Social and Community Studies - Science and Technology (eSafety) unit - writing a thesis and body 1

Part of a set of resources created for a senior Social & Community studies class in Australia (QCAA syllabus). The other resources are also available in my store - lrigb4. Designed for use in 70 minute lessons.

An explicit scaffolding lesson to help students to begin writing their essay about identity theft / financial fraud. I always encourage students to write their body paragraphs before writing their introduction but make sure they have a clear idea of what their thesis statement (overall argument) will be so they can link to this in their body paragraphs.

This is for a low literacy class so it assumes they are mostly unfamiliar with the genre. It explains what a thesis statement is and has prompts for how to write one.It provides specific advice about criteria 2.3 (which requires students to make a decision and justify it) as this decision / recommendation will naturally influence their thesis.

It specifically unpacks the term ‘recommend’ and provides some sentence starters for recommending. There is a gradual release slide where there is an I do, we do and you do for making recommendations about an unrelated topic. This is followed by a brain break video about catfishing a teen using social media. After students make a decision for their assessment topic and draft their thesis, this is followed by a review of TEEL paragraph structure. Finally, time is provided for them to begin writing body paragraph 1 (utilising teacher prompts on the slides).