Let's see you back it up! As shown in the 18th handout in the Writing the Paper series of 24 lessons from UNC, statistics help form an effective argument. The handout discusses how to analyze a source and break down the data to ensure it fully supports a claim.

Concepts

statistics, evidence, supporting evidence, argumentative writing, persuasive arguments

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Additional Tags

english language arts

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Instructional Ideas

• Provide a set of statistics, challenge scholars to find the sources, and determine whether they are reputable
• Give an argument and have learners come up with at least three statistics to support it

Classroom Considerations

• Print double-sided to save paper and skip the last page, because it does not contain any information

Pros

• Includes charts and tables to make text more relevant and engaging
• Provides specific opportunities to practice the skill while reading through the information

Cons

• None

Common Core

W.9-10.1.a W.9-10.8 W.11-12.1.a W.11-12.8