Overview

Lesson Procedure

65-75 minutes of class time across 5 phases.

1. Warm-Up10 minutes
2. Direct Instruction20 minutes
3. Guided Practice15 minutes
4. Independent Practice15-20 minutes
5. Closure5-10 minutes

1. Warm-Up10 minutes

   Put a short, everyday text on the board and ask students to separate what it states from what it suggests.

   Warm-Up Prompt

   "A sign on the cafeteria door reads: 'Lunch today will be served in the gym. Bring your own water bottle.' Write one thing the sign says explicitly and one thing you can infer. Which words in the sign support your inference?"

   Collect answers in two columns, Says and Suggests. Students will usually infer that the cafeteria cannot be used today and that there will be no cups or fountain nearby. Ask which words support each inference ("today," "Bring your own"). Point out that an inference still has to rest on quoted words: RI.9-10.1 asks students to do this with every claim about a text.

2. Direct Instruction20 minutes

   Part 1: The four terms. Present Diagram 1 and define each term with students.

   The language of RI.9-10.1

   Term	What it means	A test students can apply
   Explicit	Stated outright in the words of the text	Can I point to a sentence that says it?
   Inference	A conclusion the words support but do not state	Can I quote the words and explain the step from them to my conclusion?
   Strong evidence	The quotation that fits the exact claim most directly	If I removed this quotation, would the claim lose its support?
   Thorough evidence	Enough evidence to cover every part of the claim	Does each part of my claim have its own quoted support?

   Part 2: Model with Tarbell. Ida Tarbell grew up in the Pennsylvania oil country. From 1902 to 1904 she published a series of articles in McClure's Magazine investigating how John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company came to control the oil business, and the series became this book. It opens not with Rockefeller but with the land and the product. Read the three paragraphs aloud, then think aloud through the worked examples. Use Diagram 1 with paragraph 1.

   1One of the busiest corners of the globe at the opening of the year 1872 was a strip of Northwestern Pennsylvania, not over fifty miles long, known the world over as the Oil Regions. Twelve years before this strip of land had been but little better than a wilderness; its chief inhabitants the lumbermen, who every season cut great swaths of primeval pine and hemlock from its hills, and in the spring floated them down the Allegheny River to Pittsburg. The great tides of Western emigration had shunned the spot for years as too rugged and unfriendly for settlement, and yet in twelve years this region avoided by men had been transformed into a bustling trade centre, where towns elbowed each other for place, into which three great trunk railroads had built branches, and every foot of whose soil was fought for by capitalists. It was the discovery and development of a new raw product, petroleum, which had made this change from wilderness to market-place. This product in twelve years had not only peopled a waste place of the earth, it had revolutionised the world’s methods of illumination and added millions upon millions of dollars to the wealth of the United States.

   2Petroleum as a curiosity, and indeed in a small way as an article of commerce, was no new thing when its discovery in quantities called the attention of the world to this corner of Northwestern Pennsylvania. The journals of many an early explorer of the valleys of the Allegheny and its tributaries tell of springs and streams the surfaces of which were found covered with a thick oily substance which burned fiercely when ignited and which the Indians believed to have curative properties. As the country was opened, more and more was heard of these oil springs. Certain streams came to be named from the quantities of the substance found on the surface of the water, as “Oil Creek” in Northwestern Pennsylvania, “Old Greasy” or Kanawha in West Virginia. The belief in the substance as a cure-all increased as time went on and in various parts of the country it was regularly skimmed from the surface of the water as cream from a pan, or soaked up by woollen blankets, bottled, and peddled as a medicine for man and beast.

   3Up to the beginning of the 19th century no oil seems to have been obtained except from the surfaces of springs and streams. That it was to be found far below the surface of the earth was discovered independently at various points in Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania by persons drilling for salt-water to be used in manufacturing salt. Not infrequently the water they found was mixed with a dark-green, evil-smelling substance which was recognised as identical with the well-known “rock-oil.” It was necessary to rid the water of this before it could be used for salt, and in many places cisterns were devised in which the brine was allowed to stand until the oil had risen to the surface. It was then run into the streams or on the ground. This practice was soon discovered to be dangerous, so easily did the oil ignite. In several places, particularly in Kentucky, so much oil was obtained with the salt-water that the wells had to be abandoned. Certain of these deserted salt wells were opened years after, when it was found that the troublesome substance which had made them useless was far more valuable than the brine the original drillers sought.

   • Explicit: facts the text states

     What does Tarbell state in paragraph 1 about the size of the Oil Regions and how fast they changed?

     Result: She states both outright: the region was "a strip of Northwestern Pennsylvania, not over fifty miles long," and "Twelve years before this strip of land had been but little better than a wilderness." Restating them needs no inference.

   • Inference from a description of methods

     Paragraph 2: the oil "was regularly skimmed from the surface of the water as cream from a pan, or soaked up by woollen blankets, bottled, and peddled as a medicine for man and beast."

     Result: Tarbell never says the early trade was tiny, but the methods show it: skimming and soaking up with blankets collect oil by hand, a little at a time, and "peddled" suggests selling bottle by bottle. The inference (a small, local trade) rests on those verbs.

   • Inference from word choice

     Paragraph 3 calls the oil in the salt wells a "dark-green, evil-smelling substance" and "the troublesome substance which had made them useless."

     Result: The adjectives take the salt makers' point of view: to them the oil was dirty, smelly and in the way. That view is shown through description, not announced, and it sets up the irony of the last sentence, where the same substance turns out "far more valuable than the brine."

   • Inference from two explicit dates

     Paragraph 1 describes the region "at the opening of the year 1872" and says that "Twelve years before" it was nearly a wilderness.

     Result: Tarbell does not print the year, but 1872 - 12 = 1860, so the change began around 1860. Combining two explicit details gives an inference the text does not state (Diagram 2).

   • Thorough support for a two-part claim

     Claim: for a long time petroleum was valued for what people believed it could cure, and that belief kept growing.

     Result: Each half of the claim needs its own quotation. The belief: the oil was a substance "which the Indians believed to have curative properties" (paragraph 2). Its growth: "The belief in the substance as a cure-all increased as time went on" (paragraph 2). One quotation alone would support only half.

3. Guided Practice15 minutes

   Pairs read the next paragraph of Tarbell's chapter, about Samuel M. Kier, a salt-well owner near Pittsburgh who bottled the oil that came up with his salt water. For each question below, pairs highlight the explicit answer in one color and the words that support an inference in another, then write one answer sentence with a quotation. Use Diagram 2 with question 3.

   1Naturally the first use made of the oil obtained in quantities from the salt wells was medicinal. By the middle of the century it was without doubt the great American medicine. “Seneca Oil” seems to have been the earliest name under which petroleum appeared in the East. It was followed by a large output of Kentucky petroleum sold under the name “American Medicinal Oil.” Several hundred thousand bottles of this oil are said to have been put up in Burkesville, Kentucky, and to have been shipped to the East and to Europe. The point at which the business of bottling petroleum for medicine was carried on most systematically and extensively was Pittsburg. Near that town, at Tarentum in Alleghany County, were located salt wells owned and operated in the forties by Samuel M. Kier. The oil which came up with the salt-water was sufficient to be a nuisance, and Mr. Kier sought a way to use it. Believing it had curative qualities he began to bottle it. By 1850 he had worked up this business until “Kier’s Petroleum, or Rock-Oil” was sold all over the United States. The crude petroleum was put up in eight-ounce bottles wrapped in a circular setting forth in good patent-medicine style its virtues as a cure-all, and giving directions about its use. While it was admitted to be chiefly a liniment it was recommended for cholera morbus, liver complaint, bronchitis and consumption, and the dose prescribed was three teaspoonfuls three times a day! Mr. Kier’s circulars are crowded with testimonials of the efficacy of rock-oil, dated anywhere between 1848 and 1853. Although his trade in this oil was so extensive he was not satisfied that petroleum was useful only as a medicine. He was interested in it as a lubricator and a luminant. That petroleum had the qualities of both had been discovered at more than one point before 1850. More than one mill-owner in the districts where petroleum had been found was using it in a crude way for oiling his machines or lighting his works, but though the qualities of both lubricator and luminant were present, the impurities of the natural oil were too great to make its use general. Mr. Kier seems to have been the first man to have attempted to secure an expert opinion as to the possibility of refining it. In 1849 he sent a bottle of oil to a chemist in Philadelphia, who advised him to try distilling it and burning it in a lamp. Mr. Kier followed the advice, and a five-barrel still which he used in the fifties for refining petroleum is still to be seen in Pittsburg. His trade in the oil he produced at his little refinery was not entirely local, for in 1858 we find him agreeing to sell to Joseph Coffin of New York at 62½ cents a gallon 100 barrels of “carbon oil that will burn in the ordinary coal-oil lamp.”

   1. What does Tarbell state about the bottles Kier sold and the illnesses the oil was recommended for? (explicit)
   2. Tarbell writes that several hundred thousand bottles of Kentucky oil "are said to have been put up in Burkesville." What do the words "are said to" tell you about her source, and how much weight can the number carry? (strong evidence)
   3. Find the years Tarbell gives for Kier's business. What can you infer from them about how the use of petroleum was changing? (explicit and inference)

   Debrief: push every pair from "Kier sold oil" to a cited, reasoned sentence such as "In 1849 Kier sent oil to a chemist, and by 1858 he was selling 'carbon oil that will burn in the ordinary coal-oil lamp,' which suggests that within ten years he had moved from medicine to lighting." Ask: which of your quotations would you keep if you could keep only one, and why?

4. Independent Practice15-20 minutes

   In 1887 the newspaper the New York World sent the reporter Nellie Bly to pose as a mentally ill woman so that she could report on how patients were examined and treated. She gave the false name Nellie Brown and let people believe she came from Cuba. In this excerpt she is being held in the "insane pavilion" of Bellevue Hospital before being sent to the asylum on Blackwell's Island. Miss Scott is a nurse there, and Mary is a woman who works in the pavilion. Students answer quiz questions 1-20 on their own with the passage open, citing paragraph numbers.

   1At 6 o’clock on Sunday morning, Sept. 25, the nurses pulled the covering from my bed. “Come, it’s time for you to get out of bed,” they said, and opened the window and let in the cold breeze. My clothing was then returned to me. After dressing I was shown to a washstand, where all the other patients were trying to rid their faces of all traces of sleep. At 7 o’clock we were given some horrible mess, which Mary told us was chicken broth. The cold, from which we had suffered enough the day previous, was bitter, and when I complained to the nurse she said it was one of the rules of the institution not to turn the heat on until October, and so we would have to endure it, as the steam-pipes had not even been put in order. The night nurses then, arming themselves with scissors, began to play manicure on the patients. They cut my nails to the quick, as they did those of several of the other patients. Shortly after this a handsome young doctor made his appearance and I was conducted into the sitting-room.

   2“Who are you?” he asked.

   3“Nellie Moreno,” I replied.

   4“Then why did you give the name of Brown?” he asked. “What is wrong with you?”

   5“Nothing. I did not want to come here, but they brought me. I want to go away. Won’t you let me out?”

   6“If I take you out will you stay with me? Won’t you run away from me when you get on the street?”

   7“I can’t promise that I will not,” I answered, with a smile and a sigh, for he was handsome.

   8He asked me many other questions. Did I ever see faces on the wall? Did I ever hear voices around? I answered him to the best of my ability.

   9“Do you ever hear voices at night?” he asked.

   10“Yes, there is so much talking I cannot sleep.”

   11“I thought so,” he said to himself. Then turning to me, he asked: “What do these voices say?”

   12“Well, I do not listen to them always. But sometimes, very often, they talk about Nellie Brown, and then on other subjects that do not interest me half so much,” I answered, truthfully.

   13“That will do,” he said to Miss Scott, who was just on the outside.

   14“Can I go away?” I asked.

   15“Yes,” he said, with a satisfied laugh, “we’ll soon send you away.”

   16“It is so very cold here, I want to go out,” I said.

   17“That’s true,” he said to Miss Scott. “The cold is almost unbearable in here, and you will have some cases of pneumonia if you are not careful.”

   18With this I was led away and another patient was taken in. I sat right outside the door and waited to hear how he would test the sanity of the other patients. With little variation the examination was exactly the same as mine. All the patients were asked if they saw faces on the wall, heard voices, and what they said. I might also add each patient denied any such peculiar freaks of sight and hearing. At 10 o’clock we were given a cup of unsalted beef tea; at noon a bit of cold meat and a potatoe, at 3 o’clock a cup of oatmeal gruel and at 5.30 a cup of tea and a slice of unbuttered bread. We were all cold and hungry.

5. Closure5-10 minutes

   Exit ticket: "Write one sentence about the Tarbell passage that states something explicit and one that states an inference. Quote the words that support each, and underline the word that carries your inference." Sort the tickets into "inference with support" and "inference without support" to plan the next lesson.

   Teacher note on language. Both authors use the words of their time. Tarbell writes "the Indians," and Bly writes "insane," "sanity" and "asylum." The passages are quoted exactly; in discussion, use "Native Americans" (or the name of the nation, where known) and "mental illness."

   Homework passage. In this excerpt from the next chapter, Bly has been taken to the asylum on Blackwell's Island. Dr. Kinier is the doctor who examines new patients there, and Miss Grupe is a nurse.

   1Mrs. Louise Schanz was taken into the presence of Dr. Kinier, the medical man.

   2“Your name?” he asked, loudly. She answered in German, saying she did not speak English nor could she understand it. However, when he said Mrs. Louise Schanz, she said “Yah, yah.” Then he tried other questions, and when he found she could not understand one word of English, he said to Miss Grupe:

   3“You are German; speak to her for me.”

   4Miss Grupe proved to be one of those people who are ashamed of their nationality, and she refused, saying she could understand but few words of her mother tongue.

   5“You know you speak German. Ask this woman what her husband does,” and they both laughed as if they were enjoying a joke.

   6“I can’t speak but a few words,” she protested, but at last she managed to ascertain the occupation of Mr. Schanz.

   7“Now, what was the use of lying to me?” asked the doctor, with a laugh which dispelled the rudeness.

   8“I can’t speak any more,” she said, and she did not.

   9Thus was Mrs. Louise Schanz consigned to the asylum without a chance of making herself understood. Can such carelessness be excused, I wonder, when it is so easy to get an interpreter? If the confinement was but for a few days one might question the necessity. But here was a woman taken without her own consent from a free world to an asylum and there given no chance to prove her sanity. Confined most probably for life behind asylum bars, without even being told in her language the why and wherefore. Compare this with a criminal, who is given every chance to prove his innocence. Who would not rather be a murderer and take the chance for life than be declared insane, without hope of escape? Mrs. Schanz begged in German to know where she was, and pleaded for liberty. Her voice broken by sobs, she was led unheard out to us.

Differentiation Strategies

Assessment Guidance

1. Question 1 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   According to paragraph 1, why was the heat not turned on in the pavilion?

   AThe patients had damaged the steam-pipes the week before BA rule of the institution kept the heat off until October CThe doctor believed cold air would calm the patients DThe pavilion had run out of coal for the winter

2. Question 2 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   According to paragraphs 8 and 18, what did the doctor ask the patients?

   AAbout their families, their homes and their jobs BTo read a page aloud and to write their full names CTo stretch out their arms and move their fingers DWhether they saw faces on the wall or heard voices

3. Question 3 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Bly answers "there is so much talking I cannot sleep" (paragraph 10) and later says she answered "truthfully" (paragraph 12). What can the reader infer?

   AThe voices are real people talking, and the doctor mistakes an honest answer for illness BBly has really begun to hear imaginary voices while in the pavilion at night CThe doctor is testing whether Bly can remember what happened during the night DBly avoids the doctor's question by changing the subject to other patients

4. Question 4 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   "'I thought so,' he said to himself" (paragraph 11). What does this sentence suggest about the doctor?

   AHe is surprised by her answer and begins to change his opinion BHe does not hear her answer clearly because the room is noisy CHe expected a sign of illness and takes her answer as proof of it DHe suspects that Bly is a reporter and plans to expose her

5. Question 5 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Bly asks, "Can I go away?" and the doctor answers "with a satisfied laugh, 'we'll soon send you away'" (paragraphs 14-15). What is the best inference about his answer?

   AHe means that Bly will be released and sent home that afternoon BHe means that she will be sent to the asylum, not home CHe is annoyed that Bly keeps asking him to let her leave DHe is unsure whether she can leave and wants to ask Miss Scott

6. Question 6 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Which quotation is explicit evidence that the doctor himself recognized that the conditions in the pavilion could harm the patients?

   A"If I take you out will you stay with me? Won't you run away from me when you get on the street?" B"Do you ever hear voices at night?" he asked. C"Yes," he said, with a satisfied laugh, "we'll soon send you away." D"The cold is almost unbearable in here, and you will have some cases of pneumonia"

7. Question 7 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Which of these statements does paragraph 18 state explicitly?

   AEach patient denied seeing faces or hearing voices BThe doctor sent every patient to the asylum that day CBly believed the other patients were all sane DMiss Scott disagreed with the doctor's method

8. Question 8 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   At the end of paragraph 18, Bly lists every meal from 10 o'clock to 5.30. What does this list most strongly suggest?

   AThe pavilion served more food than the patients could eat BThe patients were allowed to choose their own meals CThe meals were small and plain, which left the patients hungry DThe cooks followed a doctor's special diet for each patient

9. Question 9 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Which statement is an inference a reader can draw, rather than something Bly states directly in the excerpt?

   AThe night nurses cut Bly's nails very short BBly sat outside the door while other patients were examined CA young doctor questioned Bly in the sitting-room DThe 7 o'clock meal did not look or taste like chicken broth

10. Question 10 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Bly writes that the night nurses, "arming themselves with scissors, began to play manicure on the patients" (paragraph 1). What do the words "arming" and "play" suggest?

    AThe nurses were trained to give gentle and careful personal care BThe nurses' care was rough, closer to an attack than a kindness CThe patients had asked the nurses to cut and clean their nails DThe nurses carried the scissors to defend themselves from patients

11. Question 11 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Which quotation is the strongest evidence for the claim "the examinations were routine rather than careful"?

    A"With little variation the examination was exactly the same as mine." B"Shortly after this a handsome young doctor made his appearance." C"I answered him to the best of my ability." D"With this I was led away and another patient was taken in."

12. Question 12 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Bly writes, "The cold, from which we had suffered enough the day previous, was bitter" (paragraph 1). What can the reader infer from this sentence?

    AThe weather had turned cold for the first time that morning BBly had arrived at the pavilion only that morning CThe patients had already spent at least one cold day there DThe open window was the only cause of the cold

13. Question 13 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Which quotation is the strongest explicit evidence that Bly was not the only patient treated roughly by the night nurses?

    A"They cut my nails to the quick" B"as they did those of several of the other patients" C"The night nurses then, arming themselves with scissors" D"the nurses pulled the covering from my bed"

14. Question 14 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Which pair of quotations gives the most thorough support for the claim "the patients were cold from morning until evening"?

    A"At 6 o'clock on Sunday morning" / "At 10 o'clock we were given a cup of unsalted beef tea" B"a handsome young doctor made his appearance" / "he said, with a satisfied laugh" C"Do you ever hear voices at night?" / "What do these voices say?" D"opened the window and let in the cold breeze" / "We were all cold and hungry."

15. Question 15 of 20 · Short Answer

    In paragraph 4 the doctor asks, "Then why did you give the name of Brown?" What does this question tell the reader explicitly, and what can you infer from it about what the doctor already knew?

    Show model answer

16. Question 16 of 20 · Short Answer

    Bly tells the doctor, "Nothing. I did not want to come here, but they brought me" (paragraph 5). Using what the introduction to the excerpt (Independent Practice) tells you about why Bly was in the pavilion, explain why the reader should not take this statement at face value, and what it shows about how Bly is behaving in front of the doctor.

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17. Question 17 of 20 · Short Answer

    Read the first three sentences of paragraph 1 again. What can you infer happened to the patients' clothing at night? Quote the words that support your inference and explain your reasoning.

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18. Question 18 of 20 · Short Answer

    For each statement, write Explicit or Inference, and quote the words from paragraph 1 that support it: (a) The patients washed at a shared washstand. (b) The patients were woken on a fixed schedule whether or not they had slept. (c) Bly complained to a nurse about the cold.

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19. Question 19 of 20 · Short Answer

    Bly calls the doctor "handsome" twice (paragraphs 1 and 7), and she answers his question "with a smile and a sigh, for he was handsome." What can you infer this detail adds to her account of the examination? Support your answer with evidence.

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20. Question 20 of 20 · Short Answer

    Write a paragraph (100-150 words) that answers: how does Bly lead readers to judge the doctor without ever stating her judgment? Use at least three quotations with paragraph numbers, and include both an explicit detail and an inference.

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These standards connect to RI.9-10.1: prerequisites to review first, parallel standards at the same level, and next steps that build on it.

Standard text: Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy. © Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved.