Plan and organize an argumentative essay. In the essay, take a stand on a national controversy that you find through research. Come up with a claim and back it up with supporting reasons. Back up your supporting reasons with evidence from credible sources, which you should also find through research. Record the information you find. Then identify a reasonable counterargument and plan your response to it. Finally, outline your argumentative essay to show your progress.
Words
If you see any words listed below, write definitions for them in the space provided. Also, if you come across a word you don't know, write it in one of the empty spaces. Try to figure out what the word means by looking at its context. Then use your dictionary or the internet to look up the correct definition for the word.
Key Term
Definition
body paragraphs
conclusion paragraph
counterargument
introduction paragraph
If you noticed other unfamiliar terms in this activity, use the blank rows to list them and their definitions.
Getting Started
1. Describe the controversy that your essay will be about. What does each side of the controversy argue?
2. Start your research. Come up with at least one research question whose answer may help settle the controversy you chose for question 1, whether you agree with it or not.
Use annotations or note cards to take notes. When you've found the sources you're most likely to use in your essay, use the space below to write each research question that your sources helped answer. Then copy or write down some bibliographic information about each source so you can find it later: the title, author, page number, URL (web address), date, and so on. Finally, write the information from each source that might be useful in your essay.
Research question:
Source
Information
Research question:
Source
Information
Research question:
Source
Information
3. Write your claim. Make sure that your claim (a) takes a clear stand, (b) gives an opinion that can be supported with evidence, and (c) is narrow enough for an essay of about five paragraphs. Keep in mind that your claim may continue to evolve as you do research.
4. Come up with at least two supporting reasons and write them below. Your supporting reasons should (a) support your claim directly, (b) be supportable with evidence, and (c) be different enough from one another that the same evidence cannot easily back up two or more reasons. As with the claim, you can change your supporting reasons as you continue to do research.
Supporting reason 1
Supporting reason 2
5. Write down the evidence you will use to back up the supporting reasons from question 4. Each supporting reason should be backed up by at least one piece of evidence, although the more evidence you have, the better.
Each piece of evidence should be an example, a quote, a fact, or a statistic that you found in the sources you researched. If you don't have evidence for every supporting reason, keep doing research or make changes to your supporting reasons.
Supporting reason 1
Supporting reason 2
6. State the counterargument you will respond to in your essay. In the space below, plan your response to it and show the evidence you will use to support your response. You may need to do more research to answer this question in detail.
7. Fill in the blanks to complete an outline of your argumentative essay. Make sure your claim, supporting reasons, and evidence are in the right places.
Introduction paragraph
Controversy:
Claim:
Body paragraph 1
Supporting reason:
Evidence:
Body paragraph 2
Supporting reason:
Evidence:
Body paragraph 3
Counterargument:
Response:
Evidence:
Conclusion paragraph
Review reasons and counterargument:
Claim:
