Verlaan, Ortlieb, and Verlaan | Developing Argument Writing page 34 Voices from the Middle, Volume 21 Number 3, March 2014 Wolfram Verlaan, Evan Ortlieb, and Sue Oakes Verlaan Developing Argument Writing through Evidence-Based Responses to Student-Generated Questions A lthough English teachers may debate many things related to instruction, few will deny the challenges and complexities involved in successfully teaching the elements of argu- ment, such as crafting a thesis statement, finding relevant evidence to support one’s claims, connecting the evidence with the claims one is making in support of the thesis statement, and creating a final product that correctly employs the appro- priate grammar, syntax, and transitions. Nonetheless, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) (National Governors Association, 2010) signal the importance of crafting an argument in the first of the College and Career Readiness An- chor Standards for Writing: “Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.” It is no coincidence that this Standard is a logical complement to the first Anchor Standard for Reading: “Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writ- ing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.” Indeed, not only do we find grad- uated versions of these two Anchor Standards in the grade level CCSS beginning in early elemen- tary school, most if not all of the academic writ- ing that students will eventually be required to do involves developing a response to a text and supporting that response with evidence from that same and/or other texts. Unfortunately, the prioritization of reading in many of the NCLB-mandated statewide ELA tests has contributed to an environment in which increasingly less time has been devoted to writing instruction throughout the elementary and mid- dle grades (Applebee & Langer, 2011; Moller, Cheek, Ortlieb, & Steward, 2012). Consequent- ly, secondary teachers who have taught some form of “argument paper” are often confronted with a wide range of student preparedness for such an assignment. The purpose of this article is to describe a writing assignment with which the authors have had ongoing success. Not only does this assignment contribute to the development of the building blocks of argument, it can also be adapted to a wide range of grade levels. Student-Generated Questions One of the more significant challenges in lead- ing students to write meaningful text responses is ensuring that they have comprehended what they have read. Duke and Pearson (2002) identify six research-based strategies that can be employed to develop student comprehension: predic- tion/prior knowledge, think-aloud, text struc- ture, visual representations, summarization, and questions/questioning. Of these six strategies, teaching students how to effectively question a text is important not only to developing compre- hension (Ciardiello, 1998; Graesser, Ozuru, & Sullins, 2010; Palincsar & Brown, 1984; Rosen- shine, Meister, & Chapman, 1996; Rothstein & Santana, 2011; Yopp, 1988), but also to develop- Copyright © 2014 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved. 2 3