What it is. Where a claim came from is part of the claim, not an addition to it.
Why our test works. Children treat citation as a formatting rule and therefore as arbitrary. It is not: the point is that a reader can go and look. Framing the test around whether the READER COULD CHECK converts a punctuation exercise into a question of honesty, which is both the true reason and the one a child at this school already has the equipment to understand — they have met the idea that a report is weighed by who carried it long before they met a bibliography.
Leans on. Grade 6 read arguments critically. This applies the same scrutiny to the child's own writing.
Watch for. A citation nobody could follow is not a citation. If the child cannot say where they would send a reader, it does not count.
Use 10 school words in sentences of your own, and choose which version suits who is reading. The worked example is built on According to Ali (2019), rainfall rose., ringing according to. The class reads Writing Book 7, p.62 — our own page, so a child who was absent can still get the lesson.
You open by saying where this sits — what it follows and what it is part of — in one sentence, and then you give them the reason it matters, in your own words, for about ten seconds. Before anything new, sixty seconds of retrieval on U17 set 1, U24 set 1, U26 set 1: ask, take the answers from boards rather than hands so you see all thirty, and do not re-teach — note who has lost it and carry on.
Then you do one yourself, on screen, one click per piece: the word according to alone first, and you wait — let them look at it before you give them the meaning. Then as X says arrives beside it, and you point from one to the other with your hand. Then the sentence underneath: According to Ali (2019), rainfall rose.. Three clicks, three things said. Do not let the whole slide arrive at once — a slide that arrives whole gives the answer before the question is asked.
The We-do is the main whiteboard moment of the lesson — short answers, boards up on your signal, every child visible at once. Class rewrites two everyday sentences into school-word, then judges one case where the everyday version is BETTER. Discuss in pairs using the frames. If the answer is a whole sentence rather than a word, take it on their notebooks instead, because a sentence written on a whiteboard is written once and destroyed.
They open Writing Book 7 to page 62 and read it with you. Stop at the worked example and let them look at it.
Exit directions in full, standing still, before anyone moves. Then they work alone through the five steps — match, choose, frame, write their own. The frames stay on screen while they write: Use the frame as often as you need it today. Say both halves of that — the frame is there if they need it, and it is better writing without it. Walk and note who used it; that is your group for tomorrow, not a mark against them today.
You close on the exit direction — Say one sentence using according to. — taken from every child before anyone stands, and then the line you want them to still have tomorrow: Cite so a reader could go and look. That is the entire purpose.
A citation nobody could follow is not a citation. If the child cannot say where they would send a reader, it does not count.