Our argumentative units center student voice and writing with interesting topics and activities that build argument skills and encourage student choice.

CommonLit 360’s argumentative units put the crucial skill of argument writing at the forefront of each unit and offer a chance to dig into relevant, engaging topics. These units are designed to capture student interest in a real-world problem, then allow them to form an educated opinion through whole class and independent reading, engaging multimedia and infographics, and student-chosen texts. Student learning culminates in the form of a debate protocol, argumentative essay, and end of unit project.

In this post, I’ll explain how CommonLit 360’s argumentative units do this across grades 6-10.

Note: If you are just learning about our full-year comprehensive ELA curriculum for grades 6-10 for the first time, you might want to begin by reviewing our Curriculum Overview Guide.

Let’s explore what makes CommonLit 360’s Unit 6s engaging for all grade levels and how they build essential argumentative writing skills.

Sparking Interest With Exciting Topics

Student voice is an essential part of strong instruction and classroom culture. CommonLit 360's argumentative units support student voice through discussion of heavily debated, real-world topics. The topics for CommonLit 360’s argumentative units are designed to be interesting and relevant to students’ lives and to allow for grade-level argument writing and engaging discussion.

Here are the topics and essential questions for each grade:

• Grade 6: The Power of Play: How can we make recess work for middle school?
• Grade 7: School Electives: Which One Matters Most? How do different electives motivate students and prepare them for the future?
• Grade 8: The Debate Over School Start Time: Should our school have a later start time?
• Grade 9: Graffiti — Art or Crime?: Is graffiti a work of art or a crime to be punished? How do we decide?
• Grade 10: Free Speech and Social Media: Should schools be allowed to punish students for what they write on social media?

CommonLit 360’s argumentative units are structured to pique student interest and build knowledge on a topic relevant to students' lives with engaging readings and activities early on. Then, students are encouraged to begin to form their own opinions on the topic by collaboratively exploring different sources such as videos, graphs, and charts and conducting independent research before voicing their own ideas through debate and writing.

Learning Through Student Choice and Debate

A couple of unique and exciting features of CommonLit 360’s argumentative units are the elements of student choice reading, debate protocols, and optional unit projects.

While all units are anchored in essential readings, in most units students also have an opportunity to choose from a curated set of texts to further their knowledge and gather evidence for their final essays. This offers an excellent opportunity for both student independence and collaborative discussion of different texts and perspectives.

Other units from CommonLit's 360 Curriculum encourage partner and class discussion, and in the argumentative units, students have the chance to take part in a formal debate. By assigning students to a side and requiring collaboration amongst teams, these debates teach students to use reasoning and evidence to argue a point and respond to counter arguments. These debates set students up for success in their essay drafting because students leave with strong reasons and evidence for both sides of the argument and can make more informed, persuasive cases in their writing.

Finally, each unit includes an optional end-of-unit project. These projects are an exciting chance for students to collaborate with peers and present arguments in real-world scenarios, such as creating an “elevator-pitch” video for a group of parents on school start times (8th grade), or a proposal for a work of public art in their community (9th grade). These projects encourage student use of technology, demonstrate their argumentative skills, and encourage collaboration with peers.

Sharpening Argumentative Writing Skills

After unit debates, students are ready to begin putting their opinions to paper, and one of the most powerful tools to support student writing is a mentor text. All argumentative units have lessons that guide students through an analysis of a student-written mentor text. Through these lessons, students learn the most important parts of an argumentative essay. Each unit also includes writing lessons to support students in planning their essays.

After a first draft, students then complete revision lessons, which are a quick and exciting way for students to add argumentative techniques to their writing such as: addressing your audience directly, writing effective rhetorical questions, using repetition, or opening with narrative. In these lessons, students examine models and practice their new skills in fun, low-stakes journal prompts such as “Convince a friend to lend you $1,000” or “describe the perfect school lunch” before revising their unit essays.

CommonLit 360 Unit Hallmarks Included

CommonLit 360’s argumentative units come complete with the essential components found in prior units: robust vocabulary activities, engaging Related Media Explorations, and digitally assignable reading and writing lessons.

Next Steps

If you are interested in learning more about CommonLit 360, here are some recommended next steps:

• Browse the 360 Curriculum here.
• Sign up for a CommonLit 360 webinar for an opportunity to learn more and ask questions.
• Learn about the affordable wraparound services for schools and districts looking to adopt CommonLit 360.