Week 3 Discussion Post 

1. Write 1 paragraph describing a "great lesson" that you teach or have taught. 
Please write the lesson so that it is possible for others to modify it for their grade 
and possibly use the idea for the classroom they are teaching now. 

If you are not teaching think of a lesson that was taught to you or google "great 
lessons" Share :) 

A great lesson that I have done over the past few years involves how to 
answer a question being asked and give support for their answer. This lesson 
involves a strategy using “R.A.C.E.”: Restate, Answer, Cite, Explain. This is a lesson 
that can be used in 2nd through 8th grade and is very useful for many students 
because it gives them a formula on how to answer a question in paragraph form 
while also citing evidence! Here is a lesson plan: 
1. Prior to class starting, choose a Newsela articles (or any reading) 
that are fun and relevant to kids (e.g.: ​Monopoly kicks out three 
game pieces​). Then, select the short answer from Newsela (Newsela 
provides these questions for you within your account) or create a 
question based off the article that can be supported with evidence 
(e.g.: Does ​Hasbro care about the public's opinion? Why or why not? 
Support your answer with evidence from the text.) 
2. Hand out R.A.C.E. graphic organizer (attached). 
3. Introduce R.A.C.E. and that it is a writing strategy to help them 
answer questions. Each letter stands for a word/ phrase: ​Restate​ the 
key words from the question, ​Answer​ the question(s) being asked, 
Cite​ evidence from the text to support your answer, ​Explain​ why this 
information is important. For those overachievers, they can also 
Expand ​with their opinion. Explain to students that each letter 
represents a sentence within a paragraph and that these should be 
written in order to help their paragraph stay organized. 
4. Hand out Newsela article ​Monopoly kicks out three game pieces​. 
5. Prior to reading the article, preview the short answer question: Does 
Hasbro care about the public's opinion? Why or why not? Support 
your answer with evidence from the text. 
6. Begin reading the article as a class (typically we do “battle reads” or 
volunteer reads).  
7. Once the article is finished, revisit the question and the graphic 
organizer. Have them write the question at the top of their graphic 
organizer. 
8. Instruct the class to focus on the “Restate” column of the graphic 
organizer. The restate asks the students to use keywords from the 
question and turn this idea into a statement. 
9. Ask learners to highlight the key words they think they ​need to 
include in their answer​. As a class, identify the key words and model 
highlighting those words. (e.g.: Does ​Hasbro care about the public's 
opinion​? Why or why not? Support your answer with evidence from 
the text.) They will not highlight words such as why and why not 
because these are not words they should restate. 
10. Ask the class if they write it exactly as the way it’s written, would it 
make sense? (The answer is no). Ask what they need to edit for it to 
be a statement (answer: change “care” to “cares”). Then, determine if 
they agree that Hasbro cares about the public’s opinion As a class, 
write “Hasbro cares about the public’s opinion.” in the Restate box. 
11. Instruct the class to focus on the “Answer” column of the graphic 
organizer. This is where they need to answer the other part of the 
question being asked (​Why?)​ Ask learners to share in their own words 
why they think Hasbro cares about the public’s opinion (answers 
should relate to Hasbro wanting the public to vote on what pieces 
should be included in the Monopoly game). Once you’ve decided as 
a class on what you think the answer sentence should be, write that 
answer in the second box. (e.g.: Hasbro wants the public to vote on 
what pieces should be included in the next Monopoly game.) 
12. Instruct the class to focus on the “Cite” column of the graphic 
organizer. This is where they need to cite evidence from the text to 
support their answer. Instruct them to look beneath the Cite box and 
read the sentence starters that are offered (According to the text,... 
The author wrote,...From my reading I know that,... On page/ 
paragraph __, it said__.)  
13. Instruct class that a citation means they are quoting from the text 
word for word in their own writing. In order to cite though, they need 
to begin the sentence with a sentence starter and a comma. Ask 
class to choose one of the sentence starters that’s easiest for them 
to memorize. 
14. Revisit their answer ( Hasbro wants the public to vote on what pieces 
should be included in the next Monopoly game.) Ask them to 
highlight from the article which sentence directly relates to and 
supports their answe​r (e.g.:”​Hasbro asked fans of the game to vote in 
January for their eight favorite tokens from a list of more than 50.”) 
Learners can work on pairs to find what part they want to highlight. 
They should only highlight 1-2 sentences typically. 
15. Once they’ve found their evidence, ask for a share out to answer 
what sentence they chose. After share out, model your thinking out 
loud for how you find a citation (rereading the article, seeing if the 
sentence that was selected directly relates to the answer, etc.) 
16. Model writing a sentence starter, comma, and then citation: From the 
article, I know that, ​”​Hasbro asked fans of the game to vote in 
January for their eight favorite tokens from a list of more than 50.” 
Class will write their chosen sentence starter as well as their citation 
next to the cite box of their graphic organizer. 
17. ​Instruct the class to focus on the “Explain” column of the graphic 
organizer. The explain box also lists some sentence starters that can 
be used to explain why this is important information. Ask them to 
choose a sentence starter they understand, can remember, and feel 
comfortable using.  
18. Ask class to volunteer why they think this information is important. 
Possible answers include that it gets public buy-in, it gets the public 
excited about Monopoly, it is a way for Hasbro to get people to buy 
a newer version of Monopoly, etc.  
19. Write an answer that uses both a sentence starter and an 
explanation on the projected graphic organizer (possible answer: “I 
can conclude that if Hasbro includes the public in making decisions 
about their new game tokens, then the public would be more excited 
about buying a new Monopoly game.”) Learners will write this or their 
own explanation on their graphic organizer.  
20. Option: For those writers who want to take their writing further, they 
can also “expand” with their opinion. There isn’t a space for this on 
the attached graphic organizer, but when they write out their 
paragraph a sa whole, this will be their last sentence (e.g.: In my 
opinion, it is a smart marketing technique they are doing because 
contests are a good way to get the public involved.) 
21. Finally, learners can either type or rewrite the 4 parts of their R.A.C.E. 
graphic organizer as a paragraph. They will need to check if all 4 
sentences flow together. If not, they can slightly edit it so it makes 
sense. Sometimes, the subject may be repeated too many times, so 
they will need to switch to a pronoun rather than the proper noun. 
Once all 4 sentences have been combined their paragraph will say:  
a. Hasbro cares about the public’s opinion. Hasbro wants the 
public to vote on what pieces should be included in the next 
Monopoly game. ​From the article, I know that, ​”​Hasbro asked 
fans of the game to vote in January for their eight favorite 
tokens from a list of more than 50.” ​I can conclude that if 
Hasbro includes the public in making decisions about their 
new game tokens, then the public would be more excited 
about buying a new Monopoly game.” 
22. If they edit it should say: 
a. Hasbro cares about the public’s opinion. ​They​ want the public 
to vote on what pieces should be included in the next 
 Monopoly game. ​From the article, I know that, ​”​Hasbro asked 
fans of the game to vote in January for their eight favorite 
tokens from a list of more than 50.” ​I can conclude that if 
Hasbro includes the public in making decisions about their 
new game tokens, then the public would be more excited 
about buying a new Monopoly game.” 
23. Learners will keep this graphic organizer as notes for the next times 
they use R.A.C.E. 
24. Learners will complete the following exit ticket questions on a piece 
of paper:  
a. Write down two things you learned today. 

b. Write down one question you have about today’s lesson. 

c. What would you like me to review tomorrow? 

2. What ways does your lesson help English Language Learners? 

English Language Learners will benefit from this lesson because it is an 
organized way to write a paragraph. They are using a graphic organizer, it 
assesses comprehension of text, and it’s a structured response. Many of my ELLs 
also benefit from the highlighting. It helps them visually see what words stand out 
and helps them understand what the question is asking. 
 

3. How will you assess this lesson when it is over? 

This is a lesson that is ongoing. This lesson is the initial lesson, but the practice 
will be done many times throughout the year (in my classroom, we do 2-3 R.A.C.E. 
answers a week). From the initial lesson, I will be able to see what keywords they 
highlighted on their own from the question being asked and also what evidence 
they thought would support their answer from the article. I also look at the 
feedback from their exit ticket. Since most of the first lesson is guided, I rely 
heavily on the follow up lessons and practice to see how a student understands 
R.A.C.E. From there, I do small workshops for the part of R.A.C.E. they struggle with 
the most.