Cause, Effect, or Coincidence?
Students read a short case microtext, take two pairs of events, and run two checks on each pair — Check 1: did the first event happen before the second? Check 2: does the case say how the first event leads to the second? — then label each pair cause, sequence-only, or coincidence.
Purpose
Teachers: multilingual learners frequently treat any two nearby events as cause and effect (after this, therefore because of this). This lesson gives students two evidence checks — a counterfactual check and a mechanism check — so they can separate supported causation from possible causation, sequence, and coincidence before they ever write a because-sentence. Neither check on its own proves cause; together, plus the evidence in the text, they let students defend a causal label.
Grammar target
Given two events from a short case text, label the relationship as cause, sequence-only, or coincidence — and justify the label with a one-line reason that quotes the case. (possible cause is an optional Level 3–4 stretch label.)
Essential question
Which events in the case are supported causes of each other — and which are only near each other in time?
Objective
Students can label pairs of events from a short case text as cause, sequence-only, or coincidence, and can give a one-line reason taken from the case.
Where this lesson sits
Lesson 1 of 3 in the Explain Causes arc. Teach the lessons in order across 3 class periods.
- EC-01 · Cause, Effect, or Coincidence? (this lesson)
- EC-02 · Say Why It Happened
- EC-03 · Explain from the Evidence
Practise this lesson
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