Map That Error exercise

# Map That Error exercise

A module or course of exercises where students see two pieces of writing side by side — one exemplary, one not — and figure out which is better and why. Could be a full paragraph, a topic sentence, a thesis, or any essay element. Builds critical reading and self-editing skills by training students to spot quality differences in someone else's work before applying the same lens to their own.

## Structure

This works like Daily Pages — its own module or course, not a one-off assignment type. Inside the module is a **library** of side-by-side comparison exercises. Teachers browse the library and assign specific exercises (or sets of exercises) to their students.

### The library

- **AI-generated pairs** based on the rubric, tutor, and/or the GA. Not hand-written — generated against the same quality criteria the platform already uses for grading and coaching. This means the pairs are rubric-aligned: what makes one "better" maps directly to what the GA and tutor are already teaching.
- **Difficulty-tagged.** Each exercise is tagged with a difficulty level (e.g., obvious difference, moderate, subtle). Teachers can filter and assign progressively — start with exercises where the gap is glaring, build toward exercises where both are decent but one is meaningfully stronger.
- **Start with 20 exercises** covering a range of elements (theses, intros, topic sentences, evidence/analysis, conclusions) and difficulty levels. Expand the library over time.
- **Printable.** Teachers can print any side-by-side pair for offline classroom use — hand them out for group discussion, markup with pen, use as a warm-up. The print layout should be clean: both examples side by side on one page, guided questions below, space for handwritten notes.

### The exercise

Each exercise follows the same pattern:

1. **Split screen** — Two pieces of writing side by side, labeled Example A and Example B. Same topic or prompt, different quality. The student does **not** know which is stronger going in — identifying which is better is part of the exercise.
2. **Analysis box below** — Students write in a box at the bottom, answering guided questions.

The writing samples could be at any scale:
- Two theses
- Two topic sentences
- Two full paragraphs
- Two introductions
- Two evidence + analysis passages

### What students do

Guided questions in the analysis box (some or all of these per exercise):
- Which one is stronger?
- What specifically makes it stronger?
- What's wrong with the weaker one?
- How would you fix the weaker one?
- What technique does the stronger one use that the weaker one doesn't?

The point is building the analytical vocabulary and pattern recognition that students need to self-edit. If you can spot the problem in someone else's thesis, you're more likely to spot it in your own.

### Difficulty progression

Exercises should progress from obvious to subtle:

- **Easy** — One example is clearly weak (vague, generic, unsupported). The gap is obvious. Builds confidence and basic vocabulary.
- **Medium** — Both are competent, but one is notably stronger. Students need to articulate specific craft moves.
- **Hard** — Both are strong. The difference is subtle — one has a sharper turn of phrase, a more specific claim, a more purposeful structure. This is where real analytical skill develops.

Teachers can see the difficulty tag in the library and assign accordingly — or assign a mix and let the progression do the teaching.

## Screen layout

```
+------------------------+------------------------+
|       Example A        |       Example B        |
|                        |                        |
| "The Great Gatsby      | "The Great Gatsby is   |
|  reveals how the       |  about the American    |
|  American Dream        |  Dream and how it      |
|  corrupts precisely    |  doesn't work out      |
|  those who achieve     |  for people."          |
|  it — wealth becomes   |                        |
|  the instrument of     |                        |
|  Gatsby's isolation,   |                        |
|  not his liberation."  |                        |
+------------------------+------------------------+
|                                                 |
| Which thesis is stronger? What makes it work?   |
| [                                             ] |
| [          Student writes here                ] |
| [                                             ] |
+-------------------------------------------------+
```

## Grading

Custom GA — not the thesis-essay GA, not the Daily Pages holistic GA. This needs its own grading pipeline tuned to analytical writing: Did the student correctly identify the stronger example? Did they articulate *why* with specific, rubric-aligned reasoning? Did they identify the weakness in the weaker example? Did they propose a meaningful fix?

Effort and completion matter, but unlike the Ben Franklin exercise, there are right answers here (which one is stronger) so the GA can score accuracy of identification alongside quality of analysis.

## Resolved decisions

- [x] AI-generated pairs based on the rubric, tutor, and GA — but curated into a built library first, not on-the-fly.
- [x] Module/course structure with a library teachers browse and assign from.
- [x] Identifying which is stronger is part of the exercise — students don't know going in.
- [x] Difficulty-tagged and progressable (obvious → subtle).
- [x] Tutor is active — trained specifically for this exercise type (follow-up questions that deepen analysis).
- [x] Custom GA for analytical writing.
- [x] Start with 20 exercises, expand over time.
- [x] Side-by-sides are printable for offline classroom use.

## Open questions

- [ ] What does tutor training look like for this exercise? Needs to ask follow-up questions that push students to be more specific about *why* one is stronger — not give away the answer. Different voice/behavior than the essay-writing tutor.
- [ ] Should the library be organized by element type (all theses together, all intros together) or by topic/prompt?
- [ ] After the student submits their analysis, do they see a "reveal" — an explanation of which was stronger and why, mapping to the rubric? Or does the GA feedback serve that purpose?
- [ ] Can teachers create their own pairs and add to the library, or is it platform-managed only?
- [ ] Does completing a Map That Error exercise on theses naturally lead into an essay elements practice assignment on theses? Could the two modules be linked?