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Lesson plan Grade 9 English Language Arts

Two Sources on the Tessit Sands Aquifer: A Grade 9 Synthesis Lesson

A 55-minute grade 9 lesson in which students synthesize a fictional water district fact sheet and a growers newsletter into one attributed paragraph.

Objectives

  1. Students will write one paragraph that answers a research question using both sources instead of summarizing each source in turn.
  2. Students will attribute every borrowed detail to its source with a signal phrase.
  3. Students will identify one point of agreement and one point of disagreement between two documents on the same subject.

Vocabulary

Aquifer
An aquifer is an underground layer of rock, sand, or gravel that holds water in the tiny spaces between its grains. Wells reach down into aquifers to bring water up to the surface.
Recharge
Recharge is water soaking down through the ground to refill an aquifer, the way rain refills an underground sponge. Aquifers stay healthy only if recharge keeps up with pumping.

Also: static water level, synthesis, attribution

Teacher overview

Synthesis is often carried out as a summary of one source followed by a summary of the other, which produces a stitched report rather than an answer to a question. This lesson hands students two short documents about the fictional Tessit Sands aquifer, along with one question that neither document answers by itself. A second misconception worth naming aloud is the picture of groundwater as an underground lake or river; in a sand aquifer, water fills the spaces between grains and moves slowly through them, which is why a well level can fall even when no cavern is draining. Correcting that image early keeps the writing accurate as well as the science.

Procedure

Framing the research question (8 min): Write the question on the board: why are water levels falling under the fictional town of Wrenmarsh, and what is still unknown? Explain that students will answer it from two documents only, and that the answer will not be found whole in either one. Define synthesis as combining sources to answer a question, and contrast it with a book report that walks through one text and then the next.

Reading Source A (10 min): Students read the water district fact sheet on the handout and highlight in one color every statement that reports a measurement. In the margin they mark each sentence F for factual report or I for interpretation. Circulate and check that students are separating the water level readings from the district's explanation of them.

Reading Source B (10 min): Students read the growers association newsletter and repeat the marking with the second highlighter color. Ask two students to read aloud the sentence from each source that they think the other source would dispute.

Modeling the synthesis move (10 min): On the board, model one sentence that uses both sources at once, such as: "Both the district fact sheet and the growers newsletter report that spring water levels have dropped, but they disagree about the cause." Point out the three parts students must reproduce, which are a claim that covers both sources, a signal phrase naming each source, and a specific detail from each. Then model a weak version that summarizes Source A and stops, and ask the class to name what is missing.

Independent writing (12 min): Students answer handout questions 1 through 6, finishing with the synthesis paragraph in question 6. Remind them that every borrowed detail needs a signal phrase.

Formative check (5 min): Collect the handouts and read only question 4 from each. If fewer than three quarters of the class can name a genuine point of agreement with quoted support from both documents, reteach the modeling step before assigning any longer research writing.

Two Sources on the Tessit Sands Aquifer: A Grade 9 Synthesis Lesson — Grade 9 English Language Arts
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Handout

All names, figures, and documents below are fictional and were written for this lesson.

Research question: Why are water levels falling under Wrenmarsh, and what is still unknown?

Source A. Wrenmarsh Public Water District, Well Field Status Fact Sheet, spring bulletin.

The district measures the static water level in each of its three wells every March, before irrigation season begins. In 2015 the average static level stood 118 feet below the land surface. This March the average stood 141 feet below the land surface. District pumping has held nearly flat over the same ten years at about 1.4 million gallons per day. Because our own pumping has not grown, the district attributes most of the decline to a run of dry winters and to irrigation wells outside district boundaries. Recharge, the water that soaks down through the sand to refill the aquifer, arrives mainly with winter rain and snowmelt. Four of the last ten winters have been unusually dry.

Source B. Tessit Basin Growers Association, member newsletter.

Our members have been told that the wells are dropping because farms pump too much. The record says otherwise. Association members have converted more than half of their acreage to drip irrigation since 2018, and reported farm pumping across the basin has fallen about 12 percent in that time. Meanwhile the town has approved two subdivisions, and the district's own summer peak day has climbed even though its yearly average has not. We agree that levels are falling and that dry winters have hurt. What nobody can tell us is how much water actually reaches the aquifer in a normal year, because no agency has measured recharge in this basin directly.

Questions

  1. According to Source A, what happened to the average static water level in the Wrenmarsh wells between 2015 and this March?
  2. According to Source B, what change have association members made to their irrigation since 2018, and what has happened to reported farm pumping?
  3. Each source uses the word recharge. Explain what recharge means in your own words, and state what each source says about it.
  4. Name one point on which the two sources agree. Quote three to six words from each source that show the agreement.
  5. Name one point on which the two sources disagree, and state the evidence each one offers.
  6. Write a paragraph of five to seven sentences that answers the research question. Use at least one detail from each source, name each source with a signal phrase, and end by stating what is still unknown.

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Answer Key
  1. Answer: It fell from 118 feet below the land surface to 141 feet below the land surface. Source A gives both March readings, so students should report the drop rather than only one reading.
  2. Answer: Members converted more than half of their acreage to drip irrigation, and reported farm pumping has fallen about 12 percent. Both details come from the newsletter's third sentence.
  3. Answer: Recharge is water that soaks down from the surface and refills the aquifer. Source A says it arrives mainly with winter rain and snowmelt and that four of the last ten winters were dry, while Source B says nobody has measured recharge in this basin directly.
  4. Answer: Both sources agree that water levels are falling and that dry winters are part of the cause. For the dry-winter agreement, acceptable quotations are "a run of dry winters" from Source A and "dry winters have hurt" from Source B.
  5. Answer: They disagree about how much farm pumping is to blame. Source A points to irrigation wells outside district boundaries, while Source B points to the drop in reported farm pumping and to the district's rising summer peak day.
  6. Answer: Accept any paragraph that answers the question with attributed details from both documents. A strong response reports that both sources find falling levels and blame dry winters in part, credits the district fact sheet for the level readings and the flat district pumping, credits the growers newsletter for the drop in farm pumping and the rising town peak day, and closes with the unmeasured recharge rate as the open question.

Differentiation

Support

Give these students a handout with the two documents already marked, so that the measurement sentences are highlighted and the interpretation sentences are boxed. Provide a synthesis frame for question 6, such as: "Both the district fact sheet and the growers newsletter report that ____. The fact sheet adds that ____, while the newsletter points out that ____. What neither source can tell us is ____."

Extension

Ask students to write one sentence naming the single piece of new information that would settle the disagreement, and to explain who would have to collect it. Strong answers identify a direct measurement of recharge in the basin and note that neither a water district nor a growers group is a neutral party to collect it.

ELL supports

Pre-teach aquifer, recharge, static water level, synthesis, and attribution with a labeled cross-section drawing showing sand, water in the pore spaces, and a well casing. Supply a bank of signal phrases on the board, such as "according to the district fact sheet" and "the growers newsletter reports that," and allow students to answer questions 1 and 2 by underlining the sentence in the document before writing.

Extensions

Have students draft three questions they would ask a hydrologist who works in the basin, then trade papers and mark which questions could be answered with a measurement and which call for an opinion. That distinction prepares them for interview-based research later in the year.