Project Grade 9 English Language Arts
Fifty Years of Hindmere Reservoir Notices
A grade 9 project tracing how six fictional water notices changed their wording across fifty years, ending in an analysis essay and a short narrative scene.
Objectives
- Students will trace one feature of official wording across six dated notices and describe how it changed.
- Students will support a claim about language change using quoted wording from at least four notices.
- Students will write a narrative scene whose details come from a document rather than from invention.
Vocabulary
Key words: hedge, directive, register, point of view, plain language
Teacher overview
Six short notices from the same fictional reservoir, posted across fifty years, give students a small archive to read the way a linguist would. Over four sessions students track one feature at a time, such as who is named as the actor or how much doubt the wording admits, and then argue for a pattern in an essay before writing a narrative scene set on the day one notice went up. The misconception this project addresses is the idea that official writing simply got clearer over time. Some of it did, yet the later notices are also longer, more hedged, and more careful about liability, and students who read closely find that a gain in one quality often came at the cost of another.
Project Brief
Driving question: What changed in the way the town of Westerling talked to its residents about their water, and what stayed exactly the same?
Scenario. Westerling, Hindmere Reservoir, and all six notices below are fictional and were written for this project. The town's library is building a small display for its centennial. The librarian has asked your class for an analysis of how the water department's public notices changed, along with one short piece of creative writing that puts a reader on the street the day a notice went up.
Notice 1, spring 1974. Residents will boil all water used for drinking and cooking until further notice. The department is at work on the problem. Questions may be directed to the town clerk.
Notice 2, summer 1986. A routine sample taken at the Hindmere intake showed a higher count of bacteria than the department expects at that location. Boil water for one minute before drinking or cooking. We expect to lift this notice within three days.
Notice 3, autumn 1994. The department is required to inform you that two samples last month exceeded the state limit for a disinfection byproduct. This does not mean you need to stop drinking the water. People who are pregnant or who have a weakened immune system may wish to speak with a doctor. A full explanation is available at the town office.
Notice 4, winter 2006. Some customers on the north side have reported cloudy water. Cloudiness in cold weather is usually air, and it clears when a glass sits for a minute. If your water is cloudy and does not clear, call the number below and we will send an operator to sample it.
Notice 5, spring 2016. Crews will flush hydrants on the streets listed on the back of this card between the fourteenth and the twenty-first. You may see brown water for a short time. This is rust stirred up in the pipe, and it is not a health risk, although it can stain laundry. Wait until the water runs clear before washing clothes. Este aviso está disponible en español en la oficina municipal.
Notice 6, autumn 2024. Our most recent sampling round found no result above any state or federal limit. Two samples at the edge of the system showed a rising trend that we are watching. We are posting the full results, the sampling locations, and the dates online, and we will hold a public question session at the library on the second Tuesday of next month.
Constraints.
- The analysis essay runs between six hundred and eight hundred words and makes one arguable claim about how the wording changed.
- The essay quotes at least four of the six notices, and every quotation runs under twelve words.
- The essay tracks at least two features across the whole set, chosen from the list in Milestone 2.
- The narrative scene runs between three hundred and four hundred words, uses one consistent point of view, and takes every physical detail from the notice it is built on.
- No invented statistic appears in either piece.
Final deliverable. One analysis essay and one narrative scene, submitted together to the fictional Westerling library display, with the notice number your scene is built on written at the top of the scene.
Milestones
- Session 1, read and date the set. Students read all six notices twice and build a timeline on chart paper. Under each notice they write one sentence naming what the department wanted the reader to do. Output: a six-point timeline with an action stated under each notice.
- Session 2, track two features. Teams choose two features to follow across the set: who is named as the actor, how much doubt the wording admits, whether a reason is given, whether a way to reach a person is offered, or who the notice assumes the reader is. Output: a two-row tracking chart with quoted wording from every notice.
- Session 3, draft the analysis. Students write the essay, opening with the claim rather than with the history. Each body paragraph handles one feature and moves in date order. Output: a complete essay draft inside the word range with quotations punctuated.
- Session 4, write the scene and revise. Students choose one notice and write the narrative scene set on the morning it was posted. They then trade essays with a partner, who marks any sentence that states a pattern without a quotation behind it. Output: the finished scene and the revised essay.
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Rubric
| Criterion | Emerging | Developing | Proficient | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claim about language change | The essay retells the notices without a claim | A claim appears, yet it is a general statement about clarity | The claim is arguable, specific, and names the features it will trace | The claim recognizes a trade-off, such as more explanation at the cost of more length, and the essay sustains it |
| Evidence from the notices | Fewer than four notices are quoted, or quotations are unattributed | Four notices are quoted, yet some quotations do not support the sentence they follow | At least four notices are quoted within the word limit, and each quotation carries the point it is placed under | Quotations are chosen for a single revealing word, and the surrounding sentence explains why that word matters |
| Narrative scene | Details are invented and unconnected to any notice | The scene fits a notice loosely, and the point of view shifts | The scene keeps one point of view, and every physical detail traces to the notice it names | The scene lets the reader feel the gap between what the notice says and what a resident on that street would want to know |
| Organization and register | Paragraphs wander, or the register is casual | Structure is present, yet the essay drifts from feature to feature | Each body paragraph handles one feature in date order, and the register stays analytical | Transitions carry the argument forward, and the closing states what the archive cannot show as well as what it can |
Differentiation
Support
Give these students the two features already chosen and a partly completed tracking chart with the 1974 and 2024 rows filled in. Provide a claim frame: "Between 1974 and 2024, the Westerling notices changed ____, although ____ stayed the same." Allow the narrative scene to be one hundred fifty words.
Extension
Ask these students to write a seventh notice for a year of their choosing beyond the set, then to defend, in a short paragraph, every feature they carried forward and every one they dropped. They may also compare one notice with a real public notice from a nearby utility and mark the wording that appears in both.
ELL supports
Pre-teach hedge, directive, and register using the same sentence rewritten three ways. Provide a two-column chart pairing formal notice phrases, such as "may wish to consult," with plain equivalents. Allow students to mark the tracking chart with colored highlighters before writing any sentence about it, and permit the scene to be drafted as dialogue.
Extensions
Ask students to read the six notices aloud in date order, timing each one, and to graph the reading time against the year. A short discussion can then take up whether a longer notice is a better notice, and which readers are served, and which may stop reading, when a message grows from three short sentences to a longer notice with a meeting date attached.