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    Supporting Your Opinions

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    Subject: ESL/ELL (English Language Learning)

    Lesson Length: 30 - 45 mins

    Topic: Supporting Opinions

    Grade Level: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

    Standards / Framework:

    Brief Description: Students will practice responding to opinion statements of others with their own personal preferences.

    Know Before You Start: This lesson allows students to practice stating their opinions and using their own personal experiences to support their choices. Students are expected to use a complete sentence and encouraged to elaborate.

    Hook:

    • Ask students, “What is the best pet?” Have students share their responses. 

    • Remind students that when you state your opinion it is important to use your own personal experiences or facts to support your choice. Explain that this helps others better understand our opinions.

    Activity:

    • Read and discuss the sample comic. 

    • Read the first panel and point out that both girls in the comic shared their opinion. 

    • Direct attention to girl #2’s response. Point out that if that was all she said, the conversation would end. 

    • Share the second panel. Explain to students that girl #1 continued the conversation by asking a “why” question which encouraged girl #2 to elaborate on her opinion by sharing a personal experience. 

    • Ask students how sharing a personal experience might impact the character’s conversation.

    • Explain that it is important to share our own personal experience so that others know and understand us better.

    • Using the sample comic as a guide, have students practice stating and supporting their opinions by creating a comic. The comic should feature themselves discussing an opinion with another character.

    • Provide example topics such as:

      • Best holiday

      • Best movie

      • Best food

    Closure:

    • Have students role play their comics to provide another opportunity for language development.

    Differentiation:

    • Allow students to use the speech-to-text feature.
    • Allow students to use the voiceover feature to read their comics aloud.
    • Allow students to work in pairs or groups as needed.
    • Adjust sentence frames to match language levels.
    • Allow students to use a Story Starter.

    Resources:

    • Comic to print or display

    Suggested Content Packs:

    Suggested Story Starters:

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    Related Ideas

    Would You Rather?

    Play a game of Would You Rather to create opinion comics with your students.

    How Questions

    Students will explain a phenomenon by answering “how” or “why" questions.