Argumentation: Teach, Respond and Reconsider
Teacher guide · Grade 6 ELA
Begin with Distinguish Claims, Reasons, and Relevant Evidence and Respond to a Counterargument. Then use the short tasks in this pack to see what students can explain, choose suitable practice, and revisit the skills with a new situation.
Fit and preparation
Learners need to read or listen to short arguments and communicate a brief explanation. Prepare one complete student selection and a way to write, type or dictate. No purchase, account, email or LMS is needed. The site does not collect learner responses.
Start locally
If students are new to these skills, start with the lesson and its model. Otherwise, read the teacher guide and choose a check students have not seen. Save the follow-up and later-practice situations until students are ready to try them on their own.
Choose after reading the response
Continue connects reasoning already emerging. Clarify addresses a specific confusion. Reteach supplies separate miniature models and chunked practice. Extend changes argumentative context and compares defensible replies. Choose by the actual response and conditions; no route diagnoses ability or requires a preferred stance.
Keep the two targets separate
Record observations about argument roles separately from observations about fair replies. Use the student’s explanation to choose the next practice task, and look at several responses over time.
The teacher pack includes answer guidance and all the student tasks. Give students the task you have selected. Save the other stories for later practice.
© Mentor Teaching. You may read, print, copy and adapt for your own planning, classroom and school team when the source is not sold. Retain attribution and source notices. Republishing, reselling or broader redistribution requires written permission. Current terms: mentorteaching.com/terms-of-use/.
Choose and save tasks
What’s included
Choose from Initial Check, Continue Practice, Clarify the Reasoning, Model and Practice, Extend the Reasoning, Follow-up Check and Later Practice. The teacher guide contains answer guidance, alternatives, criteria and a printing guide. Start Here introduces the pack. Each is available as a printable PDF, editable document and browser copy.
Start with a lesson
Distinguish Claims, Reasons, and Relevant Evidence
Save follow-up tasks for later
Check uses tool labels and project recordings. All four routes intentionally share puzzle bags and gallery questions. Reteach adds folder-tab and poem-sharing teaching miniatures. Recheck uses sewing kits and rehearsal questions. Transfer uses an archive and exhibition. Do not show the new pairs of situations during route teaching.
Ask students whether they have seen the situations before. Familiar stories are still useful practice. For an independent check, choose a suitable story they have not yet seen. If all the stories are familiar, use the responses for discussion and practice.
Printing guide
Print the whole student task: initial check, continue and clarify each have four pages; reteach has five; extend has six; follow-up check and later practice each have four. The teacher guide also explains how to print a task for one skill. The pack includes the two introductory lessons, student tasks and teacher guidance in print and editable formats.
Using student responses
The situations and counts are fictional examples for classroom discussion. Preview the selected file before printing, and adjust the time and response method to suit your students.
© Mentor Teaching. You may read, print, copy and adapt for your own planning, classroom and school team when the source is not sold. Retain attribution and source notices. Republishing, reselling or broader redistribution requires written permission. Current terms: mentorteaching.com/terms-of-use/.