A short quotation/passage from the reading material should first be discussed in class in alignment with a point it could support in an essay. After this modeling, small groups of students should be given a different short quotation/passage paired with the point it is meant to support. Different groups can be given the same quotation/main point combination or different ones. Students have to read the text surrounding their quotation for context, and then write a detailed explanation of the quotation with its relevance, meaning, and how it can be used to support the main point. They should also identify any potential challenges/questions related to the quotation. [Alternatively, students could be given just the quotation and they could identify which main point it could support in an essay and then write the analysis.] Students should report back to the class on how the quotation supports the main points, or how they decided which main point could be supported by their analysis of the quotation. 

One short but “meaty” quotation should be placed on the screen. Students should be divided into small groups and instructed to think about the nuances of the quotation, from individual word choice to the punctuation—nothing is too small. Each group is responsible for adding a new comment on a part of the quotation. The instructor cycles among the groups until they decide that the quotation has been suitably close read and there is nothing substantive to add. 

Students gather and cluster evidence (on whiteboards, on tablets, on paper; together in small groups to scaffold the same process they’ll do at home individually). They will paraphrase effective evidence with citations and only essential quotes/key terms (it would be annoying to write out a long quotation by hand). The next step is doing the ‘so what’ analysis that distills what is important in the evidence – the questions emerging for a skeptical reader, the opportunities here to understand what’s not so simple in the quoted language. The subsequent step is drawing lines that explicitly create surprising connections and signpost turns between clusters of evidence. The final step would be to write a draft of this emerging essay. 

Students take turns being the gracious host who has invited very smart people to a party and set up dynamic conversations as they solicit and moderate a discourse between ‘experts’ they have invited to the party (peer teams/students who have gathered passages and ideas from a text) while practicing interpretive and transitional moves as a student writer/dinner party host.