the questions above.

Setting Up the Task: Whole Group (5 minutes) Purpose: To provide students with clear directions and expectations for the next step in the Writing Across Texts task.

• Ask students to revisit the Writing Across Texts handout (found on page 47-48).

48 Thinking, Fast and Slow

Over the next week or so, keep a notebook handy and work to collect three to five of these conversations. Be prepared to share and discuss your transcriptions and notes with your peers. Part 2 For the next part of this final task, analyze two or three of your collected conversations. What do the interactions say about our abilities to be rational and the challenges we encounter in our pursuit of reason? Connect what you see in the evidence of your transcriptions and notes to the ideas discussed in the two unit texts and in class in order to make and support your interpretations of these interactions. As with Part 1, be prepared to share your interpretations with your peers.

Part 3

Finally, based on your sidewalk neuroscience and your understanding of the unit texts, draft an essay in which you explain how the results of your research project confirm, challenge, and/or extend what these articles say about humans’ ability to be rational animals. Include your current thinking about the questions that started our work together in this unit and how your thinking has been altered since we started the unit. As you write, think about the features of Kahneman’s and McRaney’s texts we have studied and make decisions about using those features in your own text to best suit your content, purpose, and audience—your peers. A few reminders for Part 3: • You will have many notes in your Reader/Writer Notebook and on the texts themselves to support you to write your essay. Reread the texts and your notes before you begin planning your essay. • Your evidence for this essay should come from your research notes and the two unit texts— Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman and “The Backfire Effect” by David McRaney—as well as our class discussions and your peers’ research about additional cognitive biases. • Make sure to fully develop, support, and explain your ideas. Remember that an effective explanation includes clearly stated ideas, relevant textual evidence to support your ideas, and clear reasoning that articulates how the evidence supports or links to your ideas. • Your essay should be structured so that it is cohesive and easy-to-follow. How you organize your essay and the number of paragraphs you use to develop your ideas is up to you. • When you refer to a specific line from the texts, be sure to quote it accurately and provide the author’s name (if it is not clear from how you’ve introduced the quotation) and line number where the quotation can be found.

• Review Part 2 on the handout with students, giving them an opportunity to ask questions and clarify expectations.

Facilitating Student Sensemaking: Trio Work (15-20 minutes) Purpose: To provide students the opportunity to share and discuss their observations from their research with their peers.

• Each student should share his/her observations with the members of the group. • Group members should help one another to choose the conversations that provide the most potential for Parts 2 and 3 of the task. • As students are working, circulate around the room to provide support and assistance as needed.

TASK Differentiation 2.4 If you find that students are having trouble selecting the conversations that provide the most potential for Parts 2 and 3, bring the class together in small groups or as a whole group and model the process of selecting conversations for analysis. You could do this by showing students a set of observations that you captured and then thinking-aloud about which conversations would be good for analysis and why. Alternatively, you could ask a student to share his or her observations with the group and have the group observe as you confer with the student about which conversations would be good for analysis, which may not, and why.

Monitoring Student Thinking: Individual Work (20 minutes) Purpose: To provide students the opportunity to work individually to analyze their observations from their research.

• Have students work individually on Part 2 of the Writing Across Texts task. • As students are working, confer with them individually or in small groups to support their analysis of their observation notes and to determine connections, challenges, or extensions to the two texts.

Facilitating Student Sensemaking: Trio Work (30 minutes) Purpose: To provide students the opportunity to share and discuss their analyses of their observations from their research with their peers in order to expand their thinking about how those observations represent humans’ ability to be rational.

• Each student should share his/her analyses with the members of the group. • As students listen to one another, they should note questions, and similarities and differences among the group members’ findings. • Encourage students to press each other for reasoning and for connections to the unit texts and concepts. • Circulate around the room and listen in on students’ thinking for issues that might be beneficial to explore in the upcoming discussion.

Facilitating Student Sensemaking: Whole Group (15-20 minutes) Purpose: To provide students the opportunity to engage in discussion with their peers in order to share their experiences and understanding after analyzing their research.

• Facilitate a discussion, allowing each trio to share their significant observations about each other’s analyses and research. • Also use this as a time to field questions about the task or this step. • Close the discussion by asking students what they think their next steps are in terms of their research before they are ready to start writing about their findings.

Cognitive Biases TASK 2.4

Task Choose one of the cognitive biases (on the following page) to research and plan a short presentation to your peers in which you address the following questions:

• What is the name of the cognitive bias? • What happens to people’s thinking when they experience this particular cognitive bias? • What’s a concrete example of what this cognitive bias might look like in action? • What are the benefits and limitations of this cognitive bias for the person experiencing it? • How does this cognitive bias illustrate the concepts discussed by Kahneman and/or McRaney? • How is this cognitive bias different from what is discussed by Kahneman and/or McRaney?

How you organize and present your information is up to you, but you’ll need to (1) get and keep your audience’s attention, (2) cite your sources responsibly, (3) provide some kind of handout and/ or visual to your audience so that they have something to use as a resource during their Writing Across Texts task.

continued on the next page

TASK Ambiguity effect Evaluability bias Optimism bias 2.4 Anchoring or focalism Exaggerated expectation Ostrich effect Attentional bias Experimenter's or expectation Outcome bias Automation bias bias Overconfidence effect Availability heuristic Focusing effect Pessimism bias Availability cascade Framing effect Planning fallacy Bandwagon effect Frequency illusion Post-purchase rationalization Base rate fallacy or base rate Gambler's fallacy Pro-innovation bias neglect Hard–easy effect Pseudocertainty effect Belief bias Hindsight bias Recency illusion Bias blind spot Hyperbolic discounting Restraint bias Cheerleader effect Identifiable victim effect Rhyme as reason effect Choice-supportive bias IKEA effect Selective perception Clustering illusion Illusion of control Semmelweis reflex Congruence bias Illusory correlation Social comparison bias Conjunction fallacy Impact bias Social desirability bias Conservatism (Bayesian) Information bias Status quo bias Contrast effect Irrational escalation Stereotyping Curse of knowledge Less-is-better effect Subjective validation Decoy effect Loss aversion Survivorship bias Denomination effect Mere exposure effect Time-saving bias Distinction bias Money illusion Unit bias Dunning-Kruger effect Negativity bias Well-travelled road effect Duration neglect Neglect of probability Zero-risk bias Empathy gap Normalcy bias Zero-sum heuristic Endowment effect Observer-expectancy effect Essentialism Omission bias

Writing Across Texts 75

Writing Across Texts

Conduct your own sidewalk neuroscience to collect some observations about the extent to which you and/or others you know are rational. Based on your sidewalk neuroscience and your understanding of the unit texts, draft an essay in which you explain how the results of your research confirm, challenge, and/or extend what these articles say about humans’ ability to be rational animals.

Situating the Task Duration 1-2 class sessions Overarching Questions • What does it mean to be a rational human being and what impacts our rationality? • How do audience and purpose influence the ways these writers use language and construct their texts? How do the ways these texts are constructed influence our experience of reading and our understanding of these writers’ ideas?

TEXT 1 TEXT 2 Why This Task Now? From Thinking, Fast and Slow “The Backfire Effect” by Daniel Kahneman by David McRaney Students began to interpret, differentiate,

1.1 Conceptual Vocabulary 2.1 Comprehension and synthesize Kahneman’s and McRaney’s The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) What more do you learn about how humans think said that “man is the rational animal.” To what from McRaney’s text? What places are getting in ideas during Tasks 1.5, 2.1, 2.2, and extent do you agree or disagree with Aristotle’s the way of your understanding of what McRaney assertion and why? is trying to say? 2.4. Students analyzed how each writer 1.2 Comprehension 2.2 Interpretation Across Texts constructed his text in Tasks 1.4 and 2.3. This What do we learn from Kahneman about how Using your understanding of both Kahneman’s and we, as humans, think? What places are getting McRaney’s texts, revise your response to Task 1.1. task requires students to synthesize their in the way of your understanding of what After you revise, go back and view your revision Kahneman is trying to say? through the lens of McRaney’s discussion of the thinking across both texts and apply that confirmation bias and/or the backfire effect and/ 1.3 Furthering Comprehension or Kahneman’s illusion of validity: what do you thinking to their own research observations. Kahneman details System 1 and System 2 notice about the rationality of your own ideas in thinking in this text. What are the benefits and this revision? liabilities of each? What is the relationship between the two? 2.3 Analysis The purposes of this task are for students to: How does audience and purpose influence the 1.4 Analysis ways this writer uses language and constructs his How do audience and purpose influence the text? How is this text similar to and different from • determine and explain how their own ways this writer uses language and constructs Kahneman’s? How do you as a reader respond to his text? How do you as a reader respond this text? To what extent does this text influence research confirms, challenges, and/or to this text? To what extent does this text your understanding of and your ideas about influence your understanding of and your ideas humans as rational beings? extends what the unit texts say about about humans as rational beings? 2.4 Application human rationality, 1.5 Application Kahneman and McRaney discuss just some of the In what ways and to what extent do your many kinds of cognitive biases that can impact • engage in work similar to Kahneman’s experiences with visual illusions illustrate the our thinking. Research another cognitive bias and ideas in Kahneman’s text? share your findings with the class. and McRaney’s as students explain and Writing Across Texts support their own ideas and construct Conduct your own sidewalk neuroscience to collect some observations about the extent to which you and/or others you know are rational. Based on your sidewalk neuroscience and your understanding of their own texts for an audience of their the unit texts, draft an essay in which you explain how the results of your research confirm, challenge, and/or extend what these articles say about humans’ ability to be rational animals. peers.

Materials • “The Backfire Effect” by David McRaney • Excerpt from Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman • Handout: Writing Across Texts • Handout: Gr 11 Writing Across Texts: Decision Tree Scoring Guide • Chart: Kahneman: How Humans Think • Chart: McRaney: How Humans Think • Chart: Kahneman as a Writer • Chart: McRaney as a Writer • Handouts from Peer Presentations in Task 2.4 • Reader/Writer Notebook • Chart paper and markers

Teaching Approach Setting Up the Task: Whole Group (10 minutes) Purpose: To provide students with clear directions and expectations for Part 3 of their final task which asks them to write across Thinking, Fast and Slow and “The Backfire Effect.”

48 Thinking, Fast and Slow

TASK kind of discussion, whether or not they’re actively working to persuade or convince someone. You 1.5 may find yourself as a participant in these conversations as well. When you find such moments, take notes or, better still, transcribe the conversations you observe. Over the next week or so, keep a notebook handy and work to collect three to five of these conversations. Be prepared to share and discuss your transcriptions and notes with your peers. Part 2 For the next part of this final task, analyze two or three of your collected conversations. What do the interactions say about our abilities to be rational and the challenges we encounter in our pursuit of reason? Connect what you see in the evidence of your transcriptions and notes to the ideas discussed in the two unit texts and in class in order to make and support your interpretations of these interactions. As with Part 1, be prepared to share your interpretations with your peers. Part 3 Finally, based on your sidewalk neuroscience and your understanding of the unit texts, draft an essay in which you explain how the results of your research project confirm, challenge, and/or extend what these articles say about humans’ ability to be rational animals. Include your current thinking about the questions that started our work together in this unit and how your thinking has been altered since we started the unit. As you write, think about the features of Kahneman’s and McRaney’s texts we have studied and make decisions about using those features in your own text to best suit your content, purpose, and audience—your peers. A few reminders for Part 3: • You will have many notes in your Reader/Writer Notebook and on the texts themselves to support you to write your essay. Reread the texts and your notes before you begin planning your essay. • Your evidence for this essay should come from your research notes and the two unit texts— Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman and “The Backfire Effect” by David McRaney—as well as our class discussions and your peers’ research about additional cognitive biases. • Make sure to fully develop, support, and explain your ideas. Remember that an effective explanation includes clearly stated ideas, relevant textual evidence to support your ideas, and clear reasoning that articulates how the evidence supports or links to your ideas. • Your essay should be structured so that it is cohesive and easy-to-follow. How you organize your essay and the number of paragraphs you use to develop your ideas is up to you. • When you refer to a specific line from the texts, be sure to quote it accurately and provide the author’s name (if it is not clear from how you’ve introduced the quotation) and line number where the quotation can be found.

• Review with students Part 3 of the handout titled Writing Across Texts (found on pages 47-48), giving them an opportunity to ask questions and clarify expectations.

Important The Writing Across Texts task asks students to produce a solid draft of an essay in order to assess their understanding and application of the information in the texts to their own research project as well as their proficiency with writing effective explanations. The instruction throughout the unit as well as the scoring guide reflects these goals. If you would like your students to produce a final draft that takes them through all the stages of the writing process, please adjust the time, instruction, and scoring accordingly.

There are several ways to engage students in this task depending on students’ proficiency with (a) developing and explaining their ideas, (b) incorporating textual evidence to support their ideas, (c) providing the reasoning that details how the selected evidence supports or links to their ideas, and (d) organizing their ideas in a cohesive and easy-to-follow manner.

Some students may be able to do this task independently while others may need your support or the support of their peers. The approach below provides scaffolding to support students in how to approach the task and how to generate and organize their ideas.

Also of great importance: Though the task asks students to draw evidence from both of the unit texts to support their ideas and observations about their own research, it is not the expectation that they will have evidence from both texts for each of those ideas/observations. In other words, students may find that their research extends a particular idea of Kahneman’s, but this doesn’t mean they also need evidence from McRaney for this same point. Likewise, their findings might connect to one of McRaney’s ideas but might also challenge something in Kahneman's. Students should make connections and use evidence from the unit texts, and their peers’ information about other cognitive biases, as is required by their research findings.

Differentiation You may decide that it would be useful for your students to study or work with the student sample of the Writing Across Texts task (see pages 81-83). Please know that this sample is not an exemplar model; therefore, it also provides students an opportunity to think about how this particular sample could be improved. To give students practice in revision, you may want to have students help you revise the sample as a whole group.

Use knowledge of your students’ needs to decide when, if at all, to introduce the student sample. For instance, if students are struggling during Part 1 with imagining what kinds of moments they might examine, seeing this sample might help them see a couple of concrete examples. If they are struggling with the writing, with incorporating their own research with the ideas in the texts, the sample might be best used (or used again) during this final step.

We have provided two versions of this student sample, one without annotations and one with annotations that expand on the completed Decision Tree Scoring Guide.

Monitoring Student Thinking: Individual Work (5 minutes) Purposes: To provide students with individual time to manage their own learning and to consider how they will approach the work of the task; to identify what students know about how to tackle writing assignments.

• Ask students to take a few minutes to individually reread the handout and generate a list of the steps they might follow to work through Part 3 of the task. • As students are working, circulate around the room to skim the steps students generate. Identify students whose steps might benefit the entire class.

Facilitating Student Sensemaking: Whole Group (5-7 minutes) Purpose: To enable students to share and learn from others about effective ways to approach and manage writing assignments.

Students

• reread the texts and their notes to identify moments that speak to Kahneman’s and McRaney’s ideas about how humans think and their ability to be rational. • look across their findings from their research to determine where their evidence and findings overlap with and diverge from Kahneman’s and McRaney’s ideas as well as what they learned from their peers about additional cognitive biases.

• review which of those ideas are most significant and, as such, will become the focus of their essays. • jot ideas and notes about those ideas from each writer as appropriate. • identify the most relevant evidence from the texts and their research to support their ideas. • jot ideas and notes about how the relevant textual evidence supports the ideas that are the focus of the essay. • decide on an organization that is clear, easy-to-follow, and creates cohesion. • begin drafting the essay.

Monitoring Student Thinking: Individual Work (30 minutes) Purpose: To enable students to work independently to explain how their research findings confirm, challenge, and/or extend the ideas in the unit texts and what they learned from their peers about cognitive biases.

• Give students 30 minutes to work on the task. Encourage students to bounce their ideas off their peers. • As students are working, confer with them individually or in small groups about their work.

Important Be on the lookout for what individual and groups of students are finding difficult about working through this final writing assignment. As needed, bring students together in small or large groups to share their work or to engage in mini-lessons designed to support them to overcome difficulties. Below are some ways to support students with various aspects of this assignment.

Support for developing, supporting, and explaining ideas:

1. After students have had time to gather notes and ideas individually, ask them to share in trios or as a large group: • what they identified as the ideas from their research that related to or negated the ideas in the texts and from their peers. • the evidence from both texts they consider most relevant to supporting their ideas. • how the evidence they selected supports or links to their ideas. 2. Display effective explanations from earlier tasks. Work with the class to identify the moves the writers made to develop, support, and explain their ideas.

Support for organizing and writing about ideas:

1. Ask students to sketch a diagram or flow chart on chart paper that represents their thinking about how they will organize their ideas. Have students post their charts and engage in a gallery walk to review their peers’ charts. Then facilitate a whole group discussion where students share which methods of organization they found most compelling and why. 2. Provide a mini-lesson on several different ways that students might organize their ideas. Note: It is important to provide students with several different ways so that they can decide on the way that will best represent their ideas and thinking about their findings and observations.

Providing Clear Expectations: Whole Group (5 minutes) Purpose: To provide students with clear expectations for how their Writing Across Texts task will be scored.

• Provide each student with the handout titled Gr 11 Writing Across Texts: Decision Tree Scoring Guide (found on page 84).

Grade 11: Wri+ng Across Texts Decision Tree Scoring Guide no yes Is the response an explanation about how the student’s researchdeveloping confirms, and maintaining challenges, expertise and/or extends the ideas aboutthat references how humans both think unit texts?from both of the unit texts?

Does the response provide Does the response consistently include Is the textual evidence relevant textual evidence— reasoning that articulates how the substantial? Does the response paraphrase or direct quotation—to evidence supports or links to the points support the points being made being made? demonstrate an accurate or mostly accurate about how humans think? understanding of the unit texts and concepts? Does the response consistently include IsAre the the reasoning explanations consistently clear and clear reasoning that articulates how the andconcise concise (i.e., (i.e.,comprehensive comprehensive evidence supports or links to the points without being redundant)? being made?

AreIs the the reasoning explanations consistently clear and clear conciseand concise (i.e., (i.e.,comprehensive comprehensive without being redundant)? Does the response use an Does the response include a discussion Does the response use language organizational structure about the extent to which humans are and construction that is effective that is clear, cohesive, and given the audience and purpose? rational and how the writer’s thinking easy to follow? has evolved during the unit?

0 1 2 3 4 5

• Review the scoring guide with students, giving them an opportunity to ask questions and clarify expectations related to how their essays will be scored. Remind them that these essays are drafts, and so the scoring guide—along with your feedback—will help them revise their drafts. • Have students notice that this scoring guide is designed to assess their understanding of the ideas in the texts and the characteristics of effective explanations—two things they have been working on throughout this unit. Have students also notice that this scoring guide does not assess every aspect of their writing. For example, style and conventions are not included on this scoring guide. • Since this Decision Tree Scoring Guide may look very different than what students are used to seeing, take a moment to explain how it works. o Begin by letting students know three key things: (1) the scoring guide is read from left to right, (2) each box presents a yes/no question, and (3) open arrows represent “yes” and lined arrows represent “no.” Point out the key in the upper right corner that shows students the difference between the “yes” and “no” arrows. o To use the Decision Tree Scoring Guide, begin with the first box in the upper left corner. If the answer to that question is yes, follow the “yes” arrow to the next box and repeat the process with the next question. If the answer is no, follow the “no” arrow to drop down to the “0” score point. Show students that sometimes the “no” arrow will take them to another question rather than directly to a score point.

Talk with students about how they can use this scoring guide to review their own or their peers’ essays once they’ve completed them.

Important The Decision Tree Scoring Guide is designed to assess students’ understanding of the ideas in the texts and their proficiency with writing effective explanations. As such, the scoring guide does not assess style or use of conventions. If you wish to assess those aspects of students’ writing, please adjust the instructions and scoring accordingly. You can find one annotated and scored sample of student work on pages 85-87.

The Decision Tree Scoring Guide prioritizes what is most important to what is least important in a piece of writing. The most important thing—in this case, did students complete the task that was assigned to them?—is placed first. If students do not complete the task as assigned, they do not earn any points. The least important thing—in this case, does the response use language and construction that is effective given the audience and purpose?—is placed last, on the far right.

The scoring guide is most useful when it is accompanied by written or oral feedback that helps students revise their drafts with purpose and direction. When providing feedback to a student, be sure to anchor it in specific moments in the draft that relate to the criteria on the scoring guide. Point out moments where the writing successfully meets the criteria, as well as places where the writing could be revised to be more effective. Additionally, include concrete suggestions for how a student might revise the essay, while not doing the revisions for the student or taking away ownership of the writing.

Facilitating Metacognitive Work: Whole Group StepBack (10 minutes) Purpose: To provide an opportunity for students to reflect on their ways of working through the task after they have begun, including identifying what they find difficult and how they will overcome their difficulties.

• Ask students to discuss responses to the questions below: o As you have begun working on this task, how closely are you following the steps you generated at the start of the lesson? What are you doing differently? Why? o What are you finding easy and difficult about this task? How will you work through your difficulties? o What additional support do you need from your peers or me? • Wrap up the conversation by negotiating a deadline with students for when they will turn in their drafts.

Important Engage students in the rest of the lesson after they have completed the Writing Across Texts task.

Facilitating Retrospective Work: Whole Group (10 minutes) Purpose: To provide an opportunity for students to reflect on what they learned by engaging in a final discussion about the work of the unit.

• Ask students to review their reflective writing from Task 2.4 and revise as needed. • Facilitate a discussion in which students talk about their revisions and thoughts now that they conducted their own research and the unit is coming to a close.

Writing Across Texts: Student Sample

Most humans believe that what separates us from the many other animals on the planet is our ability to reason. Some might argue that other animals reason too, but it seems pretty obvious, based on the results we’ve gotten such as our creation of science and civilization, that our rational ability is at least different than the way a dog must think and reason to learn a trick to get a treat. However, it is also pretty obvious, from my own study of human behavior, that we are not always very rational. We make irrational, self-destructive choices like taking drugs and smoking, and we are pretty easily fooled by our senses too. Writers like Daniel Kahneman and David McRaney explore what’s happening when a “rational” person acts or thinks irrationally.

In his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman uses terms like “illusion of validity” and “WYSIATI” (What You See Is All There Is) to explain the how human reasoning shuts down or fails. He starts by first explaining the difference between the two levels of our thinking or attention that he calls “System 1” and System 2”. Kahnamen explains it this way:

• System 1 operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control. • System 2 allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it, including complex computations. The operations of System 2 are often associated with the subjective experience of agency, choice, and concentration. (lines 35-39)

Kahneman explains that people feel confident about their fast judgements of things and will ignore evidence or information that doesn’t match the quick story of what they think. They believe that what they see is all there is because it’s easier. Kahneman states, “Confidence is a feeling, which reflects the coherence of the information and the cognitive ease of processing it”. This reminds me of what happens when you “overanalyze” something like a movie or a feeling, and it ruins the enjoyment you felt from just ignoring any flaws. Lots of people I know say things like, “I don’t want to think about it, I just want to enjoy it.” This happens in alot of circumstances but now I’m thinking about it in terms of how it explains irrational behavior like smoking.

The other night, we had a cookout at home. My mother, an ex-smoker, and her sister, a current smoker got into it. My aunt was enjoying a cigarette on the deck and my mom started in on her. “You know that’s stupid, right?” she said. “There is no doubt that it will kill you. Don’t you care?” As usually my aunt responded, “Something is going to kill everyone. Can’t you just let me enjoy a smoke in peace?” I’ve heard this same conversation many times. My aunt’s main defense is always the same and she shuts my mom down by making her feel guilty for, basically, making her think. I now see this in a new way since reading Kahneman. My mother is forcing her sister to use

System 2 to slow down and consentrate on evidence that doesn’t fit in with her automatic System 1 smoking. My aunt avoids the conflict by using evidence that fits her comfort zone (“Something is going to kill everyone”) and gives her an “illusion of validity”. She also uses guilt to point out that thinking about it ruins her enjoyment. Sometimes this really gets heated. My mom keeps pushing and my aunt gets really defensive and starts coming up with all kinds of crazy justifications for her habit. So it backfires. This leads me to McRaney’s idea of “The Backfire Effect”.

McRaney sums up the backfire effect as “a behavior keeping you from accepting the truth.” The backfire effect work with something McRaney calls “confirmation bias” to make sure that you automatically accept evidence that supports a belief that you already have, but you demand more and more evidence if it conflicts with your belief. It’s like self-preservation of your System 1 thinking from Kahneman. McRaney refers to psychologists who “speculate there is an evolutionary explanation. Your ancestors paid more attention and spent more time thinking about negative stimuli than positive because bad things required a response. Those who failed to address negative stimuli failed to keep breathing. (lines 113-116) So, if something conflicts with your beliefs you focus on it, sometimes to a ridiculous degree. I saw a conversation of Facebook recently that was a good example of this.

These days there is a lot of defense of pitt bulls with tons of video of pitt bulls playing with children and being very gently and sweet. This contradicts the stereotype of pitt bulls as vicious killers. A friend posted a picture of his pitt playing with his little sister, and a link to a site that shows the statistics about pitt bulls not being the most vicious dogs in the country. His wall then got slammed with people posting about how they know someone who got attacked and there were even picture of victims and wounds. It got pretty ugly. When my friend argued back that the facts and statistics were more reliable than the photos and their stories of “I know someone who…” it backfired. Pretty soon there was a two-sided war going on on his wall. Each side wouldn’t quit. McRaney mentions that conspiracy theories often result when people refuse to accept undeniable evidence. He states, “Contradictory evidence strengthens the position of the believer. It is seen as part of the conspiracy, and missing evidence is dismissed as part of the coverup.” (lines 79-8) I saw this happen too in the case of the pitt bulls and my aunt’s smoking habit.

On my friend’s page one defender of pitt bulls suggested that there was a conspiracy against them because some police chief’s baby was mauled by a pitt bull back in the 1970’s, and that it turned out that it wasn’t a pitt bull after all. This was accepted by everyone on the side of the dogs, but the case was researched for days by the pitt bull haters. They found lots of sites that see pitts as villians and just kept posting those too. In the case of my aunt, my mom went online to the nih. gov site to get statistics on death rates for smokers, but my aunt just ignored it saying that you can’t trust anything on a government web page.

So, in conclusion it seems from both Kahneman’s and McRaney’s texts that humans are not always the most rational of beings, especially on an individual basis. Many people won’t change their opinions no matter how much evidence is against them. We can see lots of evidence that humans see what we want to see and we expect to see in order not to have to challenge our own beliefs. We don’t like to work too hard in System 2 or feel insecure that our beliefs aren’t correct. However, humans beings generally DO end up changing our beliefs over time when the evidence is solid. Scientists are a group that really can’t ignore evidence. You can see that eventually we will change our belief in our scientific advancements from accepting that the Earth revolves around the Sun to the slow acceptance of climate change. So maybe Aristotle is right when it comes to humans in general over time, but Kahneman and McRaney’s theories absolutely describe what we see with individuals like my aunt in my own backyard.

© 2015 University of Pittsburgh – English Language Arts Unit, Grade 11: Are We Fooling Ourselves? 84 Writing Across Texts 5 yes no Does the response use an organizational structure cohesive, and that is clear, easy to follow? Does the response use language and construction that is effective given the audience and purpose? Are the explanations clear and Is the reasoning consistently clear concise (i.e., comprehensive and concise (i.e., comprehensive without being redundant)? without being redundant)? Does the response consistently include reasoning that articulates how the evidence supports or links to the points being made? 4 3 Are the explanations clear and concise (i.e., comprehensive without being redundant)? Is the reasoning consistently clear and concise (i.e., comprehensive without being redundant)? Is the textual evidence substantial? Does the response consistently include reasoning that articulates how the evidence supports or links to the points being made? Decision Tree Scoring Guide Scoring Tree Decision Grade 11: Wri+ng Across Texts Wri+ng 11: Grade 2 Does the response provide relevant textual evidence— paraphrase or direct quotation—to support the points being made about how humans think? 1 Does the response include a discussion about the extent to which humans are rational and how the writer’s thinking has evolved during the unit? Does the response demonstrate an accurate or mostly accurate understanding of the unit texts and concepts? 0 Is the response an explanation about developing and maintaining expertise that references both unit texts? Is the response an explanation about how the student’s Is the response an explanation about how student’s research confirms, challenges, and/or extends the ideas about how humans think from both of the unit texts?

Writing Across Texts: Annotated Student Sample

Most humans believe that what separates us from the many other Task and Organization*: In this paragraph, animals on the planet is our ability to reason. Some might argue that the writer provides an introduction that other animals reason too, but it seems pretty obvious, based on the both introduces the topic and the writer’s results we’ve gotten such as our creation of science and civilization, stance about humans’ ability to be rational and indicates that the essay will share that our rational ability is at least different than the way a dog must evidence from the writer’s own research think and reason to learn a trick to get a treat. However, it is also pretty and connect to the ideas explored by obvious, from my own study of human behavior, that we are not always Kahneman and McRaney in their texts. (*note: Organization is not an area scored very rational. We make irrational, self-destructive choices like taking by the Decision Tree, but commentary is drugs and smoking, and we are pretty easily fooled by our senses too. provided here to show what this writer is Writers like Daniel Kahneman and David McRaney explore what’s doing.) happening when a “rational” person acts or thinks irrationally.

In his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman uses terms like Idea and Evidence: Here the writer “illusion of validity” and “WYSIATI” (What You See Is All There Is) to introduces the idea that human reasoning explain the how human reasoning shuts down or fails. He starts by fails. In this paragraph and in the first three first explaining the difference between the two levels of our thinking or sentences of the paragraph that follows, the writer provides some evidence from attention that he calls “System 1” and System 2”. Kahnamen explains Kahneman’s book to support that idea. it this way: While beginning by introducing and • System 1 operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort supporting the idea with evidence from Kahneman’s text before explaining what and no sense of voluntary control. the writer noticed from her research is • System 2 allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that one way to structure this, it does leave the demand it, including complex computations. The operations of reader hanging a bit since we know from System 2 are often associated with the subjective experience of the introduction that the essay will also be about the research the writer conducted. agency, choice, and concentration. (lines 35-39) Had the writer started with her own research, she might have been able to pull Kahneman explains that people feel confident about their fast additional and more effective evidence from judgements of things and will ignore evidence or information that the text to show how her research confirms, doesn’t match the quick story of what they think. They believe challenges, and/or extends Kahneman’s ideas. that what they see is all there is because it’s easier. Kahneman states, “Confidence is a feeling, which reflects the coherence of the information and the cognitive ease of processing it”. This reminds me of what happens when you “overanalyze” something like a movie or a Organization: This section transitions from Kahneman’s ideas to the writer’s experience feeling, and it ruins the enjoyment you felt from just ignoring any flaws. and research and prepares the reader for the Lots of people I know say things like, “I don’t want to think about it, I next section, where the writer discusses her just want to enjoy it.” This happens in alot of circumstances but now observations from her research. I’m thinking about it in terms of how it explains irrational behavior like smoking.

The other night, we had a cookout at home. My mother, an Research: Here the writer details one of ex-smoker, and her sister, a current smoker got into it. My aunt was the observations from her research. enjoying a cigarette on the deck and my mom started in on her. “You know that’s stupid, right?” she said. “There is no doubt that it will kill Reasoning: Here the writer provides reasoning to connect what she noticed in you. Don’t you care?” As usually my aunt responded, “Something is her research to the ideas in Kahneman’s going to kill everyone. Can’t you just let me enjoy a smoke in peace?” text and then transitions to how this I’ve heard this same conversation many times. My aunt’s main defense connects with McRaney’s ideas. The is always the same and she shuts my mom down by making her feel reasoning provided here could be more focused and elaborate so as to more guilty for, basically, making her think. I now see this in a new way thoroughly explore how and the extent since reading Kahneman. My mother is forcing her sister to use to which the research findings support System 2 to slow down and consentrate on evidence that doesn’t fit in the ideas in Kahneman’s text. This writer, however, has clearly made a start in the with her automatic System 1 smoking. My aunt avoids the conflict by right direction. using evidence that fits her comfort zone (“Something is going to kill everyone”) and gives her an “illusion of validity”. She also uses guilt to point out that thinking about it ruins her enjoyment. Sometimes Idea and Evidence: In this paragraph the writer provides evidence from McRaney’s this really gets heated. My mom keeps pushing and my aunt gets really text about the backfire effect. Again the defensive and starts coming up with all kinds of crazy justifications choice to start with the unit texts and then for her habit. So it backfires. This leads me to McRaney’s idea of “The move to the research observations is a method of organization. However, it may be Backfire Effect”. more effective to try the reverse structure, starting with the research findings and McRaney sums up the backfire effect as “a behavior keeping you then connecting them to the texts. Again, from accepting the truth.” The backfire effect work with something the writer may have been able to add McRaney calls “confirmation bias” to make sure that you automatically additional evidence from McRaney’s accept evidence that supports a belief that you already have, but you text to show how her research confirms, challenges, and/or extends his ideas. demand more and more evidence if it conflicts with your belief. It’s like self-preservation of your System 1 thinking from Kahneman. McRaney refers to psychologists who “speculate there is an evolutionary Organization: Here the writer transitions explanation. Your ancestors paid more attention and spent more time from the ideas in McRaney’s text to her own research. This writer understands the thinking about negative stimuli than positive because bad things moves she needs to make with regard to required a response. Those who failed to address negative stimuli helping her reader move through her text. failed to keep breathing. (lines 113-116) So, if something conflicts with your beliefs you focus on it, sometimes to a ridiculous degree. I saw a Research and Language Use: In this conversation of Facebook recently that was a good example of this. section, the writer details an interaction about pit bulls that she observed on These days there is a lot of defense of pitt bulls with tons of video Facebook as part of her research and how of pitt bulls playing with children and being very gently and sweet. This that supports McRaney’s notion of the contradicts the stereotype of pitt bulls as vicious killers. A friend posted backfire effect. Again, this section could be more careful and elaborate. Although a picture of his pitt playing with his little sister, and a link to a site that it seems that the writer is trying to use shows the statistics about pitt bulls not being the most vicious dogs in language in ways that appeal to her peer the country. His wall then got slammed with people posting about how audience (“it got pretty ugly,” for example), they know someone who got attacked and there were even picture of she may have let detail and precision slide in her quest to do so. victims and wounds. It got pretty ugly. When my friend argued back that the facts and statistics were more reliable than the photos and their stories of “I know someone who…” it backfired. Pretty soon there was a Idea and Evidence: Here the writer two-sided war going on on his wall. Each side wouldn’t quit. McRaney introduces the idea of conspiracy and then pulls evidence from McRaney to support it. mentions that conspiracy theories often result when people refuse to accept undeniable evidence. He states, “Contradictory evidence strengthens the position of the believer. It is seen as part of the conspiracy, and missing evidence is dismissed as part of the coverup.”

(lines 79-8) I saw this happen too in the case of the pitt bulls and my Organization: In this final sentence of the aunt’s smoking habit. paragraph, the writer provides a transition to her reasoning that connects what On my friend’s page one defender of pitt bulls suggested that there she saw in her research to the idea of conspiracy. was a conspiracy against them because some police chief’s baby was mauled by a pitt bull back in the 1970’s, and that it turned out that it wasn’t a pitt bull after all. This was accepted by everyone on the side of the dogs, but the case was researched for days by the pitt bull Reasoning: Here the writer elaborates on haters. They found lots of sites that see pitts as villians and just kept her reasoning about how what she noticed posting those too. In the case of my aunt, my mom went online to the in the discussion about pit bulls and about her aunt’s smoking illustrates the ideas nih.gov site to get statistics on death rates for smokers, but my aunt about conspiracy that McRaney discusses. just ignored it saying that you can’t trust anything on a government This section moves very quickly between web page. the two moments of the writer’s research and could be elaborated and more carefully So, in conclusion it seems from both Kahneman’s and McRaney’s explained for the reader. texts that humans are not always the most rational of beings, especially on an individual basis. Many people won’t change their opinions no matter how much evidence is against them. We can see Organization and Task: In this final lots of evidence that humans see what we want to see and we expect paragraph, the writer brings the essay to to see in order not to have to challenge our own beliefs. We don’t like a close and synthesizes her understanding to work too hard in System 2 or feel insecure that our beliefs aren’t of the texts and her own research in order correct. However, humans beings generally DO end up changing our to land on a position about Aristotle’s assertion, which was also part of what the beliefs over time when the evidence is solid. Scientists are a group task asked students to complete. that really can’t ignore evidence. You can see that eventually we will change our belief in our scientific advancements from accepting that the Earth revolves around the Sun to the slow acceptance of climate change. So maybe Aristotle is right when it comes to humans in general over time, but Kahneman and McRaney’s theories absolutely describe what we see with individuals like my aunt in my own backyard.

© 2015 University of Pittsburgh – English Language Arts Unit, Grade 11: Are We Fooling Ourselves? 88 Writing Across Texts 5 Scored sample yes Does the response use an organizational structure cohesive, and that is clear, easy to follow? Does the response use language and construction that is effective given the audience and purpose? Are the explanations clear and concise (i.e., comprehensive without being redundant)? Is the reasoning consistently clear and concise (i.e., comprehensive without being redundant)? no Does the response consistently include reasoning that articulates how the evidence supports or links to the points being made? 4 3 Are the explanations clear and concise (i.e., comprehensive without being redundant)? Is the reasoning consistently clear and concise (i.e., comprehensive without being redundant)? Is the textual evidence substantial? Does the response consistently include reasoning that articulates how the evidence supports or links to the points being made? Student Sample Sample Student Decision Tree Scoring Guide Scoring Tree Decision Grade 11: Wri+ng Across Texts Wri+ng 11: Grade 2 Does the response provide relevant textual evidence— paraphrase or direct quotation—to support the points being made about how humans think? 1 Does the response include a discussion about the extent to which humans are rational and how the writer’s thinking has evolved during the unit? Does the response demonstrate an accurate or mostly accurate understanding of the unit texts and concepts? 0 Is the response an explanation about Is the response an explanation about how student’s developing and maintaining expertise research confirms, challenges, and/or extends the ideas that references both unit texts? about how humans think from both of the unit texts?

Appendix 91

What is our approach to vocabulary instruction? There are at least three different contexts to consider when thinking about vocabulary instruction: during shared reading, during independent reading, and during other times in the ELA block/period/week.

During a First Reading When the Focus is Comprehension and the Context is Shared Reading At some point, in all of our units, you will be guided to lead students in a close reading of at least a portion of text, or in some cases a whole text, in a guided reading context. You are encouraged to identify words in the text that may be unfamiliar to your students and that are essential to comprehension of the text, and to provide a short, student-friendly definition for each of these wordsduring the reading (Collins COBUILD English Learner’s Dictionary, 20125).

The idea here is to provide just enough information (when it is needed and not before) about the new words so that students maintain the flow of ideas and can continue their focus on understanding the central ideas in the text. You will need to analyze the text carefully in advance to identify such words. In some cases, these words have been pointed out in the unit, but you may need to add to the words we have identified and write or find your own student-friendly definition. Coxhead has identified a list of 570 academic word families that consist of words that occur with frequency across a number of academic content areas in academic texts. This list can be a resource in deciding which words are most worthy of attention (Coxhead, A., 20006).

During a First Reading When the Focus is Comprehension and the Context is Independent Reading When reading texts independently, students are likely to encounter a range of words with which they are unfamiliar. They may or may not be able to discern which of these words are essential to understanding the text and which are not. In this situation we recommend that students use one of three approaches to figure out the meaning of the word:

1) Analyze the word to see if students are familiar with the meaning of any part of it or another form of it (e.g., decide versus decision); 2) Look for context clues, such as definitions within the sentence/paragraph; or 3) If these approaches fail, continue reading to see if they can make sense of the passage without this particular word.

During Language Arts Instruction at Other Times During the ELA Block/Period/ Week Vocabulary is a critically important part of supporting students to understand what they read. The vocabulary work within these units is not meant to replace a district’s robust vocabulary instructional program, but rather to be an important part of it. Typical vocabulary instruction that asks students to look up words in a dictionary and use them in a sentence has been demonstrated to be ineffective and, at its worst, may turn students off and diminish an interest in learning new words (Snow, Lawrence, & White, 20097). More powerful approaches include providing repeated exposure to a word in varied contexts; providing

5 Collins Language (Ed.) (2012). Collins COBUILD English learner’s dictionary. Glasgow, UK: HarperCollins Publishers.

6 Coxhead, A. (2000). A new academic word list. TESOL Quarterly, 34(2), 213-238.

7 Snow, C., Lawrence, J. F., & White, C. (2009). Generating knowledge of academic language among urban middle school students. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 2, 325–344.

opportunities and encouragement to use the word in speaking and writing; encountering the word in the context of motivating texts (rather than in a word list); providing explicit instruction in the word’s meaning (such as through student-friendly definitions); and through explicit instruction in using word-learning strategies, such as morphological analysis, cognate use, and learning multiple meanings (Snow, Lawrence, & White, 2009).

For examples of robust vocabulary instruction and programs, see “Word Generation” by the Strategic Education Research Partnership (http://wg.serpmedia.org/); Rev it Up! (2007) by Steck Vaughn; and Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction by Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, (2002/20138).

Additional Comments You should decide if talking about a particular word or phrase before reading a text would better support your students to establish essential prior knowledge. There are times when this is useful and necessary, e.g., for English learners and for students with special needs. However, as a rule, we encourage you not to front load vocabulary and instead to give student-friendly definitions right within the text as it is needed for comprehension. We also discourage asking students to provide definitions of unfamiliar words encountered during shared reading. Guessing is likely to distract from comprehension rather than enhance it.

Research suggests that it takes many repetitions with a new word before it truly becomes part of a student’s repertoire (Beck & McKeown, 2002). Students will have many and varied opportunities to incorporate these new words into their spoken vocabulary and writing as a result of repeated use by you, the teacher, and by fellow students throughout the sequence of lessons in these units. You may also want to utilize techniques such as building a word wall on which you post new vocabulary words and to which your students contribute as they discover new words during their reading. Finally, verbally marking when students use any of the newly acquired words in their speaking or writing will encourage other students to show off their newly acquired vocabulary.

8 Beck I. L., McKeown, M. G., & Kucan, L. (2002/2013). Bringing words to life: Robust vocabulary instruction. New York, NY: Guilford Press.

How does the unit provide support for English learners? Support for English learners is provided within the lessons in a number of ways. Students learn new information in manageable segments, which are sequenced to build on existing knowledge of language and genre and explicitly relate to the overarching questions and core concepts of the unit. Students revisit new learning a number of times. For example, students read texts multiple times, each time with a new purpose and using a scaffold appropriate to the purpose and the text.

In this way of working, the first time students read a text it is for literal comprehension and to make overall sense of the text. It is only after students have comprehended a text’s basic plot, characters, ideas, or claims that they read the text again for a new purpose. Given their basic comprehension, students are more ready to analyze the development of the text’s characters, themes, ideas, or claims.

Talk is an essential part of this unit and students’ development of spoken academic language is fostered through routines of discussion. Please see “Accountable Talk® Moves and Functions in ELA” in the Instructional Resources section of the Appendix. The tool offers practical guidelines and exemplars on how to promote and deepen students’ talking to learn and to expand their thinking with powerful facilitation moves. Students are given multiple opportunities to practice using the language in purposeful ways with effective feedback. To help English learners, as well as other students, students are often asked to share in pairs or trios before being invited to share with the larger group. This allows students to practice and gain confidence sharing their responses with one or two students before doing so with the whole group.

® Accountable Talk is a registered trademark of the University of Pittsburgh.

Obtaining Copyright Permission

A number of texts, such as journal and newspaper articles, book chapters, children’s books, and poems, may be mentioned in this IFL Unit. Because of copyright considerations, these resources could not be included in the unit. A comprehensive reference citation has been included in this section of the unit.

The resources referenced in this unit may be protected by copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code). You are responsible for obtaining permission from the rights holder(s) in order to reproduce and distribute copyrighted material. The rights holder may require a fee for this permission, which will be based on the number of copies made. Even if the rights holder does not require a fee, you are still obligated to make a formal request before redistributing copyrighted material.

Notes

• The rights holder will need the following information to process your request—title of work, author, place of publication, page numbers, and how and when the resource will be used. • When text comes from an anthology or a textbook, the publisher of the book is most likely not the rights holder. The publisher generally gets permission to include the text in their book. The rights holder will need to be determined in order to get permission to use the text. • Picture books generally have two rights holders, one for the text and another for the images. Both rights holders must grant permission to make copies of the texts. • Other resources, such as paintings, photographs, graphics, cartoons, videos, songs, etc., also require copyright permission.

Instructional Resources

Reader/Writer Notebook

What is the Reader/Writer Notebook? It is a notebook with loose-leaf paper that can be added, rearranged, or temporarily removed. Loose-leaf holed paper between pressboard covers, held together with rings would suffice.

Students are asked to use a Reader/Writer Notebook throughout this unit.

What are two main purposes of the notebook? It gives the writer a place for thinking and trying out different voices and techniques. It also serves as a central notebook to store handouts, other papers, and calendars used in English language arts.

What are other specific uses of the notebook? It is our classroom tool for thinking, recording ideas, generating writing ideas, and trying out new voices.

We use it for quick writes, two-column notes, WriteAbouts, WriteLikes, criteria charts, class notes, brainstorming, etc.

• It is a place for writers to work through writing problems and brainstorm. • It is a place where we can go back to reread and/or select pieces for revision. • It is a place where we can go back to reflect on how we have grown as readers and writers.

How may students set up their own Reader/Writer Notebooks? Either on the cover or the first page of the notebook, ask students to write their name, class period, and the date they began using their notebook. They might also personalize their notebooks with decorations, pictures, nicknames, etc.

On the top of the second page of the notebook, ask students to write, “Table of Contents.” On the first line of the Table of Contents page, ask students to write: “date,” “topic,” and “page number.”

Beginning with the Table of Contents, ask students to number the first 30 pages; students may number the rest of the pages when they get to page 30.

Students can now begin using the Reader/Writer Notebook on page 6 (pages 2-5 will be set aside for the table of contents).

Note: Because the Reader/Writer Notebook is a place for students to think and try out different writing and reading ideas, encourage them to write and collect ideas in their notebooks as a habit of practice that extends beyond the times related to specific assignments for class.

Reader/Writer Notebook Suggested Feedback System

Since the Reader/Writer Notebook is expressive writing (writing for the writer), it is important to lower the students’ level of anxiety relative to grammar and usage errors. Randy Bomer, author of Time for Meaning: Crafting Literate Lives in Middle and High School (1995), suggests that teachers also use a Reader/Writer Notebook. This helps to deepen the idea of a writers’ community in the classroom and allows teachers to give students ideas for their notebooks by sharing from time to time from their notebooks.

Bomer has also devised a method of feedback based on the following criteria:

1. Volume A. One entry from each class, including one long selection. B. Five for homework, including two long selections.

2. Variety

3. Thoughtfulness

4. Habits of Thought–Intention for Writing Specifically: A. description B. precise dialogue C. movement between facts and ideas

5. Playful Experimentation with Language He then uses a class rotation system, collecting every student’s notebook once every two weeks. He writes brief comments and the score from the class rubric on sticky notes and places them in each notebook.

Pedagogical Rituals and Routines

When we ask students to engage in inquiry units and lessons, we ask them to use the following key Pedagogical Rituals and Routines. These rituals and routines, derived from research on cognitive apprenticeship, are designed to engage all students as learners in collaborative problem-solving, writing to learn, making thinking visible, using routines for note-taking/making and tracking learning, text-based norms for interpretive discussions and writings, ongoing assessment and revision, and metacognitive reflection and articulation as regular patterns in learning. These cyclical apprenticeship rituals and routines build community when used with authentic tasks through collaboration, coaching, the sharing of solutions, multiple occasions for practice, and the articulation of reflections (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989).

The key English language arts pedagogical routines that support students’ learning are:

• quick writes composed by individual learners in response to questions and tasks for any and all of the design features of lessons and units;

• pair/trio sharing of individual quick writes to establish academic conversations in a safe environment with high accountability to the task and the group members;

• charting of the pair/trio sharing by members of the group to represent the work of the group to the entire class;

• gallery walks for members of the class to read and take notes on the pair/trio work in preparation for a whole class discussion of the task;

• whole group discussions of the questions or tasks that prompted the scaffold of quick writes, pair/trio share, charting, and gallery walks to deepen understandings and address lingering questions;

• model of a total performance in order to help learners understand the essence of an activity and develop a mental picture of what the real thing looks like;

• Reader/Writer Notebook in which learners compose quick writes, take notes, make notes, compose observations for writings, respond to questions and tasks, and track their learning; and

• StepBacks in which learners metacognitively reflect through quick writes, pair/trio shares, charting, gallery walks, discussions, and writing assignments on the content and pedagogy of their learning to develop and track their understandings and habits of thinking.

Accountable Talk® Moves and Functions in ELA

TEACHER MOVE FUNCTION EXAMPLE TO ENSURE PURPOSEFUL, COHERENT, AND PRODUCTIVE GROUP DISCUSSION 1. Marking Direct attention to the value and “I hear you saying _____. Let’s keep this importance of a student’s contribution. idea in mind.” 2. Challenging Redirect a question back to the students “What do YOU think?” “What surprised Students or use a student’s contributions as a you about what you just heard about the source for a further challenge or inquiry. text’s ______?” 3. Modeling Make one’s thinking public and “Here’s what good readers do…” demonstrate a total performance in order to help learners understand the essence of the activity and to develop a mental picture of what the real thing looks like. TO SUPPORT ACCOUNTABILITY TO ACCURATE KNOWLEDGE 4. Pressing for Hold students accountable for the “Where can we find that…?” “What is Accuracy accuracy, credibility, and clarity of their your basis for that conclusion?” “Who said contributions. that?” 5. Building on Prior Tie a current contribution back to “How does this connect…?” “How do we Knowledge knowledge accumulated by the class at a define ______in this context?” “What previous time. else comes to mind given our discussion about ______?” TO SUPPORT ACCOUNTABILITY TO RIGOROUS THINKING 6. Pressing for Elicit evidence and establish what “Why do you think that…?” “What Reasoning contribution a student’s utterance is evidence from the text supports your intended to make within the group’s larger claim? How does this idea contrast with enterprise. _____?” 7. Expanding Open up extra time and space in the “Take your time… say more.” “Given what Reasoning conversation for student reasoning. we just read and discussed, what would you now say about ______?” 8. Recapping Make public in a concise, coherent “What have we discovered?” “So far, we way, the group’s developed, shared have discussed the following …What else understanding of the content or text under do we need to address?” discussion. TO SUPPORT ACCOUNTABILITY TO THE LEARNING COMMUNITY 9. Keeping the Ensure that students can hear each other, “Please say back what _____ just said.” Channels Open and remind them that they must hear what others have said. 10. Keeping Everyone Ensure that everyone not only heard, but “Do you agree or disagree with what Together also understood, what a speaker said. ______just said? Explain your thinking.” 11. Linking Make explicit the relationship between “Who wants to add on to …?” “What do Contributions a new contribution and what has gone you notice is missing?” before. 12. Verifying and Revoice a student’s contribution, thereby “So, are you saying…?” Clarifying helping both speakers and listeners to engage more profitably in the conversation.

Inquiry-Based Discussion

In an inquiry-based discussion, readers discuss their responses to an interpretive question about a text(s). An interpretive question stems from a genuine inquiry about a text, is thought-provoking, and can sustain multiple and varied responses supported by textual evidence.

The purposes of the discussion are to help readers to:

• “try out” their answers and explanations anchored with specific moments from the text; • accept alternative views/interpretations of the same text (not about reaching consensus or proclaiming a winner); • rethink what they think about the text; and • understand that readers can have different, valid interpretations of the same text.

Preparing for the Discussion: • The discussion lead, usually the teacher, explains inquiry to readers, models some responses, and describes the teacher’s and the students’ roles during the discussion. • Allow enough time for the discussion given the text complexity. • The discussion usually follows the second or third reading of a text. • Individually, students WriteAbout the interpretive question and mine the text for evidence supporting their responses. • Students are seated so they can see, talk to, and listen to each other.

Features of the Inquiry-Based Discussion: • A central inquiry/question that can sustain multiple responses related to interpreting the ideas of one text or across texts focuses the talk. • The facilitator prompts students to “say more” and to anchor their talk in the text. • Initial student talk is exploratory and can be halting as participants “try out” and modify their answers and explanations. • Participants return often to cite or reread the text, texts, or their notes. • There is usually genuine talk related to the question by over 60% of the group. • Participants listen to each other using the ideas of others in their answers. • At the end of the discussion, there is time for each participant to jot down what they are thinking about the text given the discussion. • The teacher takes the long view on students’ discussions, expecting the students to get better as they have more experience.

Facilitator’s Role: • The teacher facilitator is not a direct teacher or a presenter. The facilitator does not talk too much, does not repeat the talkers’ responses, and does not verbally compliment or negate responses. • When teachers step out of their role as guides and into their role as participants or teachers, they limit participation (Vygotsky, 1986; Alvermann, et al., 1996). • As teacher facilitator, you elicit what readers are thinking and validating with evidence, but you are not telling them your interpretation. • The teacher facilitator: – Uses questions to get others talking; – Encourages everyone—not just some—to participate; – Presses for clarification and evidence from the text; – Keeps the conversation on track during the time frame provided; – Encourages readers to listen to and learn from each other by not repeating their responses; – Reminds them, only if and when necessary, of the guiding question under discussion; – Asks each discussant to validate answers with explanations anchored in evidence from the text; – Summarizes a flow of three or four responses or questions further to raise rigor of discussion—not to do the mental work for students; – Asks participants to step back and reflect on what they learned from the discussion: Would they now change their first quick write response and, if so, what would they change and why?; and – Asks the idea tracker to recap the intellectual work of the discussion.

• The facilitator asks readers to step back and reflect on the discussion: If they didn’t participate successfully, what needs to improve and who has responsibility for the improvement?

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