Middle School Social Studies writing has a strong focus on rhetoric, or argumentative and persuasive writing.  Students create a claim, provide evidence to support the claim and reasoning that  binds evidence in a logical way to support their claim.  This is CER writing (claim, evidence, reasoning).  CER skills help students analyze and evaluate primary  and secondary sources in the Social Studies topics they are studying.  This course will address:
     * How to create a claim statement in response to a prompt;
     * How to choose  and cite evidence to support the claim (including evaluating sources for reliability);
     * How to present reasoning that connects the evidence to the claim in a logical way;
     * How to write an effective summary statement;
     * How to extend thinking by adding a reasonable inference to answer the question "So what?"

This approach to writing produces a strong paragraph.  Paragraphs are the building blocks for much of the technical or non-fiction writing that we do in our academic careers and beyond.  In this course students will be introduced to methods that guide strong CER writing in paragraph form.  Students will expand their writing practice to include age appropriate essays, from three to five paragraphs.

Our middle schoolers'  thinking skills are in transition from concrete to more abstract levels.  This is the time to help them develop methods to support higher level thinking.  Critical CER writing encourages students to present strong, persuasive arguments and to present their ideas about the greater significance of a claim.  

The overall goal of these sessions is to help students develop writing and thinking skills as a foundation for their academic career and beyond.

In this class, we'll start with current event topics or material from Middle School social studies (geography, history)  that students can look at from more than one perspective.  We will study models and practice to:
     *create a claim statement that responds to the prompt;
     *identify evidence to support the claim, considering:
          **relevance, reliability, bias;
          **simple, age appropriate methods for citing a variety of sources;
     * logically argue how evidence proves the claim is correct;
     * test counterclaims;
     * write simple summary statements that tie the claim to the evidence;
     * draw inferences about the significance of the proven claim.

Week 1:  Creating claim statements to begin a paragraph or essay
Week 2:  All about evidence (relevance, reliability, bias)
Week 3:  Reasoning and counter claims - Summary 
Week 4:  Inference; 3-5 paragraph essay debrief