Lesson for Outliers, Reading the Intro

Wednesday, 11/2 (85 mins) & Thursday, 11/3 (84 minutes)

Lesson Plan Template

EDIS 5882: English Education
Name: Amy Zhang
Context:

Date and time for which lesson will be taught: Wednesday, 11/2 and Thursday, 11/3
Course name: 11AA
Grade level: 11th grade
Length of lesson: 85 minutes
Description of setting, students, and curriculum and any other important contextual characteristics:
o Students are going to learn vocabulary in context of the Introduction chapter in Malcolm
Gladwells nonfiction book, Outliers. I will be pre-teaching students a list of 10 words that I
carefully selected from the body of the introduction chapter.

Objectives:
Number each objective to reference in the Assessment section

Objectives:
1. Students will be able to understand that an individuals success is cultivated by more than just hard work.
a. Students will be able to know the varying systematic factors that impact an individuals success:
community, birth dates, opportunity for practice, etc.
b. Students will be able to understand the metaphor of comparing Roseto to health as the book Outliers is to
success.
SWBAT:
Cognitive (know/understand):
1. Students will be able to understand that an individuals success is cultivated by more than just hard

work.
B. Students will be able to know the varying systemic factors that impact an individuals success:
community, birth dates, opportunity for practice, etc.
C. Students will be able to understand the systems of success.
Affective (feel/value) and/or Non-Cognitive:
2. Students will be able to feel comfortable sharing their ideas.
Performance (do):
3. Students will be able to evaluate the varying systemic factors that impact an individuals success.
B. Students will be able to identify and evaluate how systemic factors may impact an individuals success.
C. Students will be able demonstrate a concrete, personal definition of success.

SOLs: [List with numbers portrayed in the SOL document]

VSOL 11.4 The student will read, comprehend, and analyze relationships among American literature, history, and
culture. e) Analyze how context and language structures convey an authors intent and viewpoint.

CCSs: [List with numbers portrayed in the CCS document]

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.6
Determine an author's point of view or purpose in a text in which the rhetoric is particularly effective,
analyzing how style and content contribute to the power, persuasiveness or beauty of the text.

Assessments: Methods for evaluating each of the specific objectives listed above.
Please use the sentence stems to describe your assessments. In brackets after each assessment note the number of the
objective(s) from above being assessed
Diagnostic: Students will demonstrate what they already know abouttheir chapters main ideas by
answering the questions on their chapters Reading Guide. (1b, 1c)

Formative:
o Students will show their progress towards ...understanding their assigned chapters main ideas
by ...completing the reading guide and sharing out their ideas in a small group discussion. (1b, 1c,
2, 3a, 3b, VSOL 11.4 e, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.6)
o Students will show their progress towards understanding the systems of success by sharing out
their understanding of the chapter through their Chapter Outline (in the style of jigsaw
presentations). (1a, 1b, 3a, VSOL 11.4e, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.6)

Summative: Students will ultimately be assessed (today or in a future lesson) onunderstanding the main
ideas of the book and the authors purpose byparticipating in a small group discussion. (1a, 1b, 2, 3a, 3b,
VSOL 11.4e, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.6)

Materials Needed:
This is just a list of the materials you will need for this lesson to occur. In the Materials Appendix below,
you will include the actual materials or links to what you will be using.
Workshop (Quarter 2) handout and rubric
Workshop articles
PPT with Agenda and Directions
Vocab materials (paper and pencil)
Graphic organizer (slide 25 of PPT)
Outliers copies and scanned excerpts
Instructional Steps (Procedures): Detail student and teacher actions, discourse, and behaviors.
[Note: Any words that represent what you will say directly to students appear in italics. When students
are speaking, indicate your target response as well as any possible student misconceptions and/or offthe-target responses and how you will respond to them.]

1. [2 mins.] Daily Greetings / Agenda for Today

I will greet students and introduce the agenda for today.
2. [25 mins.] Workshop
I will set the tone of workshop as being quiet and productive. Students will continue reading (and
annotating) their success article. Some students will start outlining (or filling out They Say/I Say
templates) in their workshop documents.
Ms. X has shared some of your reflections with me and something I noticed was that a lot of you
want to set the goal of using class time more wisely and asking specifically for a quieter
environment. With that goal in mind, Im setting workshop expectations today to be as quiet as it
was on Monday so that you all have a productive environment to work in.
3. [15-18 mins.] Vocabulary in Intro of Outliers

I will pull out 10 words from the Outliers introduction, display the definition of each word on the
display board. As we go through each word, Ill show the word by itself first, and ask students to
make a guess for what the word means (either by using word parts or where theyve heard the
word before). Then well confirm with the definition.
Students will have 10 vocab words to learn. They will copy down the word and definition onto a
regular sheet of paper, spaced out. Students will draw a picture/image that they associate with
each word/definition and for each word, I will get one or two people to share out what they came
up with.
At the end of the 10 words, well take a look at any particularly confusing ones for students and
clarify the words before we go onto reading the chapter. Im keeping in mind: egalitarian, ethos,
fractious, conventional.

Pull 10 words from Outliers:

Outlier (n.)-- 1. Something that is situated away from or classed differently from a main or related body.
2. A statistical observation that is markedly different in value from the others of the sample. (3)
Roseto was an outlier (7)
Concrete example: if there is a fish tank and on the left side of the tank, there is a group of small, blue
fish, and on the right side of the tank, there is a singular big, red fish, which is the outlier? Looking for:
big, red fish because its different from the rest.
Ventured (v.)--to go somewhere that is unknown, dangerous, etc.
ventured west (4)
Fractious (adj.)--full of anger and disagreement
fractious relationships (5)
Concrete example: if there is a room full of people debating a controversial topic and everyone is
disagreeing and self-segregating into small groups because they cant get along with everyone else, these
people have a fractious relationship with each other.
Brisk (adj.)--moving or speaking quickly
brisk six miles (8)
Egalitarian (adj).--aiming for equal wealth and status for all people
egalitarian ethos of the community (9)
Ethos (n.)--the guiding beliefs of a person, group, or organization
Egalitarian ethos of the community (9)
Concrete example that teenagers would relate to: Teenagers today live by the ethos of YOLO. Do you live
by this ethos, student name? What about you, student name?
Example sentence: They are working to keep a democratic ethos alive in the community.
Obscure (v.)--to hide or cover something; to be in front of something so that it cannot be seen
helped the unsuccessful obscure their failures (9)
Concrete example: If Im hiking up Humpback Rock in Charlottesville, and suddenly all these branches
obscuring my vision, what are they doing to me? What is the action that the trees are doing? Looking for:
they are covering your face.
Insulate (v.)--to prevent (someone or something) from dealing with or experiencing something
unpleasant, dangerous, etc.
insulating them from the pressures of the modern world (9)
Concrete example: make the connection from protection to keeping a hot beverage warm (using a
thermos), or the way that computer cords are insulated by the thin coat of synthetic material.
Skepticism (n.)--an attitude of doubting the truth of something (such as a claim or statement).
you can imagine the kind of skepticism they faced (10)

Concrete example: have students identify whether or not they have ever faced skepticism from a bunch of
other people, and have them describe that situation.

Conventional (adj.)--used and accepted by most people; usual or traditional

conventional wisdom (10)
Concrete example: have students identify what they think is the conventional way of eating. Looking for:
eating with hands or with a fork. Then, I can bring up that my conventional way of eating is slightly
different from theirs because I eat with chopsticks rather than forks on a daily basis.
Transition: Okay, now that weve pre-taught ourselves these vocab words that were going to see
these words in Outliers, lets do a quick brain switch back to our free writes from Monday to think
about how success can look different for a lot of people. I consolidated your free writes and
pulled out lines that you guys voiced several times or ones that pointed out something new.

4. [5 mins.] Revisit Free Write on Success

I will have pulled students definition of success from their Free Write into three groups (one with
more concrete definitions of success, the other with more feeling/relational definitions of success,
and one group for the cost of success) and point out how students definitions fit into these three
groups. I will ask students to consider:
Why people might sort success into these categories, and what sorts of things they want from life?
Who might conform to this concrete/economical (more conventional) idea of success? Who might
conform to this abstract/relational idea of success? [connecting it back to the economical and
relational identity domains we introduced at the beginning of the year]
Transition: Take this idea of the more conventional way of thinking versus a newer way of
thinking into our reading of the Outliers introduction. It will help you consider Malcolm
Gladwells purpose of writing the introduction and what hes going to do next in the book after
the intro.
5. [25 mins.] Outliers Reading Intro
Well read the introduction as a full class aloud. Ill start us off by reading the first paragraph,
then well popcorn along (or take volunteers - 11 paragraphs in section 1 and 9 paragraphs in
section 2). Ill stop the reader at key points either to remind students to check in with themselves
about the vocab words or ask comprehension questions.
I will prompt the students to fill out pieces of the graphic organizer, such as the answer to the
question, What was the Roseto Mystery?: Rosetos health and the lack of heart attacks in a time
when there was an epidemic of heart attacks (1950s).

Starting with the definition of outliers on p.3--why start with a definition?

On p.4, I will double check vocab comprehension of paesani and ventured.
On p.5 (after the first paragraph) and after the set up of the Roseto people coming to America, I will ask
students to rephrase what we learned about the Roseto people in 140 characters or less.
On p. 5, I will double check vocab comprehension of fractious relationships, emphasizing that the
Rosetos really stuck to themselves.
On p. 6 (after the first paragraph), I will think aloud and say, Hmm...I wonder if thats the Roseto Mystery
finally revealed? Now what do they do to discover more about it?
Here, we can stop to fill in the Roseto Mystery box in the graphic organizer.

On p. 7 (on the second to last paragraph), I will ask students to identify the factors that Wolf thought were
possible factors in Rosetos booming health, but were not (suicide, alcoolism, drug addiction, crime).
Here, we can stop in to fill in the Possible Factors circles in the graphic organizer.
On p.7 (very bottom line), I will ask students why Roseto is considered an outlier.
On p.8, I will check for vocab comprehension of brisk as well as ask students what other factors Wolf
took off their list of hypotheses: diet, exercise, genes.
On p.9, I will stop to ask students, What does Wolf mean by his statement, It had to be Roseto itself?
On p.9, I will also do a vocab check of egalitarian and ethos.
On p. 9, I will also revisit the concept of the paesani culture of southern Italy and Rosets isolation. I will
ask the question, Lets make an inference. What effects did Rosetos self-imposed isolation have on their
paesani culture? Vocab check on insulate.
On p. 10, I will do a vocab check of skepticism and ask students, Are you feeling some skepticism or do
you believe Wolfs account of what Rosetos health looks like and the underlying factors of paesani
culture?
On p.10, I will also do a vocab check of conventional wisdom and go back to this idea of conventional
thinking vs newer thinking (which we primed in our Free Write revisit). Here, in this introduction, what
are the conventional vs unconventional/newer ideas about health? (individual genetics and choices such
as diet and exercise vs health depending on community)
Post-reading the introduction and students making a prediction:
Gladwell writes this introduction to his book to set us up to think about success in a certain way,
but he never actually mentions success in the introduction. Hmm. I wonder if this introduction
might be a metaphor for comparing the Roseto Mystery to something? What is the metaphor? He
has us thinking about Roseto and what health is like in there...and weve made the prediction that
the Outliers is going to keep talking about success. Lets reread that last line: In Outliers, I want
to do for our understanding of success what Wolf did for our understanding of health. Link
those two together.
Roseto is to health as _______ is to ______? Great, so as we unpacked the conventional way of
thinking about health in Roseto to discover this new way of thinking about health--in terms of
culture and community--so, too, are we going to unpack the conventional ways of thinking about
success in Outliers, and discover a new way of thinking about success.

6. [5 mins.] Exit Ticket

Students will pull out a sheet of paper and answer this question:
What is a conventional way that Wolf was thinking about health? What is the unconventional way
of thinking about health that Wolf discovered in Roseto?
7. [5-7 mins.] Crucible Presenting
Any students who have yet to present their Crucible Projects to the class will do so in the time
remaining before the bell rings.