Wrap up your unit on The Cay with an engaging argumentative writing assignment. Writers must decide if they believe The Cay should be banned. The resource includes links to several articles, which have been addressed and examined in...

Focus on writing argument essays with your high schoolers. The lesson suggested here focuses on The Jungle, by Sinclair Lewis; however, the idea could be adapted for other texts. Check out the quick quiz provided at the end of the...

Walk your learners through constructing a well-formulated argument on Napoleon's dedication to the goals of the French Revolution. 

There are some historical events that may warrant greater reflection and more in-depth analysis, and the decision to intern Japanese-Americans in the United States during World War II, as well as to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and...

Prepare your class for argumentative writing with a close inspection of the controversy surrounding Theodore Taylor's novel, The Cay. All necessary articles and materials are linked at the beginning of the resource. Kids use the provided...

Imagine a list that includes Alan Abelson of Baron's, Bob Woodward of the Washington Post, and Mother Jones. High schoolers select a national columnist, read and annotate five columns by this author, noting the rhetorical...

Build understanding of theme with an activity designed for The Cay and the Common Core. Small groups or pairs use graphic organizers to determine themes, find and record related details from the text, and formulate theme statements. In...

If you're looking to set your class up for writing effective arguments, try out this idea. While originally created with freedom as a guiding idea, the activity could easily be adapted for other themes. As a class, create a chart of...

Use Langston Hughes's poem, "Words Like Freedom," to explore the concepts of freedom and liberty. Learners read the poem, determine the theme, and use the provided graphic organizer to examine the connotative and denotative meanings of...

Each presidential election year, the debate about the electoral college rages. Michael C. Maibach's "A Defense of the Electoral College" offers young political scientists an opportunity to examine a reasoned argument for why the...

Before the Civil Rights Movement was in full swing, FDR's executive order helped promote fair employment. The activity uses primary documents to explore FDR's executive order to help minorities gain equal employment and pay during the...

Is Sherlock Holmes an inductivist or a deductivist? Users of this interactive to distinguish between inductive and deductive reasoning. They consider in various situations whether it is better to list evidence and then introduce a claim...

A series of interactive exercises provide users with the ammunition they need to detect logical fallacies and defend themselves against persuasion. Learners read about 11 types of logical fallacies and identify the type used in sample...

High school juniors learn how to construct a strong argument by crafting a claim and using neutral language backed by evidence from reliable sources. To do so, they learn to evaluate sources and evidence to support claims. They then...

Should the president of the United States be voted by the Electoral College or the popular vote? Your young historians will consider the pros and cons of the Electoral College, and make an argument using reasons and evidence...

Are you enjoying the use of all five senses? Imagine that you have to lose one of them; you can choose which one, but it's gone forever. Work through a lesson based on Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis that asks class...

Make fast food restaurants even faster. Groups consider trade-offs when maximizing efficiency in fast food restaurants. Restructuring schedules and floor plans, as well reassigning job duties, all fall under this directive.  

This is a list of 401 writing prompts for argumentative writing including topics about social media and cellphones, technology in the schools, gender issues, sports, TV, movies, video games, and much more. W.9-10.10 Write Routinely....

[Free Registration/Login Required] This TES resource provides four writing prompts for argumentative essay performance assessments. Teachers can edit the prompts if they choose.

Review argumentative claims in preparation for a discussion about age-restricted privileges.

Resource explains exactly what critial writing and thinking are, questions to help you think critically, paper writing tips, troubleshooting, and more.

Discover tips for writing thesis statements for analytical, expository and argumentative writing.

This lesson focuses on the organization of argumentative papers and developing an outline for them. It begins with topic, stance, and thesis statement; next one lists each claim in order of appearance in a paper and two different...

This site gives advice on how to write an effective purpose (thesis) statement. The summary is given as answers to four questions: what? why? when? how?.