Plugin Lesson 4:
Commenting on Page Checks
Having individually created Detailed Page Checks in the third FNF Plugin lesson, students now use the commenting capacity of Google Docs (or of Microsoft Word, when edit permission is granted) to dig in to each others' investigations and provide peer scaffolding to increase learning.
Lesson Plan
Learning Targets
I can compare two articles based on the
I can use document-linked and substantive (evidence-based) commenting to probe a peer's evidentiary judgements about claims, evidence and reasoning in web-based articles.
Teacher Preparation
Your students will have produced work at varying levels of quality in Page Checks created by their Detailed application of the plugin. Decide whether to (A) include all page checks (which ensures every originator gets feedback, but diverts some commenting into inadequately performed investigations) or (B) select a subset (which supports deeper commenting).
Both options are presented below. In option (A) students are paired to do initial commenting on each others' work as best they can before opening documents up to quads (2 pairs) and then larger groups. In option (B) students are placed in quads with a focus on 2 page checks per quad, selected by the teacher.
The last piece of preparation is to ensure that the final form field, "Questions for Later", has a good prompt to get substantive commenting going. This prompt should ideally refer to the investigation on the page (what the student author wrote and thought), but in option (A) it may need to be a general question that refers only to the article and it's claims, rather than the student work.