7th grade writing review

Task 2: Change the prompt into a question.

Are mistakes a key part of new discoveries?

Task 3: Reread the prompt and determine whether it calls

for an informative or an argumentative essay.
Argumentative essay

Task 4: Write a clear controlling idea or claim statement

based on the prompt. Making mistakes can lead to some of
the great discoveries.
OR
Making mistakes leads to disaster, not to important
discoveries.
 Task 5: Put the following in the correct order for a body
paragraph:
a) elaboration b) Point
b) point statementstatement
c) elaboration
a) Elaboration
d) Evidence
d) evidence
c) Elaboration
e) evidence e) Evidence
 Task 6: Using the prompt and the titles in task 7, write
two sentences of background information that could be
used to start your introductory paragraph.
Mistakes and disasters can be frustrating to
researchers, but these disasters can lead to big
discoveries.
Trial and error can lead to some of the greatest
discoveries.

(possible answers, answers may vary)

 Task 7: Read the following passage set and source
titles. Circle 2 sources a person should include in
his/her essay based solely on these titles. This text is
about an
Goofs and Great Inventions passage set title
exploration that
went wrong and
Source 1: Lost Cities, Lost Treasure a new city was
discovered
Source 2: How a Melted Bar of Chocolate Changed Our
Kitchens
Source 3: Why
In Praise of Careful
not source Science are careful,
3? If scientists
there are likely not to be a lot of mistakes!
 Task 8: Read the following pieces of evidence and circle the domain-specific
vocabulary in each.
Source 1: By 1871, the adventurer Heinrich Schliemann started digging up
Troy his way without regard to the fragility of what lay buried under the
surface. He had workers open up huge trenches in the earth, shoveling out
layers of debris and artifacts that had lain undisturbed for centuries.
Although he had discovered treasure, the damage done to the site was
profound making it impossible for scientists to identify whether Schliemann
had actually discovered Troy.
Source 2: The Raytheon Companys manufactured the Magnetron, a
magnetic device used for tracking moving vehicles and other moving objects
on Earth or in space. It wasnt until a scientist standing near the Magnetron
noticed that the bar of chocolate in his pocket had melted, that the idea was
developed to use a smaller form of the Magnetron in homes. It took more
than 20 years, a lot of patience, and many mistakes before Raytheon
perfected a microwave oven that people could use and could afford!
Source 3: When Pierre and Marie Curie discovered radium, they spent
years after the 1898 discovery studying it unaware that its radioactivity
was slowly killing them.
 Task 9: Pretend you are going to use all of the
evidence in Task 8 in your first body paragraph. Write a
point statement that reflects the focus of the evidence.

Mistakes can be frustrating, but these errors can become

important discoveries that improve our life.
 Task 10: Choose one of the above evidences and write a substantial
elaboration for it.

(Point from task 9): Mistakes can be frustrating, but these errors can
become important discoveries that improve our life.
Evidence: For example, imagine life without a microwave. It took more
than 20 years, a lot of patience, and many mistakes before Raytheon
perfected a microwave oven that people could use and could
afford!(Source 2).

Elaboration: If Raytheon gave up the first time his experiment failed,

people might never have had the modern convenience of the microwave.
Raytheon must have been disappointed as a researcher to not have
instant success, but as a result of repeated trial and error, a new idea was
born that may have never existed. This big mistake revolutionized how we
make food.