Wrong Reader
The same science-fair summary twice: Draft One, written in nobody-language ('methodology was implemented utilizing'), and Draft Two, rewritten after one question — 'Who is standing in front of this board?' Students diff the drafts to extract the audience moves, build a who's-reading revision protocol, and retune a draft of their own for its real reader.
Common Core standards covered
- W.7.5With some guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on how well purpose and audience have been addressed.
- W.7.6Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and link to and cite sources as well as to interact and collaborate with others, including linking to and citing sources.
© Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved.
Teacher-facing overview
Big idea: With guidance and peer support, strengthen writing by revising with focus on how well purpose and audience have been addressed; use technology to produce and publish writing and to link to and cite sources.
Student target: “I can diagnose audience-failure in accurate writing, name the moves that retune a text for its real reader — starting where they stand, handling jargon, translating data, plain-clothes honesty, giving them something to do — and run those moves on my own draft.”
Success criteria: I can explain why Draft One fails though every sentence is true. · I can diff the drafts and name at least four audience moves with citations. · I can name my own draft's actual reader — specifically. · I can execute one audience move on my own draft, before/after quotable.
Essential question
Draft One is accurate, complete, and unreadable — because it was written for nobody. What changes when a writer finally pictures the actual person in front of the text, and how do you revise a draft toward its real reader?
Learning target: I can diagnose audience-failure in accurate writing, name the moves that retune a text for its real reader — starting where they stand, handling jargon, translating data, plain-clothes honesty, giving them something to do — and run those moves on my own draft.
Success criteria
- I can explain why Draft One fails though every sentence is true.
- I can diff the drafts and name at least four audience moves with citations.
- I can name my own draft's actual reader — specifically.
- I can execute one audience move on my own draft, before/after quotable.
Why this matters
W.7.5's Grade 7 clause is specific: revise 'focusing on how well purpose and AUDIENCE have been addressed' — and audience-failure is the most common disease in accurate student writing, because school teaches the report-voice without teaching when to take it off. This pair isolates the disease and the cure: Draft One is correct and written for nobody; Draft Two changes no facts and gains a reader, through five nameable moves triggered by one portable question — who is standing in front of this? W.7.6 arrives without ceremony: the QR-code sources, the shared-doc conference, publishing as the moment audience becomes real. Students leave with the question, the moves, and a retuned draft of their own.
Students should already be able to
- A draft of their own to retune (any prior workshop piece).
- The revision-vs-editing distinction.
- The register concept (hallway/podium), ideally.
Where this shows up outside the classroom
Assessment plan
Formative — for feedback during the lesson
- Warm-up — automatic tuning surfaced.
- Diff circulation — moves named with pairs.
- Retune circulation — casts checked, diffs visible.
Summative — the graded evidence: Exit ticket (mentor move + own pair + the question) plus the retuned draft; the wardrobe and jargon-tax rank as extension evidence.
The passage: “Draft One — written for nobody”
An original draft pair written for this lesson. Draft One imitates the report-voice students absorb and deploy at exactly the wrong times.
¶1 DRAFT ONE — the summary Jayla wrote for her science-fair board. Every sentence is true. PROJECT SUMMARY: This experiment was conducted in order to determine the effect of variable liquid viscosity on the velocity of descending spherical objects. Methodology was implemented utilizing three fluid mediums (H2O, vegetable-based cooking oil, and glucose syrup) maintained at ambient temperature.
¶2 Identical spherical projectiles (16mm glass marbles, n=5 per medium) were released from a standardized height. Temporal data was recorded via smartphone chronometer application across multiple experimental trials. Anomalous results were excluded from the dataset in accordance with standard practice.
🔒 The full text — 3 numbered paragraphs, plus the photocopy-ready handout — ships in the kit. See plans →
The passage: “Draft Two — written for the person at the board”
The same experiment, retuned by one question.
🔒 This companion text — 3 numbered paragraphs — ships in the kit. See plans →
The task students work on
The class diagnoses Draft One (accurate, audience-free), diffs it against Draft Two to extract the five audience moves, then runs the who's-reading protocol on their own drafts: name the actual reader specifically (not 'anyone' — a fair visitor with thirty seconds, a principal who's been burned, a grandmother), find the three sentences written for nobody, and execute at least one move with before/after quotable. Shared-doc conferences carry the peer half; the QR-and-link clause of W.7.6 gets built into every revised piece that cites anything.
The diff ledger — same fact, retuned. Cite both drafts.
| The content | Draft One says (D1 ¶) | Draft Two says (D2 ¶) | The audience move, named |
|---|---|---|---|
| The research question | |||
| The technical term | |||
| The excluded data | |||
| The results | |||
| The sources |
Anticipated student strategies
Diffing first for the moves. The jargon misread corrected mid-diff with the kept-term evidence. Reader-casting last — it's the bridge to their own drafts.
- Line-level diffing. The student pairs D1 sentences with their D2 versions and names each transformation.
The intended method — the ledger's engine. Share first.
🔒 2 more anticipated strategies with select-and-sequence guidance are in the full lesson. See plans →
Lesson script
Collect the changes: vocabulary swapped, comparisons added ('it's like tag, but…'), pace slowed, assumed knowledge dropped. Name the reveal: everyone retunes for audience automatically IN SPEECH — and then writes school assignments for nobody. Today's pair shows the disease and the cure on one science-fair board.
Listen for: No — simpler doors, same game. Hold this: it's the answer to 'isn't this dumbing down?' before anyone asks it.
Both drafts are in the workbook and the handout. Establish the diagnosis first — D1 is accurate and audience-free, written in borrowed report-voice — then build the diff ledger: the honey image replacing the methodology opener; the term kept with a handle added; the bounced-marble honesty replacing the anomalous-exclusion sentence; the race results replacing the correlation; the QR path replacing the bibliography gesture. Land the two headline findings: D2 changes NO facts and is MORE specific in places (we finally learn what the anomaly was) — retuning added information while adding readability.
- D1's failure is audience, not accuracy.
- D2 keeps the term, the rigor, and the facts — the moves are about reader-position.
Listen for: Let it be argued — the honest answer is D2 covers everything D1 does, plus a visitor experience; if a rubric prefers D1's voice, the rubric has the disease too. (A real discussion worth having.)
🔒 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
- “Draft One is better because it sounds more scientific.” Sounding scientific and being scientific parted ways in ¶2: D1's 'anomalous results were excluded' hides the science; D2's bounced-marble sentence SHOWS it — the anomaly, the exclusion, the reason. Real rigor survives plain clothes. Costumes are for readers who aren't looking closely.
- “Writing for your audience means dumbing it down.” — the teacher response is in the full lesson.
- “My audience is 'anyone who reads it.'” — the teacher response is in the full lesson.
- “The report-voice is just how school writing is supposed to sound.” — 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 diagnosis. Prove Draft One is (a) accurate and (b) written for nobody, with one citation 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
- One mentor move: both quotes, move named.
🔒 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 Draft One and diagnose it — accurate, and written for nobody. Ask: “What do you notice?”, “What could you try next?”, and “How can you prove that?”
- Step 2: Read Draft Two; diff the drafts move by move. Ask: “What do you notice?”, “What could you try next?”, and “How can you prove that?”
- Step 3: Name the audience moves; build the who's-reading protocol. Ask: “What do you notice?”, “What could you try next?”, and “How can you prove that?”
- Step 4: Retune your own draft for its actual reader. Ask: “What do you notice?”, “What could you try next?”, and “How can you prove that?”
Differentiation and inclusion
Support: The paired drafts make audience-failure visible and fixable; extend with the third-audience rewrite and the jargon-tax audit.
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: One diffed audience move (before/after quoted) plus one revision executed on the student's own draft with the target reader named.
Mastery: The student completes the task accurately and explains the strategy with limited prompting.