Teaching Argument Writing:Creating THINKING kids (part 2)

Step 2: Practice writing claims and warrants to get really good at using evidence to support an opinion.

We were right in the middle of NFL football playoffs and our beloved Broncos were in the hunt for the Super Bowl.  So, the next data set I chose to use were stats of the four quarterbacks still left in the playoffs.  The ESPN website is a gold mine of data.  Here is the Peyton Manning information that we used.  We also looked at stats for Colin Kaepernick, Russel Wilson, and Tom Brady.  The students were allowed to make any claim about any of these football players as long as they could back it up with data.  They were extremely engaged in this writing assignment.

Claim: Peyton Manning is the best quarterback in the NFL.
Data: Peyton Manning threw 55 touchdowns during the regular season.  Tom Brady threw 25 touchdowns, Colin Kaepernick threw 21 touchdowns, and Russel Wilson threw 26 touchdowns.
Warrant: Because Peyton Manning threw more than double the number of touchdown passes than any other playoff quarterback, he is clearly the most superior quarterback.

See, you get to support your favorite player and convince others because there was data to back it up.  Of course some of the "haters" had to try and convince me that Tom Brady was the better quarterback, but it didn't work!  Middle Schoolers think they are so clever.

The final practice activity I used before starting on the final project was a crime solving puzzle.

I used several puzzles from this book.

I was able to get this book by using my account at PaperBackSwap.  Have you heard of this site?  It's an awesome resource!

I separated the class into groups of three or four.  I made sure I had some of my strongest writers in each group.  The group studied the picture and the story and discussed their ideas for 10-15 minutes.  I then asked each student to write a paragraph explaining their discoveries.  The paragraphs had to include at least three pieces of evidence with a claim and a warrant for each.

I have never seen this group of kids work so well together in groups.  They were very interested and engaged the entire time.  I received many excellent paragraphs.  We worked on about three of the puzzles from the book.  Then I knew we were ready to tackle our big project.