Lesson 17: March, Explanatory Writing, Part 4

Have students take out March: Book One and “Mayor Stops Boycott Talk” with their homework drafts, along with the T-charts they created in Lesson 16.

Say these Directions: Review the success criteria for the analysis paragraph you will be writing today.

• Say: Your analysis paragraph should include:

  • a clear topic sentence (claim) about the relationship between both texts

  • evidence from March and “Mayor Stops Boycott Talk”

  • an explanation of how the texts' information agrees or disagrees with each other

  • correct usage of verbals and punctuation

Ask: What questions do you have about the explanatory writing and the success criteria?

Connection to Today’s Learning:

Say: Yesterday, you planned out an analysis that will explain how key ideas and claims from “Mayor Stops Boycott Talk” agree or disagree with John Lewis’s experiences and reflections in March. Today, you will write that analysis using accurate evidence from both texts and clear explanatory writing.

Investigating Commas

Explain to students how commas signal pauses and clarify meaning.

• Commas act like “road signs” for readers. They signal brief pauses, separate ideas, and prevent readers from misreading how parts of a sentence fit together.

• Without commas, sentences can feel rushed or confusing because the reader cannot tell which words “go together,” or where one idea ends and the next begins.

• As writers, we can already use commas to insert a pause when we open with a transition (Then, So,) and to separate items in a list.

• Commas can also be used to set off extra information (nonessential details), and separate complete thoughts when they are joined by words like but or so.

Say these Directions: Review the sentence examples from March below. Identify why each comma is used and how it affects meaning.

• "So when Dr. King, as president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, led a boycott of those buses, we felt like we were a part of it, too." (p. 58)

• Commas around “as president of the Montgomery Improvement Association”: Set off an appositive/nonessential phrase that adds context about Dr. King’s role without interrupting the main point.

• " I was nervous, but once I warmed up the congregation warmed up too, and out poured the emotions." (p. 60)

• Comma before “but”: Separates two contrasting parts—how he felt at first vs. what changed.

• Comma after “too”: Signals a shift into the final outcome and helps the inverted phrasing (and out poured…) read smoothly instead of sounding jammed together.

Explain to students that they will be building on how they already use commas to focus on using them to clarify meaning when writing in this lesson.

Part A: Writing an Explanatory Paragraph (RI.8.9, W.8.2.a-d, W.8.4, W.8.9.b, L.8.2.a) (20 minutes)

Say these Directions: Use your T-chart notes from Lesson 16 to write your analysis.

• Say: Write an 8-10 sentence analysis paragraph explaining how the information expressed in the newspaper article “Mayor Stops Boycott Talk” agrees or disagrees with Lewis's experiences and reflections in March: Book One. In your response, you must use at least one verbal and one comma to indicate a pause or break.

Make sure to:

• Write a topic sentence (claim) that answers the question prompt

• Cite evidence from both texts to support the topic sentence (claim)

• Use appropriate and varied transitions to organize ideas in the paragraph

• Use vocabulary learned from the texts to explain ideas

• Include one correctly used verbal

• Include at least one comma indicating a pause or break

• The newspaper article’s information disagrees with Lewis’s experiences and personal reflections about segregation in the South. The mayor in the newspaper articles states that “no other city in the South of our size has treated the Negro more fairly. In Montgomery, they have better facilities in schools, hospitals, health centers, and the like . . .” This information disagrees with Lewis’s own experience of segregation and inequality. Lewis experiences unequal school facilities as he reflects on white children’s “nice playground equipment” and his “hand-me-down” bus (p. 48). The mayor also says that there have been “fine relationships” that have existed between Black Americans and “white people for generations.” This statement disagrees with Lewis's own experience of white people as he drives through the South with his Uncle Otis on their road trip North. As they drive through the South, Lewis and his uncle cannot stop at any place to eat and can only use certain “bathrooms.” (p. 38) These experiences show that there is no “fine relationship” between white people and Southern Black Americans because Black Americans are treated as inferior to white Americans. Additionally, Rosa Parks refuses to “move to the back of the bus” (p. 58), not because she is “radical” as the mayor says in the newspaper article, but because she wants to be treated fairly. The major emphasizes that the bus boycott is disrupting the “social fabric” of the community, but Lewis and other Black Americans show that segregation has already been an unfair and unjust disruption to the current “social fabric.”

Part B: Revising an Explanatory Paragraph (W.8.5) (10 minutes)

After students have finished drafting their analysis paragraphs, transition them into partnerships to engage in the Think-Pair-Write-Share routine.

Think-Pair-Write-Share

Say these Directions: Take turns with your partner reading your drafts aloud. Use the rubric to give your partner feedback on clarity, evidence use, and language conventions for each other’s paragraphs. Revise your paragraphs based on the feedback from your partner.

Lesson 17 Writing Rubric: Explanatory Paragraph — Mayor Stops Boycott Talk vs. March

Writing prompt: Write an 8–10 sentence analysis paragraph explaining how the information in “Mayor Stops Boycott Talk” agrees or disagrees with Lewis’s experiences and reflections in March: Book One. Use at least one verbal and one comma to indicate a pause or break.

Reflection

Provide students with a confidence continuum (i.e., 1–5). As needed, model how to demonstrate a level of confidence using the continuum.

Say these Directions: Reflect on your writing using the Reflection routine.

• Ask: Based on our work today, how confident are you in writing explanatory texts in the future? What goal would you like to accomplish next?

Have students read pp. 63–73 of March: Book One. Instruct students to take notes in their Journal on the following prompt:

As you read, annotate the text for the following:

• What are the key events, connections, and the central idea?