The Explainer Workshop
A mentor explainer — how noise-canceling headphones subtract sound — dissected move by move: the hook-question, the foundation paragraph, the mechanism with its analogy, the distinction, the limitation, the return. Then students draft their own explainer with the moves checklist, tuned to a real audience.
Common Core standards covered
- W.8.2Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas, concepts, and information through the selection, organization, and analysis of relevant content.
- W.8.4Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
© Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved.
Teacher-facing overview
Big idea: Write informative/explanatory text that examines a topic and conveys ideas through well-chosen facts, definitions, and examples — with organization, transitions, precise language, and a conclusion that follows; produce writing appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
Student target: “I can write an explainer using the six mentor moves — hook-question, foundation, mechanism with analogy, distinction, limitation, return — with precise language and transitions, tuned to a specific audience.”
Success criteria: I can map all six moves in the mentor text with ¶ citations. · I can draft a hook-question that is a scene, not a survey question. · I can build one analogy that matches my mechanism's relationship. · I can name three choices in my draft that would change for a different audience.
Essential question
Knowing a thing and explaining a thing are different skills. What are the moves that carry an idea from a writer's head into a reader's — and how do the moves change when the reader changes?
Learning target: I can write an explainer using the six mentor moves — hook-question, foundation, mechanism with analogy, distinction, limitation, return — with precise language and transitions, tuned to a specific audience.
Success criteria
- I can map all six moves in the mentor text with ¶ citations.
- I can draft a hook-question that is a scene, not a survey question.
- I can build one analogy that matches my mechanism's relationship.
- I can name three choices in my draft that would change for a different audience.
Why this matters
W.8.2 lists ingredients — definitions, examples, transitions, precise language, a conclusion that follows — but students who are handed ingredient lists write refrigerator essays: everything included, nothing cooked. The mentor text converts the list into six teachable MOVES with an order and a logic, each visible in a real paragraph they can cite. W.8.4 rides along the whole way: every move is a decision about audience (what the reader holds, what they'd confuse, what they'd ask next), which is why the workshop ends by re-tuning the same draft for a different reader instead of writing a second essay.
Students should already be able to
- Paragraph anatomy — sentence roles (from In Defense of Boredom, ideally).
- The analogy-vs-decoration distinction (from Stolen from Nature, ideally).
- A topic the student genuinely understands (hobby, game, skill, process).
Where this shows up outside the classroom
Assessment plan
Formative — for feedback during the lesson
- Warm-up — analogies emerging under explaining pressure.
- Moves map — six citations before drafting opens.
- Draft circulation — the gibberish test run on foundations in real time.
Summative — the graded evidence: Exit ticket (map from memory + final hook + analogy principle) plus the draft with peer burglar-test labels; the finished six-move essay and double tune rank as extension evidence.
The passage: “How Headphones Subtract Sound — mentor text”
An original explainer written for this lesson (≈520 words) — every move is there to be stolen.
¶1 Put on a pair of noise-canceling headphones in a loud room and something eerie happens: the roar of the air conditioner simply leaves, like a guest who got a text and slipped out. The music isn't louder. The world is quieter. How does a headphone subtract sound?
¶2 Start with what sound is: a pressure wave — air molecules shoving their neighbors in a ripple that spreads from the source to your eardrum. Every wave has peaks (high pressure) and valleys (low pressure). Your eardrum reads the pattern of shoves; your brain calls the pattern 'air conditioner.'
🔒 The full text — 6 numbered paragraphs, plus the photocopy-ready handout — ships in the kit. See plans →
The task students work on
The class dissects the mentor text into its six moves, then every student drafts moves 1–3 of an explainer on a topic they actually know — the hook-scene, the foundation concept, the mechanism with its analogy — using the checklist. The audience tune: each writer names their reader (a fifth grader? their grandmother? an expert who'll sneer at errors?) and marks three choices made FOR that reader. Workshop pairs then run the burglar test on each other's drafts: can your partner find your moves?
The moves map — mentor text first, your draft second.
| Move | Where the mentor does it (¶) | How it works there | Where YOUR draft does it |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 — Hook-question (a scene, then the question) | |||
| 2 — Foundation (the one concept the reader needs) | |||
| 3 — Mechanism + analogy | |||
| 4 — Distinction (vs. the look-alike) | |||
| 5 — Limitation (what it can't do, and why) | |||
| 6 — Return (re-answer the hook, richer) |
Anticipated student strategies
Burglar reading first because the moves must be seen before they're performed. Foundation testing second for drafters who stall. Audience roleplay throughout — it's the tuning fork, not a stage.
- Burglar reading. The student reads the mentor text purely for stealable structure — marking moves, ignoring headphone facts.
The workshop's core stance: mentor texts are heist targets, not idols. Share first.
🔒 2 more anticipated strategies with select-and-sequence guidance are in the full lesson. See plans →
Lesson script
Debrief the failures: everyone reached for comparisons ('make a loop like a bunny ear'), everyone skipped steps their hands know silently. Name the lesson: explaining is a separate skill from knowing, with learnable moves — and today we steal them from a professional-grade specimen.
Listen for: The listener has no picture; an analogy lends them one. Comparisons aren't decoration — they're delivery.
The mentor text is in the workbook and the handout. Build the moves map on the board — hook-question (¶1), foundation (¶2), mechanism+analogy (¶3), distinction (¶4), limitation (¶4–¶5), return (¶6) — with the class citing evidence for each. Two teaching beats: the foundation paragraph exists because ¶3 would be gibberish without it (have them test this — read ¶3 aloud to someone who skipped ¶2); and the analogy matches a relationship (equal opposition → zero), which is what separates explanatory analogies from decorations.
- Six moves, six citations — the map is the license to draft.
- Test the foundation: cover ¶2 and watch ¶3 die.
Listen for: Limits build trust — a text with no limits reads like an ad. And here the limit becomes the deepest insight (the chip is betting). Weakness, properly explained, is content.
🔒 The remaining 4 steps — fully scripted with teacher-says lines, discourse questions, look-fors, and interventions — are in the full lesson. See plans →
Misconceptions and how to respond
- “Informative writing means no style — just facts in order.” The mentor text has a vanishing guest, a betting chip, and a room shouting back — and every image is doing explanatory work. Style that carries meaning is precision, not decoration. The refrigerator essay (all facts, no cooking) is the actual failure mode.
- “Start with a definition.” — the teacher response is in the full lesson.
- “A good analogy makes the topic sound cool.” — the teacher response is in the full lesson.
- “Audience means simpler or harder words.” — the teacher response is in the full lesson.
🔒 Every misconception ships with a tested classroom response. See plans →
Scaffolded practice
The workbook follows gradual release rather than a page of blank prompts: 2 fully worked, 2 partially completed, then 4 independent.
- I doLiteral first — the moves map. Name the six moves and cite where the mentor text performs each.
🔒 7 more prompts across all three release tiers are in the full lesson. See plans →
Worked solutions and scaffolds for every prompt are in the downloadable kit, included with membership. See plans and pricing.
Exit ticket
- From memory: name three of the mentor's six moves and their ¶s.
🔒 2 more exit-ticket questions are in the full lesson. See plans →
Worked answers, the completed answer tables, and the scoring rubric are in the downloadable kit, included with membership. See plans and pricing.
Printable handouts in the kit
All handouts are in Printable_Handouts.pdf inside the kit download.
Materials and classroom resources
Student experience
Students enter through a low-floor prompt, build or sketch a model, test a strategy, revise their thinking, collaborate, and present a final solution. The task remains accessible while allowing for sophisticated reasoning.
Detailed facilitation notes
- Step 1: Read the mentor text once for pleasure, once for architecture. Ask: “What do you notice?”, “What could you try next?”, and “How can you prove that?”
- Step 2: Map the six moves: hook-question, foundation, mechanism, distinction, limitation, return. Ask: “What do you notice?”, “What could you try next?”, and “How can you prove that?”
- Step 3: Choose a topic you actually understand; draft with the moves checklist. Ask: “What do you notice?”, “What could you try next?”, and “How can you prove that?”
- Step 4: Tune for audience: mark three choices you'd change for a different reader. Ask: “What do you notice?”, “What could you try next?”, and “How can you prove that?”
Differentiation and inclusion
Support: The moves checklist scaffolds structure without scripting content; extend with the audience-flip rewrite and the limitation-paragraph challenge (what your topic CAN'T do).
Language support: “I started by…”, “My model shows…”, and “I know my answer is reasonable because…”.
Extension: Require a second solution, alter a condition, or have students write a challenge for another group.
Accessibility: Manipulatives, enlarged visuals, oral response choices, partner reading, and reduced-copy student pages.
Assessment plan
Formative checks: Strategy choice, accuracy, representation, collaboration, and explanation.
End evidence: A drafted explainer opening (moves 1–3) with the analogy underlined and one audience-tuning note in the margin.
Mastery: The student completes the task accurately and explains the strategy with limited prompting.