To help students learn to write extended arguments in essays, we engage students in a series of activities to develop class rubrics for evaluating argumentation. (The activities are described on the Introduction to Argument Structure page.) The complexity of the rubric will vary according to the students’ level of sophistication in thinking about argumentation. For middle school students developing such rubrics for the first time, typical categories include: inclusion of a claim about a model; descriptions of multiple pieces of evidence; reasoning that shows how and why the evidence supports the model; considering arguments against the model. The students then use this rubric to guide them as they write their own arguments and as they evaluate arguments written by their peers.
PRACCIS:Promoting Reasoning and Conceptual Change in Science
