D4.2.6-8: Constructing Explanations with Reasoning, Sequence and Data

Overview

Lesson Procedure

70-75 minutes of class time across 5 phases.

1. Warm-Up10 minutes
2. Direct Instruction20-25 minutes
3. Guided Practice15 minutes
4. Independent Practice15 minutes
5. Closure10 minutes

1. Warm-Up10 minutes

   Warm-Up Prompt

   "A friend missed the bus, was late to school and missed a quiz. Explain to a teacher how it happened, in order, in three sentences. Which words in your sentences show that one thing caused the next?"

   Collect two or three answers and underline the linking words students used (because, so, then, after that). Introduce the indicator: an explanation answers how or why something happened. It is different from an argument, which takes a position and tries to convince. Today students will explain how one storm stopped New York City in a single day, and then say honestly how good their explanation is.

2. Direct Instruction20-25 minutes

   Part 1: The five parts of an explanation. Write the five parts on the board, with a one-line definition of each:

   • Reasoning: the links that show how one thing led to another, often signaled by because, so, as a result.
   • Correct sequence: putting events in the order they really happened, using clock times, dates and time words (first, next, by noon).
   • Examples: specific cases that show a general point, such as one group of workers who could not do their jobs.
   • Details with relevant information and data: facts and numbers (data) that bear on the question, each with its source.
   • Strengths and weaknesses: what the explanation shows well, and what it cannot show because of gaps or limits in its sources.

   The question. How did one storm stop New York City in a single day? A blizzard is a fierce, cold wind with blinding snow (Source 5). The storm began on Sunday, March 11, 1888, and raged until March 14 (Source 5). Sources 1-4 were written by New York reporters during the storm and reprinted that year in a book, New York in the Blizzard, compiled by N. A. Jennings. Source 1 calls New York and Brooklyn "the two great cities that the bridge unites": in 1888 they were separate cities, joined by the Brooklyn Bridge.

   Source Information: who made each source, when, and how the maker knew (from the sources and the 1888 book)

   Source	Who made it	When	How the maker knew
   1: The First Day of the Blizzard	A New York newspaper reporter (the book reprints the report without naming the paper or the writer)	During the storm, 1888	Saw the streets that morning
   2: Broadway Stores Shut	A New York reporter	During the storm, 1888	Reports from downtown streets and offices
   3: Mails and wires	A New York reporter, quoting the telegraph company's wire chief	During the storm, 1888	Mail arrival times (the source does not say who supplied them) and the wire chief's statement
   4: The Storm Passing	A New York reporter, reporting the readings of the Signal Service weather office	During the storm, 1888 (the book does not print the date of the evening)	Instruments: a barometer and a wind gauge
   5: Blizzard	The Encyclopedia Americana	1920, about thirty years later	Collected records of many storms

   Part 2: Read the sources. Pairs read Sources 1-5 and mark each event with its time. Terms: sleet (rain that freezes into ice as it falls), persistency (refusing to give up), inconsiderable (very small), jaded (worn out), depots (railroad stations), larders (food cupboards), horse cars (streetcars pulled by horses), the elevated (trains on tracks raised above the street), mails (bags of letters carried by train), telegraph (messages sent as electric signals along wires on poles), barometer or glass (an instrument that measures air pressure), velocity (speed), probabilities (the 1888 weather office's word for forecasts), Signal Service (the weather office of 1888; Source 4 says its New York office was in the tower of the Equitable Building and its chief office was in Washington).

   How the texts were prepared: Sources 1-4 are typed exactly from the page scans of the 1888 book, and [...] marks every place where words are left out. The misspellings "proabbilities" and "litte" in Source 4 are the book's own. Source 5 is the complete encyclopedia article, in which a long dash printed before a temperature stands for a minus sign (so the dash before 28° means 28 degrees below zero).

   1At little after 12 o'clock on Sunday night, or Monday morning, the severe rain that had been pelting down since the moment of the opening of the church doors suddenly changed to a sleet storm that plated the sidewalks with ice. Then began the great storm that is to become for years a household word, a symbol of the worst of weathers and the limit of nature's possibilities under normal conditions.

   2At a quarter past 6 o'clock, when the extremely modified sunlight forced its way to earth, the scene in the two great cities that the bridge unites was remarkable beyond any winter sight remembered by the people. The streets were blocked with snowdrifts. [...]

   3The wind howled, whistled, banged, roared, and moaned as it rushed along. It fell upon the house sides in fearful gusts, it strained great plate glass windows, rocked the frame houses, pressed against doors so that it was almost dangerous to open them. It was a visible, substantial wind, so freighted was it with snow. It came in whirls, it descended in layers, it shot along in great blocks [...]

   4It was Monday morning, when a day of rest from shopping had depleted the larders in every house, and yet there were no milk carts, no butcher wagons, no basket-laden grocer boys, no bakers' carriers. In great districts no attempt was made to deliver the morning papers. The cities were paralyzed.

   1The persistency with which these men and women struggled toward the usual scene of their daily labors was usually but poorly rewarded. The business done anywhere was inconsiderable, and in many cases the doors were closed altogether and half hidden in drifted snow. As late as 10 o'clock in the down-town streets and avenues clerks and shop girls stood shivering in doorways and hallways, sheltering themselves as well as they could, and anxiously waiting for the arrival of the holder of the keys. Only about half, as a rule, of the force in all the business houses, banks, and offices was on hand by noon, and this number was not added to during the slow-moving hours of the afternoon up to the time that an early closing was generally determined on to give everybody a chance to try and get home.

   2In the Equitable Insurance office 93 out of 205 clerks made their appearance, and no officer of higher rank than the assistant cashier was on hand. [...]

   [...]

   3The milkmen had all succeeded in getting their supplies from the railroad depots before the storm had developed to its full intensity. But in the work of distribution they were caught badly. In many cases it was nearly noon before, with their horses jaded and themselves half frozen, they stopped the service, with most of their customers supplied. With the newsdealers it was much the same. They got their usual stores of papers in due season, but when it came to serving routes the conditions were such that few attempted it. Customers who came after their papers were very welcome to them, but the job of leaving them from door to door was too much for the dealers. They preferred to be " stuck" with whatever unsold papers their luck might determine. The letter carriers made a great struggle to get out the two early deliveries of Sunday stuff, but so many business places were closed, and the work was so difficult, that not much headway was made.

   1There were forty out-of-town mails due between 4 o'clock yesterday morning and noon. Of these only four arrived—the Washington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia mail over the Pennsylvania Road at 4:05 A. M., came in the office at 6:30. The Boston mail due at 4:10 A. M. over the New York and New England Road was received at 6:30 o'clock. The Chicago mail, due over the New York Central Road at 6:45, reached the office at five minutes before 1 o'clock. The Boston and Springfield express due at 7:05, arrived at 12:40. At the close of the day's business no other mails had been received, and the exact locations of the trains unknown.

   2"There is not a single wire working between New York and the South," said Wire Chief Baldwin of the Western Union Telegraph Company in the afternoon. "As early as 9:30 last night we received news to the effect that sixty poles, bearing some of our most important wires, had fallen in Washington. Shortly after that information we lost Baltimore, then we lost Washington, and then Philadelphia. We have but ten wires to Buffalo, and should have fifty, while to Albany we have not quite ten, and they are working very badly. [...]

   3As far as Harlem and a little beyond where our lines run in aerial cables we are all right, but past the point where the wires separate we have no connection. Never before in the history of telegraphy has New York been cut off from communication with the rest of the world. [...]

   1At 10 o'clock last evening the barometer at the Signal Service office in the tower of the Equitable Building had ceased to fall. It was at 29.64, which was low enough, and it had not begun to rise. But a rise was considered certain to be the next change, and that speedily. The wind gauge record showed that the wind had been very variable. The prevailing direction as well as the direction from which it came strongest was westerly, and the range was only to northwest. The greatest velocity was forty-eight miles an hour, and was recorded about 6 P. M. The fall of snow was sixteen inches. The temperature at 10 o'clock last evening was 11° above having fallen more or less steadily from the 35° recorded twenty-four hours before.

   2In the absence of any reports from any stations south of this or from the Chief Signal office in Washington no proabbilities could be furnished. The most help in that direction was from Erie, Pa., and other point West, in the shape of reports of clear weather. This and the fact that at midnight the glass was showing a disposition to rise while the temperature had fallen a litte more, made it safe to say that the storm was passing off to the eastward. The snow-bound city was thus promised a chance for breaking its bonds in the morning.

   1BLIZZARD, a peculiarly fierce and cold wind, accompanied by a very fine, blinding snow which suffocates as well as freezes men and animals exposed to it. The origin of the word is popularly conceded to the United States where there is evidence of its use as early as 1840; recent investigations have shown that it is used in the local dialect of Lancashire, England, where it has been traced back over several centuries and is generally written “bleasard.” It came into general use in American newspapers during the bitterly cold winter of 1880-81, and has been in more or less general use since 1888. Such a storm comes up very suddenly and overtakes the traveler without premonition. The sky becomes darkened, and the snow is driven by a terrible wind which comes with a deafening roar. One of the most severe of these storms recorded in the West was that of January 1888 which extended from Dakota to Texas. The thermometer in some places fell from 74° to —28° F., and in Dakota to —40°. The number of deaths amounted to 235. Children were frozen on their way home from school, and farmers in their fields, and travelers were suffocated by the fine snow. The blizzard which will long be remembered in the Eastern States began 11 March 1888, and raged until the 14th, New York and Philadelphia being the cities most affected. The wind at one time blew at the rate of 46 miles an hour. The streets and roads were blocked, railroad trains snowed up for days, telegraphic communication cut off and many lives were lost. Blizzards are due to a southward flow of a large mass of cold air which is being pushed out from a centre of high barometric pressure. The flow progresses regularly according to the differences of density and pressure on either side of its front line of advance. This regularity of advance has been turned to account by the United States Weather Bureau, which is able to forecast with great accuracy the advance of a blizzard, and thus in almost every case the populations affected are amply forewarned.

   Part 3: Model the five parts. Work through the five examples. Each one builds a piece of an explanation from a specific passage and shows the thinking behind it.

   • Reasoning: linking causes to effects (Source 1, paragraphs 1-2)

     Source 1 describes rain, then sleet, then snow and wind. How can a writer turn these descriptions into reasoning?

     Result: Connect each step to its effect with a linking word: the rain changed to sleet that "plated the sidewalks with ice" (paragraph 1); then snow came with a fierce wind, so by morning "the streets were blocked with snowdrifts" (paragraph 2). Each because or so must be backed by a source; a link the sources do not show is a guess.

   • Correct sequence: ordering events by time words (Source 2, paragraphs 1 and 3)

     Put these events from Source 2 in order: offices close early; milkmen collect their milk at the depots; clerks wait in doorways; milkmen stop their routes.

     Result: Use the time words. The milkmen got their supplies "before the storm had developed to its full intensity" (paragraph 3), so that comes first. Clerks were still waiting "as late as 10 o'clock" (paragraph 1). Milkmen stopped "nearly noon" (paragraph 3). The "early closing" came during "the slow-moving hours of the afternoon" (paragraph 1). The milkmen's event has no clock time, so the writer should say it came early in the morning, not give an exact hour.

   • Data: checking a number against a claim (Source 2, paragraphs 1-2)

     The reporter says "only about half" of office workers came in. Does the Equitable Insurance office's count support that?

     Result: 93 out of 205 clerks came in (paragraph 2). 93 ÷ 205 ≈ 0.45, or about 45 percent, which is close to half. So the data supports the claim for that office. A careful explanation reports it as "at one large office, 93 of 205 clerks arrived" rather than turning it into a fact about every office.

   • Examples: choosing one that fits the point (Source 1, paragraph 4, and Source 2, paragraph 3)

     A student wants an example for the point "The storm stopped the food deliveries people needed." Which example fits best?

     Result: Source 1 says there were "no milk carts, no butcher wagons, no basket-laden grocer boys, no bakers' carriers" on a morning when the larders were empty after Sunday (paragraph 4). That example matches the point exactly: food, deliveries, Monday morning. An example about the wind breaking windows is true but shows a different point.

   • Strengths and weaknesses: how far does the evidence reach? (Source 1, paragraph 4)

     Source 1 ends, "The cities were paralyzed." Should an explanation say the whole city stopped?

     Result: Strength: a reporter saw the empty streets that morning. Weakness: the same paragraph says papers were not delivered "in great districts," which is not every district, and the reporter could not see every street. An honest sentence: "In the parts of the city the reporters saw, daily life stopped; the sources do not show every neighborhood."

3. Guided Practice15 minutes

   Read Source 6, a model explanation written for this page, aloud. Pairs mark it with five colors, one for each part of an explanation, using the Explanation Builder (Diagram 1). Then discuss:

   1. Which sentences show reasoning? Underline every because and so.
   2. Is the sequence correct? Check each step against Sources 1, 2 and 4.
   3. Which details are examples, and which are data?
   4. Paragraph 4 names two weaknesses. Can you add a third? (Possible answers: the sources were all written by reporters in business areas; no source here comes from the workers themselves; the reports do not count injuries.)

   1This model explanation was written for this page by SVHS to show the parts of a strong explanation. It answers the question "How did one storm stop New York City in a single day?" using Sources 1, 2 and 4.

   2The storm worked in steps. First, a heavy rain that began on Sunday, March 11, 1888, turned to sleet a little after midnight and coated the sidewalks with ice (Source 1, paragraph 1). Next, snow and a fierce wind arrived together, so that by a quarter past 6 on Monday morning the streets were blocked with snowdrifts (Source 1, paragraph 2). The wind stayed fierce: the weather office's report gives its fastest speed as forty-eight miles an hour (Source 4, paragraph 1).

   3Because the streets were blocked, the people who kept the city running could not do their jobs. Milkmen got their milk from the train depots but were caught by the storm on their routes, and newsdealers mostly gave up delivering papers door to door (Source 2, paragraph 3). Clerks and shop workers who set out found locked doors and waited in doorways for whoever held the keys (Source 2, paragraph 1). By noon only about half of the workers had arrived; at one large insurance office, 93 of 205 clerks came in (Source 2, paragraphs 1-2). The city stopped because deliveries, travel and work failed one after another, not because people chose to stay home.

   4This explanation is strongest for Monday morning in the business streets, because reporters wrote it down that same day and one office's count of its clerks gives a real number. It is weaker in two ways. The reports come mostly from downtown streets and offices, so they may not show what happened in homes far from downtown. And the count comes from one office, so "about half" for the other offices is the reporter's estimate (Source 2, paragraphs 1-2).

4. Independent Practice15 minutes

   Each student writes a one-paragraph explanation (six to eight sentences) answering a new question: Why could New York not send or receive news and mail on March 12, 1888? Use Source 3, and Sources 1 and 4 if they help. The paragraph must include at least two reasoning links, events in the correct order with at least two time words, one example, two pieces of data with their sources, and a final sentence that names one strength and one weakness of the explanation.

   Look-fors for the teacher: every number is tied to a source and paragraph; time words match the source; the final sentence names a real limit of the sources, not a general apology such as "I might be wrong."

5. Closure10 minutes

   Exit ticket: "Write one sentence that tells a reader where your explanation is strongest, and one sentence that tells where it is weakest. Name the source behind each."

   Teacher note on the sources: Sources 1-4 come from a book of newspaper reports reprinted in 1888; the book does not name each paper or reporter. The reports use some terms of the time, such as "shop girls" for young women who worked in stores; point this out as period language. The lesson uses the storm only as a vehicle for the explanation skill.

   Quiz passage. Questions 12-17 of the quiz use Source 7, three invented student drafts. Each draft is deliberately weak in one way, for students to find and fix.

   1These three drafts were invented for this page. Each one answers the question "Why could New York not send or receive news and mail on March 12, 1888?" Each draft is deliberately weak in one way, so that students can find and fix the problem.

   2Draft A (Marco): The snow piled up all day Monday, and by Monday night it was so deep that the telegraph poles in Washington began to fall. After that, New York lost its wires to the South. This shows that the snow in New York came first and the broken wires came last.

   3Draft B (Priya): Blizzards are very dangerous. In the West in January 1888, 235 people died, and the thermometer in some places fell from 74 degrees to 28 below zero (Source 5). So it makes sense that New York could not send or receive mail in March.

   4Draft C (Jordan): The telegraph wires failed, so New York was cut off. The wire chief said there was not a single working wire to the South, and only ten wires to Buffalo instead of fifty (Source 3, paragraph 2). The trains carrying mail were stuck, so only four of forty mails arrived (Source 3, paragraph 1). These facts prove completely why the city was cut off, and no other evidence is needed.

Differentiation Strategies

Assessment Guidance

1. Question 1 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Source 3, paragraph 1, says forty out-of-town mails were due that morning. What fraction of them arrived?

   AOne-half of them BOne-fourth of them COne-tenth of them DOne-fortieth of them

2. Question 2 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In Source 3, paragraph 1, the Chicago mail was due at 6:45 and reached the office at "five minutes before 1 o'clock." How long after its due time did it reach the office?

   A5 hours and 35 minutes B6 hours and 10 minutes C5 hours and 20 minutes D7 hours and 10 minutes

3. Question 3 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   According to the wire chief in Source 3, paragraph 2, in what order did Western Union lose its connections?

   AWashington, Baltimore, Philadelphia BPhiladelphia, Baltimore, Washington CBuffalo, Albany, then Philadelphia DBaltimore, Washington, Philadelphia

4. Question 4 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   The wire chief says, "We have but ten wires to Buffalo, and should have fifty" (Source 3, paragraph 2). What percent of the usual wires to Buffalo were working?

   A10 percent B20 percent C40 percent D50 percent

5. Question 5 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   The wire chief claims New York had been "cut off from communication with the rest of the world" (Source 3, paragraph 3). Which detail from Source 3 gives the best reason for that claim?

   ABeyond Harlem, the wires had no connection BThe Boston mail came in at 6:30 that morning CSixty poles had fallen in Washington the night before DOnly four of the forty mails arrived that morning

6. Question 6 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Which sentence uses reasoning to link a cause to its effect?

   AThe wind howled, whistled, banged, roared, and moaned as it rushed along. BSnow blocked the streets, so milk could not be delivered. CThe temperature at 10 o'clock was 11 degrees above zero. DForty mails were due between 4 o'clock and noon.

7. Question 7 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Why is Source 4 a strong source for the wind speed and the snowfall?

   AIt comes from instruments at the weather office BIt was written about thirty years after the storm CIt reports what the telegraph wire chief said DIt describes what workers saw from doorways

8. Question 8 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Source 5 says, "Blizzards are due to a southward flow of a large mass of cold air." What kind of detail is this sentence?

   AAn eyewitness view of New York's streets BA count of the deaths in New York City CA general cause of blizzards everywhere DA step in the sequence of March 12

9. Question 9 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Source 4 gives the greatest wind speed as forty-eight miles an hour; Source 5 says the wind "at one time blew at the rate of 46 miles an hour." What should a careful explanation do?

   AUse 46, because the encyclopedia is the newer source BAverage them to 47 and give no source for the number CLeave the wind out of the explanation altogether DReport 48 from Source 4 and note Source 5's 46

10. Question 10 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    A student's point is "The storm stopped the delivery of letters inside the city." Which example from the sources fits this point best?

    ALetter carriers struggled but made little headway BClerks waited in doorways for the holder of the keys CThe wind strained the great plate glass windows DThe barometer stood at 29.64 and had not begun to rise

11. Question 11 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Source 3, paragraph 1, ends with the mails "at the close of the day's business." What is one weakness of using Source 3 to explain the whole storm?

    AIt gives no clock times for the mails that arrived BIt cannot show when mail and wires came back CIt was written by someone far away from New York DIt only repeats what Source 5 says about the storm

12. Question 12 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Read Draft A in Source 7, paragraph 2. What is its main problem?

    AThe events are in the wrong order BIt uses data from a different storm CIt uses no time words at all DIt names a weakness that is not real

13. Question 13 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Read Draft B in Source 7, paragraph 3. What is its main problem?

    AIt puts events in the wrong order BIt gives no source for any detail CIts data are about another storm DIt admits too many weaknesses

14. Question 14 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Read Draft C in Source 7, paragraph 4. Which part of a strong explanation does it leave out?

    AEvidence from a source BReasoning words such as so CData with numbers in it DAny strength or weakness

15. Question 15 of 20 · Short Answer

    Rewrite Draft A (Source 7, paragraph 2) to fix its main problem. Use at least two time words and cite Sources 1 and 3.

    Show model answer

16. Question 16 of 20 · Short Answer

    Rewrite the last sentence of Draft C (Source 7, paragraph 4) as two sentences, so that the draft does everything the indicator asks.

    Show model answer

17. Question 17 of 20 · Short Answer

    Fix the main problem in Draft B (Source 7, paragraph 3) using two pieces of evidence from Source 3. Explain why each one works better.

    Show model answer

18. Question 18 of 20 · Short Answer

    Source 1, paragraph 3, describes the wind. Turn one of its details into two sentences of reasoning that explain why going outside was hard. Use because or so.

    Show model answer

19. Question 19 of 20 · Short Answer

    Explain one strength and one weakness of Source 4 and one strength and one weakness of Source 5 as evidence about the storm in New York in 1888.

    Show model answer

20. Question 20 of 20 · Short Answer

    The Chicago and Boston mails reached the office hours late (Source 3, paragraph 1). Write a short explanation (four to six sentences) of why. Then add a sentence about a weakness: what does Source 3 not tell you?

    Show model answer

These standards connect to D4.2.6-8: prerequisites to review first, parallel standards at the same level, and next steps that build on it.

Standard text: National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards: Guidance for Enhancing the Rigor of K-12 Civics, Economics, Geography, and History (Silver Spring, MD: NCSS, 2013). NCSS was not involved in the production of this lesson and does not endorse it.