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Research-Based Argument Essay
This unit supports two or three cycles of argument essay writing – with the first cycle really being a
shared writing experience that is very quick, designed to immerse students in argument and help them
learn the bare bones structure of a research-based argument essay in two days. We imagine this first
cycle will consist of shared note taking off of video clips and articles, followed by flash draft essays
composed through shared writing. You’ll model with a shared topic for which you have a few texts.
After this introduction, you’ll invite students to work on a whole class topic (either an extension of the
first, or another topic for which you have several texts), researching across texts, rehearsing and fast
drafting, revising and elaborating. Exploring and working on another whole class topic will offer your
students opportunities to share ideas, debate claims, and work together to interpret sources and gather
evidence. This cycle will lean heavily into developing compelling claims and structuring a cohesive
argument essay. Of course, if you have access to high quality text sets, and your students are ready to
begin researching their own topics, you could move right into research groups on various topics. Then
you’ll invite students into large-scale revision work which they can try out on both drafts.
A third cycle will invite students to do the same work with more independence – so you’ll remind students
of the repertoire of research, rehearsal, and revision skills they know, and then you’ll teach into holding
onto all they have learned and transferring it to new writing. This third essay topic will depend on your
text availability. You might invite students to extend their research on offshoots of the class topic. Or
students could move into small research clubs, on topics of their choice. If you skip this third cycle,
you’ll probably want to extend some of the revision and elaboration strategies that you teach into during
cycle two, so that students get more practice in skilled revision. By the end of the unit, students will have
drafts of two or three essays and can choose which to publish. Help your students to become active voices
in the world and allow them to imagine multimedia and print forms of publication.
A Note About Gathering Resources, and Partnering This Unit with a Reading Research Unit: This unit is
unusual in that it relies on reading work. To do this form of writing, children need to read material that
represents varied perspectives on contentious topics. If you are teaching nonfiction research in reading
workshop, you may have enough quality nonfiction text sets for students to research a variety of topics
and explore multiple perspectives on that topic. If not, in the overview of the reading unit, you’ll note
that one possibility is that the class continue to read fiction for volume, and immerse themselves in a
nonfiction class topic for quality, but not so much quantity, critical nonfiction reading. If this is the route
that you choose to go, and we anticipate that this is the case, you will use read aloud to research a topic,
reading aloud texts and digital texts that expose children to different stances within the greater debate.
The TCRWP has provided a bibliography of some possible text sets and resources for more texts, online
at http://www.readingandwritingproject.com . We will expand on this list on our website—and please
contribute to it! Send suggestions to: contact@readingandwritingproject.com .
Learn from the Performance Assessment to Tailor A Plan for the Unit
Before you begin this unit, you will want to carefully consider your students’ initial assessments. A quick
on-demand of summarizing nonfiction and drafting part of an argument essay will give you some insight
into these skills. Remember that your on-demand data will help you to make some choices among these
teaching points. If you are doing a formal performance assessment, either before or after the unit of
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study you may find text sets, and Common Core aligned performance assessment tasks for information
reading and argument writing, at http://www.readingandwritingproject.com under the banner
‘assessments.’
Bend I: Just do it! Writers Get a Rapid Introduction to Research, Debate, and Argument
To launch the unit, the class could participate in a shared experience over two days. On day one, the
class could first participate in a shared experience focused on studying the craft of debates and taking
notes on the arguments. A quick and powerful way to show students an argument is to do just that - show
them a video of an argument such as a political speech. Then, you will move to diving right into research
that investigates sides of an issue, so that you might show students video clips or read aloud texts that
show two different sides of a topic, taking notes as you go so they can summarize the arguments, and then
practice debating them. Then, on day two, the class can look over the notes that were gathered on the
first day, and, through shared writing, craft an essay together. So while we’ve given teaching points here,
you may orchestrate your class so everyone stays at the meeting area and works in step together through
investigating sides, composing a claim quickly, and gathering evidence for that claim.
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“Writers know that when we compose arguments we are composing claims supported by reasons
and evidence. One way to begin this work is to research the sides of an issue and the evidence
that supports those sides.”
o Demonstration teaching: “Writers, during this unit we are going to be researchers,
debaters and writers. We are going to study a topic, learn the different sides, or stances,
within the topic, form our own stances and then craft powerful essays backing our claims
up with research from the information we read. We’re going to begin this work by
studying a topic together. Today, we are going to encounter some texts about the topic
we will study for the next couple of days, and we are going to figure out an issue hiding
in this topic and the sides of that issue. As we do research, we want to gather notes in a
manner that supports claims and evidence, such as boxes and bullets.”
Teachers, you’ll want to model the kind of notes that move right to determining ideas and
supporting evidence – so you might model jotting down boxes and bullets. For instance, if
you are watching a video on the importance of eating well, you might jot:
Chocolate shouldn’t be served in schools
 It has more sugar than unflavored milk
 It tricks kids into thinking that it’s ok to drink it
Then you’ll want to read or show an opposing view and have students practice. So with
a second video or article, you and students might jot:
Chocolate milk is an important part of a child’s diet
 It is a source of Vitamin D and other nutrients like calcium
 Kids who drink low-fat flavored milk are not heavier than non-milk drinkers
Possible mid-workshop: Researchers often debate our topics to really hash out our claims and
evidence. As we do this, we refer to our notes, we listen carefully to opposing views, and we try
to refute those views. Sometimes we find we want to return to our research to check some useful
facts, sometimes we do more rapid reading, and often we adjust our claims and evidence to be
more convincing.
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“To compose compelling arguments, researchers review our notes, rehearse our claim and
evidence, and then we write fast-drafts that are as clear and compelling as possible.”
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o Demonstration teaching: “Yesterday we learned lots about a topic. We learned that
there are different stances and different facts and research to support those stances.
Usually the next thing writers do is, we take a side, and craft an essay to show our claim,
or side of the argument. Using everything we learned yesterday from researching and
debating, we can craft an argument. We may even be able to refute the
counterargument, saying why we don’t think it’s as strong as ours.”
o Possible mid-workshop: Writers draw upon the essay work we have already done in our
lives. We know, for instance, how to support an idea with reasons and evidence – and
now this evidence comes from our research, so we will probably want to quote and
paraphrase as we go. If you have a record of prior teaching about essay structure, get
this chart or collection of sentence starters out now!
o Possible small group/conference: As you turn to the first body paragraph of this essay,
writers put the topic sentence, or the class’ first reason for supporting this stance.
Writers think of transitional sentences that set up this work like, “One reason..., followed
by ‘for example… also…in addition...’ Then we often end by “As you can see...,” or
“This supports the stance that...”
Bend II: Writers Become More Adept at the Structure of Argument
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“Researchers find that researching sides of an issue is sort of like figuring out sides in a fight. We
investigate these sides and do some quick writing to sort out the sides and their ‘weapons.’”
o Demonstration teaching: “Writers, today I want to teach you that reading texts with an
eye toward investigating sides of issues is sort of like coming across a big brawl or fight.
If you see a huge fight, you immediately know something is going on but there’s a lot
you need to figure out. You ask yourself: What are they fighting about? Who’s involved?
What does each person, or group, want? You keep watching to get clues to figure out
what’s going on. Well, when you read/view texts with an eye toward understanding
arguments, you’re coming across an intellectual fight. People are arguing about ideas
and issues. The fight’s already started and you need to figure out what’s going on. One
way to figure out the debates going on within the topic, is to ask yourself some questions
as you read: What’s the issue here? What are the different stances on this issue? What is
this author’s stance? We often write to sort out the sides and their ‘weapons’ or
evidence.”
o Possible mid-workshop: “Today I want to teach you that when we are watching a big
brawl or fight, we begin to notice who is winning. Just the way we wonder who is
winning in a fight, so when we read texts with an eye toward understanding arguments,
we want to keep track of who seems to have more evidence or more compelling evidence
to support an argument. One way to do this is through creating charts. We can create
charts that compare and contrast the evidence from two stances within the debate in
order to clearly see which one has more or more compelling evidence.”
o Share: “Today I want to teach you that when we are preparing to write arguments, we’re
not just watching a big brawl or fight. Instead, we are getting ready to enter it. You know
you’re going to be in that brawl soon and you have to figure out which group you’re
going to join. So, when we’re reading to figure out the debates in a topic, it’s normal to
start forming an opinion right away—to start reading and immediately think—Yes, I
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agree with you because… or No way, I totally don’t agree with that because… You
might try entering a side right now, for instance, and argue or debate with your partner.”
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“Argument writers use debate while researching to rehearse and develop claims, reasons and
evidence. Then we move from debate to fast writing to hold onto our new thinking.”
o Demonstration teaching: “Today I want to remind you how useful debate is as tool to
rehearse and develop convincing claims and reasoning. Debate lets us try out our
claims, adjust them, refine our reasoning and evidence. Collaborators in argument
writing often practice debating sides of an issue, so that they can better defend a
convincing claim. To get ready for debate, writers organize and categorize our notes.
You might want to create categories like “reasons why this stance is right” or
“compelling information.” We organize our notes into one type of categories then
reorganize them in multiple ways to really know the information we have gathered and
be ready to use it to argue for our stance. After we argue, we make sure we capture our
ideas in writing.”
o Possible mid-workshop: “To be skilled at arguing, you need to be able to imagine the
other side – which means sometimes we actually switch sides in practice, and we
marshal all the evidence we have to convince someone else of the opposite claim.
Remember, a debate is an intellectual argument. We leave our own opinions and
passions out and consider only the research we can use to show that our argument is
valid. Switching back and forth lets us see which side of an argument we have more
convincing and compelling evidence for.”
o Possible small group or conference: Writers/debaters often call on sentence starters to
help us imagine the other side, especially when we feel pretty clear about our own side
of an argument but less so about the opposite side. We can push our thinking by trying
out some of these prompts:
 “They might want…because…”
 “They might think…because…”
 “They might want others to feel…because…”
 “They might worry…because…”
 “They might be angered by…because…”
 “They might benefit by…because…”
 “They might lose out if…because…”
 “On the other hand, there is research to show…such as…”
o Share: “After debating, writers often write fast and furious to capture some of the most
compelling moments of their argument, so they can use that language and stance in their
essay. We try to review in our heads all that was said, and get those words down on
paper.”
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“As researchers compose and rehearse a claim, we may find ourselves siding clearly with other
authors, and sharing a claim we uncovered in our research. Other times we find ourselves making
a claim that is slightly different than the ones we have seen in our research. Either way we seek
the clearest language for our claim by writing it different ways.”
o Demonstration teaching: “Writers, as we develop our own claim, we sometimes find
ourselves clearly siding with some of the authors or activists we have researched. When
we do this, we’ll use many of the same reasons and evidence that they do – but we still
look to sort and extend our evidence by thinking about which evidence is the most
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compelling, and how we may want to combine or spin evidence. Other times we find that
our own claim is slightly different than those of the authors and activists we research, and
we’ll use only some of the same evidence, seeking evidence as well in other places, or
spinning evidence differently. For instance, my claim is beginning to be that chocolate
milk should not be in schools, and I want to use evidence from sources who have argued
both sides of that issue. So I’ve been writing my claim several times, and trying out
different language, to make sure I get to the clearest claim possible.”
Possible small group/conference: “Researchers not only record evidence, we pay
attention to the source, or author of that evidence. That means that we jot down not only
‘chocolate milk has more sugar than plain milk.’ We instead jot: ‘Jamie Oliver says that
chocolate milk has 4 teaspoons of sugar.” Jamie Oliver is a chef and a nutrition expert.
Saying that the information comes from someone who is informed about the topic makes
our argument stronger.
Share: “Writers often write out our claim as a statement, practicing making their
language as clear as possible and watching that we are not wishy-washy. For instance,
rather than saying that chocolate milk should not be in schools daily but might be served
once in a while, my claim is: Chocolate milk should not be served in schools.”
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“Researchers review and weigh our evidence, evaluating whether we have gathered compelling
and convincing evidence. We try to capture our evaluation in writing.”
o Demonstration teaching: “Writers, we know that as we develop our argument, we need
to gather and marshal all the evidence that will help us support what we are saying. One
way to make sure we can support our stance is by asking ourselves: do I have at least 2-3
reasons and supporting bits of evidence to support my argument? If not, we need to go
back and adjust our stance, or we need to turn to our research partners and texts to gather
more evidence.”
o Possible mid-workshop: “I want to remind you that one way to strengthen our own
argument is by refuting the counter argument, the argument against us. We can think of
the evidence against us and how we might show that evidence is not telling the full story
or is overlooking something else or is not as strong.”
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“Researchers often return to our evidence and sort through not only how compelling it is, but also
how reliable our sources are.”
o Demonstration teaching: “Researchers, we’re trying to build an argument. And, we
want this argument to be solid. The other side is going to try to refute it, and we want
to make sure that it will be hard for them to do that. Therefore, as we gather evidence
to support our reasons, we need to think about the sources we are using. We need to
think about whether or not these sources are reliable. Reliable means that we can trust
them, we can stand upon their work and use it to back us up. One way that we can do
this is to look at the sources and think, “What is this author’s background with this
issue? What does he/she stand to gain? For instance, we studied nutrition information
on chocolate milk on the TruMoo site. TruMoo is a company that makes chocolate
milk. They could sell a lot of milk and make a lot of money if people believe that it is
healthy. Perhaps they might slant the information so that they build their sales.”
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Possible mid-workshop: “Researchers, sometimes we aren’t sure if our source is
reliable. When this happens, we can look to other sources, thinking, ‘Has someone
else written an article about this? Can they support this information?’”
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“As writers prepare to draft, we look over our research and decide if we will paraphrase the
information or incorporate direct quotes.”
o Demonstration teaching: “Once you have gathered information to support your
claim, you need to put it into your essay. We can paraphrase what the source said,
putting it in our own words, or, we can quote directly from the text. When we quote,
we put in what the source said word for word. Quoting often brings power and
passion to our writing as our reader hears not only our words, but also the words of
others who agree with our stance, making our argument more persuasive and
compelling to the reader.”
o Possible mid-workshop: “Writers, ultimately, when we write our essays, we want a
mixture of paraphrasing and quoting. We want to paraphrase the information so the
reader hears our voice, and we want to quote so that the reader hears another voice on
our side of the fight. So, as you prepare to draft, you might plan to both paraphrase
and quote. You can go bullet by bullet through your reasons, examining your
evidence and thinking, ‘Would this be best paraphrased or quoted?’”
o Share: “When we quote, writers need to be selective. We don’t want to flood our
essays with other people’s words. We want to use them to highlight our claim,
illuminate our reasons. To do this, we select the most important words to quote. We
think, ‘What does the reader need to hear to see my logic? Which line(s) do they need
to read in order to see my reasoning?’ Then we incorporate those words into our
writing.”
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“Writers strive to build a cohesive draft. One way to do this is to rehearse our essay by ‘writing
in the air’ or ‘speaking an essay’ with a partner.”
o Demonstration teaching: “Today I want to teach you that one of the most important
things we can do as argument essay writers is create a cohesive draft, one that is clear and
flows smoothly. We want our reader to understand exactly what we are saying. One way
to build a cohesive draft is to rehearse before we write by writing our essay in the air with
a partner. We say our claim, and then we often try to say our major reasons, which will
be our categories of information. For instance, I might say… Chocolate milk shouldn’t
be served in schools because it has too much sugar and kids get tricked into thinking they
should drink it. Then as I keep rehearsing, I might give some evidence, or examples, to
support these reasons. I might write in the air, “Chocolate milk shouldn’t be served
because it has too much sugar in it. Jamie Oliver filled an entire school bus with sugar to
show how much sugar kids in Los Angeles were eating just from flavored milk.”
o Mid-workshop: Writers often review our boxes and bullets to plan our introduction –
we review our claim, and we often add ‘because…’ to come up with reasons underneath
our claim. Then as we introduce each reason in our essay, we’ll move to ‘for example…’
for each. Those will be the main body paragraphs of our essay – the reasons and
evidence, and we start a new paragraph for each reason and collection of evidence.
o Possible conferences/small groups: “Writers, argument writers make certain moves to
raise our introductions to new levels. We might give a little background information on
the topic, and we might address our reader directly. As we do this, we are careful to try
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to keep our claim strong and clear, and then explain a bit that a reader might want to
know. For instance, in my essay, the introduction might go something like: If you want
to gain extra weight and be at higher risk for heart disease and obesity, just drink up
your chocolate milk. This extremely unhealthy drink is served at schools all across the
nation and every day kids drink it without thinking that it is harming them. Chocolate
milk should not be served in schools because kids get too much sugar and they are
tricked into thinking they should be drinking it. Even though some people might say it’s
an important way to get nutrients, I think it should not be served in schools.
Share: Writers, just as argument writers make certain moves to raise our introductions to
new levels, so we also make moves to raise the quality of our conclusions. We already
know that weaving in counter argument is a powerful move. Today I want to add that
another move that makes a conclusion powerful is to come up with a new idea that
follows directly from your argument.
Bend III: Argument Writers Learn the Craft of Argument to Become Ever More Persuasive
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“When we compose arguments, we know that it’s often worth it to include a variety of kinds of
evidence in our writing, and evidence from more than one source. This variety shows the depths
of our research and makes our argument more persuasive.”
o Demonstration teaching: “Today I want to teach you that one way to raise the level of
our essay writing is to make sure we have incorporated a variety of supports. Using a
variety of types of information helps our essay to feel believable and hard to argue
against. One way you can do this is by going back to incorporate facts, statistics, quotes
from experts, anecdotes, examples, etc.”
o Mid-workshop: Today I want to teach you that when we incorporate quotes, there are
moves that argument writers make to help readers understand these quotes and make
them harder to argue against. One move we make is to discuss where the quote came
from and what type of credibility it has. Another move we make is to acknowledge the
stance of the author who wrote this piece of research. Or we might use language that
shows that we don’t even sympathize with this view, but feel compelled to include it. We
might use phrases like “in an article sympathetic to…”, or “Sadly, the research does
suggest that…”
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“Argument writers work on illuminating the relationship between their evidence and their
argument. We often turn to key phrases to help us with this important writing work.”
o Demonstration teaching: “Today I want to teach you another way to raise the level of
your writing. Argument writers bring out the relationship of the evidence we use to the
argument we are making to help our readers see that this evidence definitely supports our
argument. We might use phrases like “this shows” or “this goes to prove…” after we
include a piece of evidence. We even calibrate our language so that we’re clear whether
our evidence suggests or proves.
o Mid-Workshop: “Writers, another way to bring out the relationship between our
evidence and argument is to explain our evidence to our reader. We might do this by
restating the evidence in our own words or comparing the evidence to something else the
reader might understand more. We can start, “that’s like…” or “imagine, for example…”
And then we may make a comparison to an experience the audience would understand, or
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we suggest a kind of invented anecdote, like ‘imagine that it’s lunchtime at school.
You’re tired and thirsty. You get to the milk bin at the end of the lunch line, and you see
both chocolate milk and regular milk. You can’t help yourself – the thought of that sweet,
delicious chocolaty drink is too good to pass up. Even though you know better, you reach
for the chocolate milk…’
Bend IV: Arguing With Agency, Independence, and Power
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“With a couple of essays under our belt, writers begin yet another. This time we focus on writing
with more independence and using what we have learned to lift the level of our work.”
o Demonstration teaching: “For example, today I want to remind you that when we have
a chance to show off our independence, we take everything we have learned and make
sure we do everything we have learned plus we think of how we can do it better. We
recall the skills we’ve learned, we look over our work, and we set goals for ourselves
before we start – we take agency. Right now, for instance, why don’t you look over the
charts in the room, browse your notes and drafts, talk to your partner, and make a cheat
sheet of everything you know how to do, that you want to do with even more power as
we go forward. I’m expecting that you are becoming the kind of people who are utterly
persuasive when you speak and write, because you have learned so much about stating
claims, backing them up with evidence, and even refuting the counter claim. Then,
writers, I’m going to admire you as you just get to it.”
o Possible small group/conference: “One way to reflect and make plans for extending our
powers as writers, is to look at writing rubrics, and consider what categories or parts of
the writing process and finished essay we really want to focus on this time. We ask
ourselves, “What level is my work at? How can I take it to the next level?”
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“Researchers read differently when we know we are composing arguments. We are hyper-alert to
how authors persuade us, so that even as we gather evidence for our own claim, we notice how
texts are persuading us of claims and convincing us with evidence.”
o Demonstration teaching: “For example, I want to remind you that when we know
we’re going to be making an argument, we really read differently. One way we read
differently is that we are constantly on the lookout for an author’s stance. Sometimes that
stance might be very obvious but other times it seems more hidden. We can notice the
craft of the text we read/view to help us uncover the stance of the author – the images the
author includes, and the stories that are told, and how those make us sympathetic to a
certain viewpoint. We pay attention to the words the author chooses to use, and how
those words set us up to admire or condemn. We notice spin. And that helps us decide
what evidence to include, and keeps us on our toes as we formulate our own claim and
support it with evidence.”
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“Writers, we not only notice the craft of the authors we research because we want to be alert to
bias, spin, and the writer’s warrant, or reasoning. We can also consider these texts as mentor
texts for our own writing.”
o Demonstration teaching : “For instance, we may admire how one author gets his or her
audience to sympathize with a particular point of view, and we may decide to mimic that
craft – such as by including a vivid true story to stir up our audience’s emotions, or
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painting a particularly gorgeous or gruesome image with words, or layering statistics that
are shocking.”
“The order we present our evidence in for our argument matters. There are certain predictable
ways to logically order our evidence so that we can write the most convincing essay possible.
One way is by ordering from least to most compelling. Another is from most common to most
surprising.”
o Demonstration teaching part one: “We are all familiar with the ‘boxes and bullets’ of
essay. It goes like this:”
 State the claim in the introduction. Also in the introduction we mention our
two or three reasons, or supports for our claim. We may or may not mention the
counter claim.
 Include body paragraphs for each reason. One body paragraph may address
the counter claim.
 Include a conclusion that reflects and offers insight.
“Often when crafting an argument we go through our reasons in the order we wrote them when we
planned with boxes and bullets. But, to make a truly convincing argument, we want to think more closely
about the order in which we put our reasons. We want to put our reasons in an order that will build our
argument, strengthening it with each paragraph so that by the end it’s stronger than the start. To do this,
we might put our reasons in order from least to most compelling, or least to most shocking.”
o Mid-workshop: “Writers know that it’s worth using our partner to rehearse the structure
of our essay. We might do some jotting, then practice ‘writing in the air’ or ‘speaking in
essays,’ each time trying a different way to structure our argument, or order our reasons
and information.”
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“Writers know that yesterday’s revision strategies become today’s rehearsal and drafting
strategies. Just as hockey players take all their drills and everything they learned from prior
games into their championship season, writers take all our knowledge, expertise, and practice,
into the game with us.”
o Demonstration teaching: “For example, we know we can take everything we have
learned about revising a draft and make sure we do those things when we draft our next
piece. In this way, we can ratchet up the level of our new work. We often use our old
drafts, the teaching charts in the room, and rubrics, to remind ourselves of our skills.”
o Mid-workshop: “Writers also know that we can turn to the work of published authors as
mentor texts, to get ideas for how to make our own arguments more powerful. Even
writers we didn’t want to agree with, may have argued persuasively and we can learn
from them!”
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“Writers know that we take everything we know about editing as we get ready to publish. Often
we make and use cheat-sheets to help us double check our writing.”
o Demonstration teaching: “Watch me, for instance, make a cheat sheet that will remind
me to check for punctuating quotations accurately, for checking my verb tense, for
checking the spelling of technical words that are new in this topic, and for checking that
I’ve made new paragraphs for my introduction, for each reason, and for the conclusion.
You can do this work also, and check your writing over with a partner or writing group.”
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Possible mid-workshop: “Today I want to teach you that another ways to raise the level
of our writing is to use more complex sentences. Specifically, we can write sentences that
have conjunctions and link ideas.”
Possible conferences/small group work: “Writers give credit to those authors who
helped to shape their argument. We create a list of the sources that we used at the end of
our essay. This list is called a bibliography.”
“Writers focus on our audience as we bring our piece to publication. We may decide to convert
our writing into a letter or editorial. We may post it, or send it. We may use it as rehearsal for a
speech or debate.”
o Demonstration teaching: “I want to teach you that considering where your argument
will live in the world can help you to revise and get ready to publish. Considering who
will read your argument and where it will be—a blog, an op-ed piece of a paper, posted
somewhere in school, posted in the neighborhood, sent to a local government official,
sent to a community organization—will help you tailor it to your specific audience. You
may want to extend your counter argument for instance, so your audience will feel heard.
Or you may want to consider your vocabulary, and what expert terms you want to define.
Or perhaps you need to give more background information and context. These are the
kinds of decisions we make as we consider our audience.