Overview
In the first few days, the teacher introduces the cues readers use in determining whether or not to trust the narrator/characters in a text, using cultural data sets (various media). Students generate these cues for reliability and learn how to construct an argument around reliability using textual evidence and warrants. They also use the generated cues of reliability to help them determine the truth with examining differing texts on the same issue. Finally, students will draft an essay regarding the wolf’s reliability, using the C-E-W template they created, as well as the feedback from class discussion.
Guiding Questions
- How do you know when someone is lying?
- How important is “truth”?
- Do we believe the wolf’s version of the story: why or why not?
- How do commonsense rules and things we generally accept to be true help us in determining truth?
Texts/Materials
- Video of Martin Season 2, Episode 1 (available through various video streaming sites)
- Evidence chart for Martin
- Student-generated list of cues for unreliability (chart paper)
- Paragraph Frame for Unreliability
- The True Story of the Three Little Pigs
- Venn Diagram: Who’s Got the truth: The Wolf or the Pigs? (student generated)
- Is the wolf telling the truth? C-E-W template
Activities
1. Ask students to tell you what strategies they might use for determining whether someone is telling the truth. Keep track of their ideas on chart paper or other public display.
2. Give students the evidence chart in which to record examples from the Martin episode that indicate a character’s reliability or lack thereof. Fill out an example with them. Show 
and let students fill out further examples as they watch.
3. Give students argument paragraph frame and ask them to use it to make a claim about one of the characters in the Martin episode and write an argument around it. Choose several students to share their arguments with the class. Ask others to give strengths and opportunities for revision. Let all students revise their arguments.
4. Read students the traditional Three Little Pigs story and ask them who is telling the story. They should fill out one side of a Venn diagram with events according to the narrator. Then tell students to read the wolf’s version of events while they document their thinking about the reliability of the narrator through annotations. When they finish have them complete the other side of the Venn diagram documenting the truth from the wolf’s side.
5. After finishing the Venn diagram, have students complete the template called “Is the wolf telling the truth?” Students develop claims regarding the wolf’s reliability, and look for textual evidence to support their thinking. Remind students that their reasoning or warrants are commonsense rules they accept to be true. Approaching the reasoning in this way will help them determine whether or not the wolf can be trusted. Ask several students to share their warrants and work through them as a class.
6. Lastly, have students write an essay, using their C-E-W template, as well as what they’ve gathered from the discussion, in order to write an essay where they address the question: “Is the Wolf Telling the Truth?”
Assessment
The following are means of assessing students during activities so instruction can be adjusted and differentiated according to students’ needs.
- Generated list about cues that the characters in the Martin episode (Do You Remember the Time, Season 2, episode 1) may not be telling the entire truth.
- Completion of argument frame
- Generated list about cues that the wolf may have not been honest in his retelling of events in the story, The Three Little Pigs.
- Writing of basic argument.
- Essay addressing the following: Is the Wolf Telling the Truth?