Reasons and Evidence: Supporting Your Ideas

• Reading
• 4th Grade

Reasons and Evidence: Supporting Your Ideas

Learning Objective

At the end of the lesson, you will be able to find and write reasons and support them with evidence.

What do you already know about giving reasons for your ideas?

What Are Reasons?

Reasons are the why behind your ideas. They explain why you think or feel a certain way.

Finding Reasons

Look for clues in the text or use your own knowledge and experiences to find reasons to support your ideas.

What is Evidence?

Evidence is the support for your reasons. It can be facts, examples, or details that back up what you think.

Supporting with Evidence

When writing, use evidence like quotes, statistics, or personal experiences to back up your reasons.

Practice Activity

Read this short passage and identify the reasons the author gives, then find evidence to support each reason.

Practice Activity

Rainforests play a vital role in maintaining the balance of our planet's ecosystem. They act as the Earth's lungs, absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and releasing oxygen through photosynthesis. This process not only ensures a steady supply of oxygen for us to breathe but also helps mitigate the impacts of climate change by reducing the amount of greenhouse gases in the air. Rainforests are vast expanses of dense vegetation found in tropical regions across the globe. Towering trees, lush foliage, and a symphony of sounds from various creatures make rainforests truly remarkable. 

Why are rainforests crucial for our planet?

What evidence supports the importance of rainforests?

Writing Reasons and Evidence

Now, write a paragraph expressing your opinion and support it with reasons and evidence.

Imagine you have the opportunity to design a new playground for your school. What features would you include, and why? Consider what makes a playground fun, safe, and inclusive for everyone.

Review and Reflect

Discuss with a partner: What did you learn about finding and writing reasons with evidence? Why is it important?

What does the author use to support an idea?

1. Facts and details from the text
2. Personal opinions
3. Information from a friend
4. Imagination and creativity

Why is it important to find evidence in the text?

1. To compare with other books
2. To guess what happens next
3. To back up our ideas with proof
4. To make the story more interesting

What can you use to find reasons and evidence in a story?

1. The book's cover
2. Pictures in the book
3. Quotes from the text
4. The author's biography

Write down 3 things you learned in this lesson.

Have students enter three things they learned in this lesson. With this they can indicate their own learning efficiency of this lesson.

Write down 2 things you want to know more about.

Here, students enter two things they would like to know more about. This not only increases involvement, but also gives them more ownership.

Ask 1 question about something you haven't quite understood yet.

The students indicate here (in question form) with which part of the material they still have difficulty. For the teacher, this not only provides insight into the extent to which the students understand/master the material, but also a good starting point for the next lesson.