Writing prompt Grade 6 Careers & CTE
Stembridge's Career Board: A Water Jobs Argument Prompt
A grade 6 argument prompt asking students to choose which of three water-sector jobs a school career board should feature, with background, exemplar, and rubric.
Objectives
- Students will state a claim naming which water-sector job a career board should feature.
- Students will support the claim with two reasons and evidence taken from the background.
- Students will describe the training route into each of three water-sector jobs.
Vocabulary
Key words: claim, reason, evidence, certification, median pay
Teacher overview
This prompt asks students to write a short argument recommending one of three water-sector jobs for a school career board, using a background table as their only source. The tension is real, because the three jobs are entered by three different routes and each is a reasonable choice for a different reason. One misconception is worth naming before drafting begins. Sixth graders often treat the question "which job interests me" as the same question as "which job should the board feature," and their drafts then argue from personal taste rather than from evidence about the audience. A claim in an argument answers the question that was asked, and the reasons must point back to it.
Prompt
Background. The career center at the fictional Stembridge Middle School has one space left on its spring career board. Three water-sector jobs have been suggested. The board is read by every seventh and eighth grader in the building. Here is what the career center gathered.
| Job | What the worker does | How a person qualifies | Useful to know |
|---|---|---|---|
| Laboratory technician | Runs samples for turbidity, bacteria, and metals, and keeps the lab notebook the state reads | On-the-job training with a state laboratory certification, or a two-year degree in laboratory science | Plants must keep filtered water at or below 0.3 NTU of turbidity in 95 percent of monthly samples, and the lab proves it |
| Water treatment operator | Runs the plant, adjusts chemical doses, and keeps the daily records | A high school diploma, on-the-job training, and a state license earned by exam, in classes tied to plant size | Operators earned a median of $60,020 a year in May 2025, and about 10,000 operator openings are expected each year from 2025 to 2035 |
| Utility engineer | Designs plant upgrades and new water mains, and checks the work in the field | A four-year degree in civil or environmental engineering, then a professional license after several years | Engineers decide what gets built, so their choices shape the plant an operator will run for thirty years |
Two more facts apply to all three jobs. Roughly one-third of the water workforce will be old enough to retire within the next ten years. In 2016 only about 10 percent of water workers were 24 or younger, compared with 12.5 percent of all U.S. workers.
Your task. Write an argument for the career center telling it which one of these three jobs to feature on the spring board. State your claim in the first paragraph. Give two reasons, and support each reason with evidence from the table above. Finish with a short paragraph that tells the career center what you want it to do. Your argument should run about four paragraphs.
Planning Organizer
Fill in every row before you draft. Each row becomes part of your argument.
| Part of the argument | What you will write |
|---|---|
| My claim (which job the board should feature) | |
| Reason 1 | |
| Evidence from the table for reason 1 | |
| Reason 2 | |
| Evidence from the table for reason 2 | |
| What I want the career center to do |
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Exemplar & Rubric
Exemplar response
The career center at Stembridge Middle School should feature the water treatment operator on the spring board. It is the job that our students can reach soonest, and it is the job the water field most needs to fill. Those two things together make it the best use of one space.
My first reason is that the route into the job starts right after high school. The table says an operator needs a high school diploma, training on the job, and a state license earned by exam. That matters for a career board read by seventh and eighth graders, because the first step is one they could take within a few years of reading the board. The laboratory technician job also has a route without a degree, yet it asks for a state laboratory certification that fewer students will have heard of. The operator route is the clearest one to explain in the small space a board allows.
My second reason is that the field needs operators now. The table says about 10,000 operator openings are expected each year from 2025 to 2035. The background also says that only about 10 percent of water workers were 24 or younger, fewer than in the workforce as a whole. A career board should point students toward work that will still be waiting for them, and the evidence says this work will be. The pay supports the same point, since operators earned a median of $60,020 a year in May 2025.
I am asking the career center to give the last space to the water treatment operator. The laboratory technician and the utility engineer are worth featuring in a later season, because both keep the same water safe. For this spring, the operator posting reaches the most students with the clearest path.
Rubric
| Criterion | Emerging | Developing | Proficient | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claim | Names no job, or names one without answering the question asked | Names a job but states it late or unclearly | States the claim clearly in the first paragraph and holds to it | States the claim clearly, holds to it, and restates it with added force in the closing |
| Reasons | Gives no reason, or repeats the claim as a reason | Gives one reason | Gives two distinct reasons, each in its own paragraph | Gives two distinct reasons and shows how they work together |
| Evidence and reasoning | Uses no evidence from the table | Uses one piece of evidence without explaining it | Uses evidence from the table for each reason and explains how it supports that reason | Uses evidence for each reason, explains each, and compares it with what the table says about another job |
| Organization and conventions | Paragraphs are missing or out of order; errors block meaning | Paragraphs exist but transitions are missing; errors distract | Four clear paragraphs with transitions, and errors do not block meaning | Four clear paragraphs, purposeful transitions, and clean grade-level conventions |
Differentiation
Support
Give these students a version of the organizer with the claim row offering three checkboxes, one for each job, and with the evidence rows naming which column of the table to look in. Provide paragraph starters for each of the four paragraphs and shorten the requirement to one reason with one piece of evidence.
Extension
Ask these students to write a second, shorter argument for a different one of the three jobs on the table, then write two sentences explaining which of their own arguments is stronger and what made it so.
ELL supports
Pre-teach "claim," "reason," "evidence," "median," and "certification" with a one-sentence meaning and an example for each. Provide the sentence frames "The career center should feature ____ because ____" and "The table says ____, which shows ____." Allow students to plan orally with a partner before filling the organizer.
Extensions
Have students turn their finished argument into the actual one-page board display, with a heading, three bullet points, and a line telling readers where to learn more. Students can then compare their displays with a real job posting from a nearby water utility and note one thing the posting includes that they left out.