Opinion-Argumentative Exemplar

Explanations & Suggestions

Members of the Language Arts Committee pulled sample student papers (5or 6) from the Opinion-Argumentative Benchmark for use in your classroom. They discussed and agreed on the score, which sometimes differed from what was on the submitted sample, using a combination of the holistic rubric and the unique writing expectations for the grade level from the College and Career Ready standard.

What you will find on iPlan in the Opinion-Argumentativewriting unit:

  1. A clean copy of a high-level student Opinion-Argumentative(Paper #1)
  2. A marked copy of the same paper (Paper #1)
  3. Also, the written annotations for the above paper (Paper #1)
  4. Two more student papers follow. Some groups also marked a separate copy while others did not.
  5. Holistic Rubric
  6. Opinion-Argumentative College and Career Ready Standards across grade levels

Suggestions for your classroom:

  1. Give students a copy of the holistic rubric and the opinion-argumentative standard for your grade level.
  2. Use the marked copy of Paper #1 for the teacher “cheat sheet” as you work through the paper together with your class. Make sure students have a clean copy on which they are copying the marks and annotations you do together. This can serve as their guide as they work through the next copies. Of course, you can show them the marked copy we have provided once you and the class are finished. The annotations will help guide comments as you work on this in class as well.
  3. Make sure you have erased the score from the committee that is penciled in at the end of the paper before making copies. Give students copies of Papers 2 and 3 (one at a time) and have them score, mark and annotate these. Work in small groups and have them discuss and agree before they make any marks of the papers. One group can present their finished work via the document camera while the other groups compare and agree or disagree with the annotations based on what they did.
  4. You can also have students find places in any of the papers where, even though these are pretty good, they could be improved.
  5. Maybe look at the opening of all three papers and discuss which one is most appealing and why. Then have them write an intro to a prompt you have ready.
  6. Look through the papers for good use of other literary or grammatical devices.
  7. Have them write the rule for any convention errors they found (or thought they found) right on the paper.