Description

Expert Group Research is the engine room of the Informational Reading & Writing Unit. This lesson transitions the classroom from direct instruction to a dynamic, collaborative research hub. By providing students with diverse Text Sets via Padlet—covering everything from Animal Rights to Muslim Rights—the curriculum ensures that every student is engaging with high-quality, identity-affirming informational texts.

Designed for secondary ELA, the lesson is built for flexibility. Teachers can choose to have groups watch videos collectively, read articles using the Reading Roles protocol, or work independently before checking back in with their Expert Group to compare notes. The lesson includes specific sentence stems for speaking and listening to ensure that group discourse remains academic, respectful, and focused on dismantling systems of oppression.

This research phase is designed to last multiple days, giving students the time and space to build the Expertise they will need for their final informational products.

What’s Included

• Flexible Multi-Day Lesson Plan with strategies for managing diverse research tracks.

• Access to 10+ Curated Padlet Research Sets (Disability Rights, Immigration, Black Resistance, etc.).

• L6. Source Note-Taking Sheet to ensure consistent evidence collection across all groups.

• L6. Reading Roles Guide to scaffold group deconstruction of complex informational articles.

• Academic Sentence Stems for small-group discussion and collaborative planning.

• Formative Assessment Entry Tasks to gauge student readiness and research focus.

• Alignment with WAESN Elements of Liberation and CCSS ELA standards for research and informational text.

Why Educators Use This Lesson

• Curated Content Safety: Saves teachers dozens of hours by providing pre-vetted, high-interest research sets on sensitive and complex social issues.

• Differentiated Learning Paths: Students can choose to engage with video media or long-form articles, supporting various Lexile levels and learning styles.

• High Engagement: By researching topics they chose in Lesson 5, students demonstrate significantly higher levels of persistence and buy-in.

• Promotes Interdependence: The Expert Group model encourages students to teach one another, building a community of scholars rather than a classroom of passive learners.

• Critical Lens Application: Students apply their knowledge of bias and systemic oppression directly to real-world documents and stories of resistance.

This is where your students stop being learners and start being experts in the field of justice.