This lesson extends over several class periods. Students analyze the claim, grounds, warrants, qualifiers and counterclaims in three articles about the American Dream. Students conduct research and find two additional articles about the American Dream. Students then analyze the argument in those articles. Finally, students write their own argument essay about the current state of the American Dream.

In elementary school, someone may have taught you to “hook a reader” by starting an essay with a definition. This has become pretty cliched and not engaging. But readers do need to have things defined for them. And while definitions may not help us start a piece of writing, they can help us structure a writing by bridging the introduction and the body. In this video, You’ll learn a move writers in all genre use -- the definition hinge structure -- to provide crucial context for readers while moving them from the introduction into the main ideas of your writing.

This Nearpod is used to introduce students to writing an opinion essay. Majority of Collaboration Boards are used in order to spark the I do, We do and You do.

OVERVIEW
Students need to practice all types of writing, and oftentimes argumentative writing is ignored in favor of persuasive writing. In fact, students may not even understand there is a difference between these two types of writing. In this lesson, students examine the differences between argumentative writing and persuasive writing. After choosing topics that interest them, students conduct research which becomes the foundation for their argumentative essays.

This is Day 2 of a 5 day unit teaching students strong research skills for a "white paper" style research paper (can be modified for any pro-­con research assignment). For the purpose of this assignment, the white paper is an argumentative piece which introduces a problem and argues a solution to that problem.In this team­ taught lesson, students will learn that researching is not a linear process. They will use "pre­search" to help them test, adjust, or even abandon viable topics from their brainstorming. They will learn to narrow ideas to smaller, researchable concepts.

This is Day Four of a Five­ Day unit teaching students strong research skills for a "white paper" style research paper (can be modified for any pro­con research assignment). For the purpose of this assignment, the white paper is an argumentative piece which introduces a problem and argues a solution to that problem.In this team­ taught lesson, students will learn how to incorporate sources in their paper. Focus will be on treating previous discussion of their topic as a "conversation" they are taking part in.