The Argument Writing Toolkit

Using Mentor Texts in Grades 6-8

Sean Ruday

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317409069
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Teaching Languages

In order for students to write effective arguments, they need to read good arguments. In this practical book, you'll find out how to use mentor texts to make writing instruction more meaningful, authentic, and successful. Author Sean Ruday demonstrates how you can teach middle school students to analyze the qualities of effective arguments and then help them think of those qualities as tools to improve their own writing. You'll learn how to:

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• Introduce high-interest topics to students to get them interested and engaged in argument writing.

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• Teach students to look at multiple sides of an issue and critically evaluate evidence to construct informed, defensible arguments.

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• Make argument writing an interactive, student-driven exercise in which students pursue their own writing projects.

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• Use mentor texts to help students learn the core concepts of argument writing and apply those skills across the curriculum.

The book is filled with examples and templates you can bring back to the classroom immediately, as well as an annotated bibliography which links the concepts in this book to the corresponding Common Core State Standards. Blank templates are also available as printable eResources on our website (http://www.routledge.com/9781138924390).

Section 1
Argument Writing Strategies Aligned with the Common Core Standards for Grades 6–8

1
Introducing Claims

What Does “Introducing Claims” Mean?

A fundamental component of effective argument writing is introducing the claim for which the author is arguing. For example, the students mentioned in the vignette at the beginning of this book’s introduction stated their individual claims for the bravest book character (recall that one student claimed Katniss Everdeen was the bravest, another said Harry Potter, and a third supported Charlotte Doyle). The Common Core State Standards highlight the importance of this concept, as Standards W.6.1.A, W.7.1.A, and W.8.1.A emphasize the importance of effectively introducing claims in argument writing. In this chapter, we’ll discuss the following: what “introducing claims” means, why this concept is important for effective argument writing, a description of a lesson on this concept, and key recommendations for helping your students effectively introduce claims in their own argument writing. Along the way, we’ll take a look at examples of argument writing and explore how the claims in those examples are introduced.

Let’s begin by examining what it means to introduce a claim. Authors of argument writing need to begin by clearly telling their readers what they are going to be arguing in that piece—they do this by introducing the piece’s claim. When introducing a piece’s claim, the author doesn’t yet describe the topic in depth—that comes later in the essay! Instead, he or she takes a position that will be further developed throughout the course of the essay. For example, the argument essay “Schools Should Stay Away from Computer Grading” introduces its claim in its opening paragraph, stating “Even though computer programs that grade student writing are gaining popularity, schools should stay away from them. Computer grading does not provide students with important benefits that teacher grading does.” This excerpt shows readers what the author will be arguing, but it doesn’t yet go into a lot of detail. Instead, it tells readers that, as they continue with the essay, they’ll learn more about why the author has taken this stance. In the next section of this chapter, we’ll consider why clearly introducing a claim is important to argument writing.

Why Introducing a Claim Is Important to Effective Argument Writing

Introducing a claim is especially important to an effective piece of argument writing for two related reasons: 1) It provides a sense of focus by taking a side on an issue, and 2) It establishes a foundation for the rest of the piece. Without a clearly stated claim, an argument essay wouldn’t take a position on an issue and wouldn’t have a stance to support throughout the rest of the piece. If the first paragraph of the essay “Schools Should Stay Away from Computer Grading” didn’t introduce its claim, it wouldn’t provide the same sense of focus and wouldn’t reveal what the rest of the piece is going to explain.

To further explore this, let’s take a look at the opening paragraph of “Schools Should Stay Away from Computer Grading” and then examine how that paragraph would look without the section that introduces the piece’s claim. The piece’s full opening paragraph reads:

How are computers used in your school? They might be used by students for typing papers, creating presentations, and doing research. They might be used by teachers for taking attendance, recording students’ grades, and emailing administrators. A hot topic in education today is the idea that computer programs can grade students’ writing. Software developers have recently created programs that can grade students’ papers, creating a situation in which teachers no longer grade their students’ works. These programs have been adopted in several colleges and even some middle and high schools. Even though computer programs that grade student writing are gaining popularity, schools should stay away from them. Computer grading does not provide students with important benefits that teacher grading does.

Notice that this paragraph introduces its claim in its final two sentences, saying “Even though computer programs that grade student writing are gaining popularity, schools should stay away from them. Computer grading does not provide students with important benefits that teacher grading does.” These sentences give the essay a sense of focus, indicating that this essay will argue that schools should not use programs that grade student writing. This sense of focus also provides a foundation for the rest of the piece—as the essay continues, the author can keep developing this idea with reasons, evidence, and other information.

The text below illustrates how the opening paragraph of this essay would look without the sentences that introduce the piece’s claim:

How are computers used in your school? They might be used by students for typing papers, creating presentations, and doing research. They might be used by teachers for taking attendance, recording students’ grades, and emailing administrators. A hot topic in education today is the idea that computer programs can grade students’ writing. Software developers have recently created programs that can grade students’ papers, creating a situation in which teachers no longer grade their students’ works. These programs have been adopted in several colleges and even some middle and high schools.

Without the final two sentences that introduce the piece’s claim, this paragraph reads much differently. It states some possible uses of computers in schools and introduces the idea of computer programs that can grade student writing, but does not take a side on this issue. In fact, without the claim-introducing section, this doesn’t even appear to be taken from a piece of argument writing! This paragraph doesn’t take a side on the issue and doesn’t clearly communicate what the rest of the piece will be describing. If you read an essay that featured this opening paragraph, you might ask yourself, “What is the author going to tell me in this piece? Is he or she going to continue describing computer programs that grade student writing? Is he or she going to describe other ways computers are used in schools?” Without answers to these questions, it would be difficult to determine the goal of the essay. However, introducing a claim avoids this confusion; if this paragraph included a clear claim, readers could understand the author’s purpose for writing the essay.

Let’s continue to consider the importance of introducing a claim by examining another excerpt from an argument essay: the opening paragraph from the essay “Don’t Trust Amazon.com’s Customer Reviews.”

What do you most enjoy about the internet? Some people like the way the internet gives everyone a voice—anyone with internet access can express his or her opinion about anything. There are many ways people can share their opinions online: they can create their own websites and express their thoughts on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. In addition, people can share their thoughts by posting product reviews on websites like Amazon.com that sell these items. Amazon.com sells a wide range of objects, and the majority of items for sale on this website have been reviewed by someone. Reviewers rate items by giving between one and five stars and can write a description of their thoughts on the item to go along with this rating. Prospective buyers should not trust these online reviews when making their purchases. Instead, consumers should rely on expert opinions and credible sources when making purchases.

This paragraph introduces its essay’s claim towards the end with the text: “Prospective buyers should not trust these online reviews when making their purchases. Instead, consumers should rely on expert opinions and credible sources when making purchases.” These sentences are especially important to this paragraph, as they indicate that the rest of essay will focus on the idea that consumers should not base their purchasing decisions on online reviews. Without these sentences, readers wouldn’t have a clear idea of what the author intends to discuss in this essay.

To further understand how different this paragraph would be without this information, let’s take a look at a revised version of it that no longer contains its final two sentences:

What do you most enjoy about the internet? Some people like the way the internet gives everyone a voice—anyone with internet access can express his or her opinion about anything. There are many ways people can share their opinions online: they can create their own websites and express their thoughts on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. In addition, people can share their thoughts by posting product reviews on websites like Amazon.com that sell these items. Amazon.com sells a wide range of objects, and the majority of items for sale on this website have been reviewed by someone. Reviewers rate items by giving between one and five stars and can write a description of their thoughts on the item to go along with this rating.

This revised version no longer introduces its claim; instead, it leaves readers wondering what the rest of the essay will discuss. Based on this paragraph, readers don’t know for sure what the focus of the essay is or what ideas the author will continue to develop as the piece continues.

As these examples show, introducing a claim is an important component of effective argument writing. The paragraphs that introduce their pieces’ claims provide a clear sense of focus that indicates the direction of the remainder of the essay. Those that don’t introduce their claims provide no definite understanding of the essay’s main ideas or the points to be developed in the rest of the piece. An author of a piece of argument writing who clearly and effectively states her claim is like a tour guide who communicates to her tour group exactly where the group is traveling and all of the sights they will see along the way. An author who doesn’t indicate the piece’s claim resembles a very different type of tour guide—one who doesn’t tell the group where it is going or anything it will encounter throughout the journey. It’s important that our students resemble strong tour guides in their argument writing by communicating their works’ focuses and directions to their readers! In the next section, we’ll take a look inside a sixth grade classroom and examine my students’ work on this important tool of argument writing.

A Classroom Snapshot

Knowing that my students are big basketball fans, I begin today’s lesson by connecting to their interests: “I was listening to two basketball experts on the radio,” I explain, “and they were debating whether Michael Jordan or LeBron James is the best basketball player of all time. Both experts made some really good points in support of their positions and brought in some interesting evidence, but do you know what they both did at the beginning of the conversation?”

“I know!” exclaims one student, holding his hand in the air. “They introduced their claims.”

“Exactly!” I reply. “Why do you think they did that?”

“Because,” responds another student, “you need to introduce your claim at the beginning of an argument.”

“Wonderful!” I say, praising the student’s response. “You all have been doing a great job of paying attention to our conversations about introducing claims! Today, we’re going to think about this aspect of argument writing in even more detail.”

These students and I are in our third class discussing introducing claims in argument writing. In our first meeting, we looked at specific examples of argument writing and discussed how the authors of those pieces introduced claims in their works. In our second meeting, we discussed why introducing a claim is especially important to effective argument writing, focusing on the ways a well-focused claim provides a sense of focus to an argument essay by taking a side on an issue and establishing a foundation for the rest of the piece. To illustrate this, we examined paragraphs from argument essays with and without their claim-introducing language (as discussed in this chapter’s previous section). Today, the students are going to take an even more active role in their learning: they will work in groups to analyze how opening paragraphs of argument essays would be different without the language that introduces the piece’s claim. This activity builds off the previous day’s discussion, but gives the students more ownership and responsibility, as each group will be responsible for identifying the claim-introducing language in the paragraph it receives, rewriting the paragraph without this language, and analyzing the differences.

I explain the activity to the class, dividing them into four separate groups and explaining that each group will receive an opening paragraph from a piece of argument writing. “Each of these paragraphs introduces a claim,” I tell them. “Your job is to find the section of the paragraph that introduces the claim, rewrite the paragraph without that language, and analyze why the claim-introducing language is important to the original paragraph. I’ll check in with each group while you work to see how you’re doing and to talk with you about what you’re noticing.”

The students nod, seeming to understand the way today’s activity builds off of our previous work with this concept. “Before we begin,” I tell the students, “let’s take a look together at an example so we can be sure we all understand what to do in this activity and how to do it. This is the first paragraph of an argumentative essay that I wrote. We’ll take a look at it together and then we’ll practice analyzing it.” I place the opening paragraph of the argument essay, “Keep Gym Class in Schools” on the document camera, projecting the following text to the front of the room:

The people in charge of our schools make a lot of tough decisions. Politicians, school board members, and policy makers have to think about issues like what books should be taught, whether or not schools should have dress codes, and how much time students should spend on different activities. Deciding how much time students should spend on different activities can be especially difficult. With new, challenging standards like the Common Core State Standards being used in schools and limited amounts of money, some schools have cut or reduced “specials” like gym class. These administrators should keep gym class in schools. Gym is a valuable part of the school experience that increases students’ chances to live happy, successful lives and should not be eliminated.

I read the text out loud, asking the students to follow along with the projected text. Once I finish reading, I ask the students, “What is the claim of this paragraph?”

A number of student hands shoot up; I call on one who replies, “The claim is that gym class should be kept in schools.”

“Very good,” I respond. “Now, let’s have a treasure hunt of sorts, except we’re going to hunt for the claim. Where in this paragraph does the author make this claim?”

“In the last two sentences,” asserts another student. “These sentences show the author’s opinion about gym class being valuable. The part before that sentence talks about other things.”

“Well said,” I tell the student. “The first several sentences of this paragraph give background about the decisions that politicians, school board members and policy makers have to make, while the last sentences introduce the claim that gym class is important and should be kept in schools. Now, let’s take a look at how this paragraph would look without these final sentences.” I place the following text on the document camera, projecting it to the front of the room:

The people in charge of our schools make a lot of tough decisions. Politicians, school board members, and policy makers have to think about issues like what books should be taught, whether or not schools should have dress codes, and how much time students should spend on different activities. Deciding how much time students should spend on different activities can be especially difficult. With new, challenging standards like the Common Core State Standards being used in schools and limited amounts of money, some schools have cut or reduced “specials” like gym class.

“Take a look at this revised version of the paragraph we just ex...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• eResources
• Meet the Author
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Presenting the Tools of Argument Writing to Middle School Students
• Section 1: Argument Writing Strategies Aligned with the Common Core Standards for Grades 6–8
• Section 2: Putting It Together
• Section 3: Resources