What it is. An introduction names the claim the paper will establish.
Why our test works. Grade 6 removed the announcement; Grade 7 replaced it with a question; Grade 8 replaces the question with a CLAIM, which is the final form and the one every paper after this will want. A claim is harder because it commits the writer, and that commitment is exactly what makes the rest of the paper checkable against it.
Leans on. Grade 7 lesson 28 opened with a question.
Watch for. A claim nobody could disagree with is not a claim. If no reasonable person would argue the other side, it needs sharpening.
Draft the opening of the explanatory project. The worked example is the one you build on the board: Teacher shows the road map with today's slot named, and models draft the opening on the cl The class reads Writing Book 8, p.66 — 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 U9 set 1, U16 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, building it on the board and leaving it up: Teacher shows the road map with today's slot named, and models draft the opening on the class piece — one slot only, so the model is followable. The board copy is what they look back at when they stall, so it stays there for the whole lesson.
The We-do is the main whiteboard moment of the lesson — short answers, boards up on your signal, every child visible at once. Class works the same slot on the shared piece, then reads two versions aloud and says which is clearer and why. 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 8 to page 66 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: In your notebook: draft the opening for your own piece, double-spaced so there is room to correct.
You close on the exit direction — Read the one sentence you are most sure of. — taken from every child before anyone stands, and then the line you want them to still have tomorrow: The opening states the decision you made in lesson 7.
A claim nobody could disagree with is not a claim. If no reasonable person would argue the other side, it needs sharpening.