# Lesson 7.9: The Elevator Pitch

**Unit:** Unit 7, Launch: Career Readiness and FACS Shark Tank (capstone; draws on Individual Growth and Life Readiness)
**Topic:** 7.2 FACS Shark Tank
**Grade:** 6 to 8 (written at grade 7; see Differentiation for the grade 6 support and grade 8 stretch)
**Days:** 1 class period of 40 minutes
**Room:** Classroom with a clear spot at the front where one person can stand and be heard

## Standards

- NYS module line: NYS IGLR 3. Employability c) Demonstrate effective communication skills
- NYS module line: NYS IGLR 5. Career Pathways b) Examine the skills needed to become an entrepreneur
- CTE theme line: CTE CIR 1. Communication f) Demonstrate personal development of communication skills through practice of these skills in a variety of classroom applications
- CTE theme line: CTE CIR 3. Workplace Communication b) Describe ways effective communication promotes workplace efficiency
- NYS FACS Learning Standard 3 (Intermediate), Key Idea: Students will understand and be able to manage personal resources of talent, time, energy, and money and make effective decisions in order to balance their obligations to work, family, and self.; Performance Indicator: Students identify their own abilities and interests as possible guides to career choice.
- CDOS Standard 3a Universal Foundation Skills: Managing Information. Students select and communicate information in an appropriate format (e.g., oral, written, graphic, pictorial, multimedia).
- National FCS 3.0: 13.3.2 Show the spoken and unspoken behaviors and attitudes that make communication work.
- National FCS 3.0: 1.2.6 Show leadership in school, work, and community settings.

## Enduring understanding and essential question

**Big idea:** Sixty seconds is not a short speech. It is six pieces in a fixed order, and the reason it works is that the person listening knows what is coming next.
**Essential question:** What would make somebody who has never met me want to hear the rest?

## Objectives

By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:
1. (Low) Name the six parts of a 60-second pitch in order (hook, problem, solution, who it is for, the money, the ask) and state the approximate seconds each one gets.
2. (Mid) Critique a modeled pitch delivered by the teacher, identifying all six parts and naming two things that made it land and one that would kill it.
3. (High) Draft their team's 60-second pitch with all six parts, time it twice, and revise it to fit 60 seconds without cutting the money or the ask.

## Vocabulary

Tier 2 (general academic): structure, revise, critique, deliver, time (verb)
Tier 3 (FACS): pitch, hook, investor, ask, brand, market, competition. See `Vocabulary 07.md`.

## Materials and setup

- `Handout 07.09 - Pitch Anatomy and Draft Sheet.md`, one per student
- Team folders with the signed numbers page from Lesson 7.8 and the interview sheets. **No team drafts a pitch without its numbers**, because the money is part 5.
- A stopwatch or phone timer for every team. If devices are short, one timer per two teams and they take turns.
- Slides: `Slides 07.09 - The Elevator Pitch`
- One prop for the teacher's model pitch. Any physical object. [Sal: pitch something from your own life. A real one works better than a made-up one: ClassroomStreet, a hotel food and beverage change you made, or the tote bag from Lesson 7.8. Students can tell when you believe it, and that is half of what they are supposed to be learning.]
- A board section headed **"Lands"** and **"Kills"** in two columns, blank until Step 2
- Setup notes: practice the model pitch twice before class and time it. It has to be 60 seconds, not 90, because the whole lesson depends on students believing 60 seconds is enough. Allergy check: none.

## Pre-assessment

The do now asks students to pitch their own idea in one sentence, cold, with no instruction. Take five. Nearly all of them will lead with what the thing is and never mention the problem, the customer, or the money. That gap is the lesson and it is visible in ninety seconds.

## Do now and hook (Time: 4 min)

On the board: "In ONE sentence, tell me what your team is selling. Write it. You get one sentence."

Debrief: take five sentences out loud. Do not correct any of them. Write on the board only what was missing across all five: usually "who has the problem" and "what it costs." Then the hook: stand up with the prop and say, "I am going to try to make you want to give me money in sixty seconds. Time me." Hand a phone or stopwatch to one student. Deliver the model pitch cold, all six parts, and stop at 60.

## Procedure

| Step | Teacher will | Students will | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Direct instruction: the anatomy | Put the six parts on the slide with the seconds: **hook (10), problem (10), solution (15), who it is for (10), the money (10), the ask (5).** Say what each one has to contain in one line: the hook is a question or a number, not a greeting; the problem names who has it; the solution says what you make and one thing that makes it different; who it is for is the customer profile in one sentence; the money is unit cost, price, and break-even in one sentence; the ask says what you want (an order, a table at the school event, twenty dollars of supplies, permission) and it is never vague. | Copy the six parts and the seconds onto the draft sheet. Next to each, write the number of the part where their own idea is currently weakest. | 8 min |
| 2. Critique the model pitch | Deliver the model pitch a second time, slower, and stop after each part so the class can name it. Then open the two-column board: **Lands** and **Kills**. Take answers and write them. Steer the Kills column to the real ones: reading it off paper the whole time, no eye contact, no number anywhere, a hook that is "um, so, basically," running long and getting cut off, mumbling the price, an ask that is "so, yeah, what do you think." Then deliver 15 seconds of the pitch badly on purpose, hitting three of the Kills, and let the room name them. | Name each of the six parts as the teacher stops. Give two Lands and one Kill each, out loud. Copy the Lands and Kills lists onto the back of the draft sheet; this list is the peer review criteria in Lesson 7.10. | 10 min |
| 3. Teams draft | Release teams to the six boxes on the draft sheet. Give the rule: write it the way you will say it, in your own words, not in essay words. CEO holds the pen for the hook and the ask, CFO writes the money sentence, CMO writes the who-it-is-for sentence, and all three write the problem and the solution together. Circulate with one question: "Say the hook to me right now." | Draft all six boxes. Every member writes the full pitch on their own sheet, because all three deliver part of it on pitch day. | 10 min |
| 4. Time it twice | Start the timing round. Every team reads the pitch out loud at its own table while a teammate times it, twice, and writes both times on the sheet. Then give the revision rule out loud: **if you are over 60 seconds, you cut words from the hook and the solution. You do not cut the money and you do not cut the ask.** | Read the pitch aloud twice, timed. Write both times. Cut or add to hit 60 seconds. Write the final word count or the final time on the sheet. | 6 min |

Do now 4 plus 8 plus 10 plus 10 plus 6 is 38; the closure below is 2 minutes. Total 40.

## Questions to ask

Monitor understanding:
- Name the six parts in order.
- How many seconds does the money get? What has to be in that sentence?
- Which part is your team's weakest right now?
- Your ask is "please support us." What would you actually want somebody to do?

Deepen learning:
- Why does the hook come before the problem instead of after it?
- I read mine off a paper the whole time. Why did that hurt, when every word was still correct?
- Two teams have the same solution. What would make a judge pick one? (Steer to the money and the customer evidence.)
- Your pitch is 78 seconds. Which words are doing the least work?
- An investor hears 40 pitches in a day. What is the one thing they remember about yours?

## Check for understanding

Two checks. At the end of Step 2, cold call six students for the six parts in order; if any student cannot produce the part they are asked for, the whole list goes back on the board for 30 seconds before Step 3 starts. At the end of Step 4, the teacher walks to every team and says two words: "Hook. Go." The CEO delivers the hook alone, on the spot, from memory. A hook that starts with "so, basically" gets one revision instruction and 60 seconds to fix it.

## Closure (Time: 2 min)

Hook round. Every team's CEO stands at their table and says their hook only, ten seconds each, in order around the room. Ten hooks in under two minutes. No comment, no ranking. The class hears ten openings back to back and the difference between a good one and a weak one is obvious with no teacher commentary at all, which is why this closure is better than a discussion.

## Differentiation and supports

- ELL: the six parts and the seconds are printed in Turkish, Portuguese, and Spanish on the draft sheet, from `Vocabulary 07.md`, along with a sentence frame for each part in all four languages ("Have you ever ___?" / "The problem is that ___." / "We make ___, and ours is different because ___." / "It is for ___." / "It costs us ___ and we sell it for ___, so we stop losing money after ___." / "We are asking for ___."). A team with an ELL member may assign that member the part with the shortest sentence and the strongest frame, and the project sheet says the pitch may be split across three speakers in any proportion. A student may deliver their part in the home language with one sentence of English translation from a teammate.
- IEP and 504 (general): the draft sheet is six labeled boxes so nothing has to be organized; the pitch may be read from a card on pitch day and the rubric does not penalize a card, only reading the whole thing with no eye contact at all; a student may write their part and have a teammate deliver it, with the written part scored as their contribution; extended time to draft during the Lesson 7.10 build days, which is when most teams finish anyway; timers made available rather than read off a teacher's phone, so a student can control the count themselves.
- Grade 6 support: four parts instead of six. Grade 6 teams must have the hook, the problem, the solution, and the money; who-it-is-for folds into the problem sentence and the ask is given to them as a fixed sentence to fill in ("We are asking for ___ so we can ___."). Grade 6 target time is 45 seconds, not 60.
- Grade 8 stretch: a seventh part, held in reserve and not spoken: the answer to the one question they expect a judge to ask, written on the back of the card in one sentence. Grade 8 teams also write two versions of the hook and pick one with a reason.
- UDL checkpoints used: multiple means of representation (the same pitch modeled well, modeled slowly and stopped part by part, and modeled badly on purpose, so the structure is heard three different ways) and multiple means of engagement (the team pitches its own idea, chosen by the team, and the Lands and Kills list is written in the students' own words and becomes the criteria they are later judged against).
- No-presentation accommodation: today's only speaking is the hook, said at the team's own table, and a teammate or the teacher may say it instead. A student who will not speak on pitch day is planned for now, not on Friday: their written part of the pitch is read aloud by a teammate, and the project sheet lists that as a named accommodation, not an exception.

## Assessment

| Objective | Standards met | Learning task | Assessment (formative or summative; tool) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Name the six parts and their seconds | IGLR 3. c); CIR 1. f); CDOS 3a Managing Information | Step 1 draft sheet; the Step 2 cold call | Formative; the cold call on six parts in order |
| 2. Critique the model pitch and name two Lands and one Kill | CIR 3. b); National FCS 13.3.2 | Step 2 two-column board | Formative; the Lands and Kills list is checked on the back of the draft sheet and becomes the peer review criteria in Lesson 7.10 Day 2 |
| 3. Draft, time, and revise a six-part 60-second pitch | IGLR 3. c); IGLR 5. b); National FCS 1.2.6 | Steps 3 and 4 | The delivered pitch is scored on `Rubric 07` criterion 6 in Lesson 7.11. The draft sheet is evidence on criterion 3. Formative today via the hook check and the two recorded times |

## Homework

None required. Optional: say the pitch out loud once at home to anybody who will listen, and ask them one question afterward: "What do we sell?" If they cannot answer, the solution sentence needs work. Write down what they said.

## Connections

Inside the building: the ELA teacher, on persuasion and audience, and the drama or music teacher on projection and pacing if your school has one. Sixty seconds delivered from memory with eye contact is a performance skill and they teach it in three minutes better than a FACS teacher can in ten. FACS gives them students with something they actually want to say; they give FACS breathing, pacing, and volume. Community: the Lesson 7.11 panel. Email the invitation this week and include the six parts, so judges know the structure students were taught and can ask questions inside it.

## Sources

- NYS Middle Level CTE FACS Content Module 01, Individual Growth and Life Readiness, lines 3. c) and 5. b).
- NYS Middle Level CTE Theme Module 02, Communication and Interpersonal Relationships, lines 1. f) and 3. b).
- NYS Learning Standards for FACS (1996), Standard 3, Intermediate. NYS CDOS Standard 3a, Managing Information. Wording per `02 Standards/STANDARDS SOURCES - web research.md`. [Sal: confirm against the NYSED PDFs.]
- National Standards for FCS Education 3.0 (LEAD FCS Education, 2018), competencies 13.3.2 and 1.2.6.
- Sal's own materials: his Brentwood business packets "The Elevator Pitch" (the hook, problem, solution, and call to action structure with timings, the delivery notes on tone and body language, and the five-times practice log) and "Shark Tank Showdown" (the 60-second pitch script broken into hook, problem, solution, market and numbers, and ask, with the timings in seconds). The six-part structure here is those two packets combined, with "who it is for" pulled forward from the customer work and "the money" tied to the Lesson 7.8 numbers page so the pitch cannot be delivered without real numbers behind it.
- Sal's own background: he has pitched in business development at Oracle and designed and built ClassroomStreet.com himself. The model pitch in Step 1 should be one of his own.

## Teacher notes

- The model pitch has to actually be 60 seconds. Time yourself before class. If your model runs 85 seconds, every team will run 85 seconds and pitch day falls apart.
- The bad 15 seconds in Step 2 is worth more than any explanation. Read off the paper, look at the floor, say "um," mumble the price. Students name every mistake instantly and then they will not do it.
- The Lands and Kills list must be in their words. It becomes the peer review sheet in Lesson 7.10 Day 2 and the students who wrote the criteria enforce them harder than criteria you hand them.
- Protect the money sentence in the revision rule. Every team that goes over will try to cut the numbers first, because the numbers are the hardest part to say. That is exactly why they stay.
- "Hook. Go." in Step 4 is the single most useful 30 seconds of the period. Do it with every team, including the ones you think are fine.
- The ask is where middle schoolers are weakest, because nobody has ever taught them to ask for something specific. Give the class three real examples of an ask the school could actually say yes to: a table at the spring event, twenty dollars of supplies from the FACS budget, permission to run it for one week, a pre-order list of ten names.
- [Sal: pitch ClassroomStreet in Step 1 if you are comfortable. You built it, your students used it, and it solves a real problem. Students hearing their teacher pitch something he made himself is the whole argument of this unit in sixty seconds.]
- Collect nothing today. Every draft sheet goes into the team folder and comes straight back out tomorrow.