Communicating Solutions from the Scientific Method Process
OBJECTIVE: When the students complete the lesson, they will have used the formula for preparing and writing a standard five-paragraph essay.
Students will have read "The Rescue Party," identifying and analyzing implausible scientific facts and phenomena which digress from what they have learned about: (1) the life cycle of our sun, (2) distances and the speed of light, and (3) the effect that the sun will have on the earth when the sun is in its "red giant" sequence. This pre-writing activity can be recorded on a chart with PROBLEMS in the first column, ANALYSIS in the middle column, and FINDINGS or OUTCOME in the last column.
From this pre-writing activity, they will have completed the process preparing them to draw a conclusion, for example: Some of the scientific facts and phenomena in "The Rescue Party" are implausible and inaccurate. This conclusion becomes the basis for the thesis of their essay. Using this thesis, they set up the introductory paragraph of their essay, which includes four sentences: the thesis, and three controlling ideas which are taken from information on their chart.
Paragraph I (thesis) Some of the scientific facts and phenomena in the science fiction short story, "The Rescue Party," by Arthur Clarke are implausible and inaccurate. (controlling idea # 1)The urgency of events in the story is premised upon our sun exploding into a nova, a phenomenon that defies scientific fact. (controlling idea # 2) The extraterrestrial intelligence traveling to the earth to rescue at least a few hundred earthlings is traveling at speeds that defy the laws of nature. (controlling idea # 3) Descriptions of the oceans in the earth's final stages are dramatic and add a great deal to the conflict in the story, but in fact the earth's oceans will have totally dried up when the sun reaches its terminal evolution.
Paragraph II (the student repeats controlling idea # 1 as the topic sentence and, using the information from the chart, gives evidence for the topic sentence. It may be necessary to add in some background information from the story.
Paragraph III (the student repeats controlling idea # 2 as the topic sentence and, using information from the chart, gives evidence for the topic sentence. It may be necessary to add in some background information from the story.
Paragraph IV (the student repeats controlling idea # 3 as the topic sentence and, using information from the chart, gives evidence for the topic sentence. It may be necessary to add in some background information from the story.
Paragraph V (the conclusion, like the introduction has four sentences: one that resembles the thesis in the introduction, and one that makes a statement regarding each of the controlling ideas discussed in detail in paragraphs two, three, and four.
Thus, the standard five-paragraph essay has no surprises, and the student learns to treat it almost as a mathematical formula. This may not be an imaginative approach to writing an essay, but with practice, at-risk students who have never mastered a standard essay are able to grasp the formula, especially if the pre-writing activity, (a chart gives the student a sense of security), plugs into the essay. This highly structured formula gives students a dependable vehicle for communicating their findings.
This lesson works well as a class activity, taking the class through the writing process after having completed the pre-writing chart. Students hand in their first draft of the essay with the idea that they will have another opportunity to rewrite the draft for a higher score. The idea is to end up with a final draft that gives the student a sense of pride and accomplishment, especially when he or she looks back at previous drafts that are attached behind the final, best draft. The pre-writing chart should also be attached so the student can review the process.