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Knowledge and Skills Statement

Multiple genres: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts--genres. The student recognizes and analyzes genre-specific characteristics, structures, and purposes within and across increasingly complex traditional, contemporary, classical, and diverse texts.

Provide students with an argumentative text. Instruct them to read the text, underline the author's claim, and analyze characteristics and structures of the text that provide support for the author's claim.
 

Further Explanation

For this assessment, the student will determine the position or arguable statement that the author holds about the topic or issue being discussed in the text.

a text written to demonstrate to an audience that a certain position or idea is valid and that others are not The writer appeals to reason, develops, defends, or debates the topic, connecting a series of statements in an orderly way so they lead to a logical conclusion.
Students should be able to examine specific components of an argumentative text and make determinations about how and/or why the components were used. Students should know that argumentative texts have unique characteristics such as a claim, an intended audience, and the use of facts in support—or refutation—of an argument. Students should also understand that argumentative texts tend to be structured based on the structure of the claim. For instance, if the claim is that one course of action might be better than another, an advantage/disadvantage structure might be used.
When students read an argumentative text, they are expected to determine the claim, or position, that the author holds about the topic or issue being discussed. The claim is usually the main idea, or arguable statement, that represents the author’s position on a topic. A claim must offer facts and reasons to show the author's point of view and be backed up with evidence.

Research

1. Wagemans, J. H. M. (2011). The assessment of argumentation from expert opinion. Argumentation, 25, 329–330. doi: 10.1007/s10503-011-9225-8

Summary: This article introduces a tool that can be used to format an argument from a position of expertise and experience. The tool allows students to learn how to analyze opposing positions and develop questions from a critical perspective. The tool fosters reading comprehension and writing skills.

2. Mirra, N., Honoroff, B., Elgendy, S., & Piertzak G. (2016). Reading and writing with a public purpose: Fostering middle school students' academic and critical community literacies through debate. Journal of Language and Literacy Education. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1100979.pdf

Summary: This study looks at debate as a way to encourage students to analyze complex texts, increasing their academic reading comprehension skills and critical literacy skills. Middle school students were given writing prompts from which they built evidenced-based argumentative essays. Those essays were further refined through the debate process. Administrators noted the way the debate helped students improve their reading and listening skills.