Graphic organizer Grade 10 English Language Arts
Inglemoor Dam Relicensing: A Claim and Rebuttal Organizer
A grade 10 argument organizer that separates claim, reason, evidence, concession, and rebuttal, with a completed exemplar built on a fictional dam license decision.
Objectives
- Students will separate a claim from the reasons and evidence that support it.
- Students will state an opposing counterclaim in the words its own side would use.
- Students will write a concession and a rebuttal that does not withdraw the claim.
Vocabulary
Key words: claim, reason, evidence, counterclaim, concession, rebuttal, line of reasoning
Teacher overview
This organizer is a three-part argument frame: a position table, an opposing-side table, and a linear chain that puts the parts in the order they will appear in a written argument. It is built for a decision with two defensible sides, so that the counterclaim section has something real to hold. Two misconceptions are common at this grade. Students write the counterclaim as a weak version of the other side, chosen because it is easy to answer, and students avoid conceding anything because they believe a concession withdraws the claim. The rebuttal row is designed to break the second habit, since it asks what still stands after the concession is granted.
Organizer
The Inglemoor Dam, the Velden River, and the council described here are fictional. Fill in every slot, and write full sentences rather than phrases.
Part 1. My position
| Slot | Write here |
|---|---|
| Claim, in one sentence naming the action and who should take it | |
| Audience, meaning who decides and what they are able to do | |
| Reason 1 | |
| Evidence for reason 1, with the source named | |
| Link sentence saying how that evidence supports reason 1 | |
| Reason 2 | |
| Evidence for reason 2, with the source named | |
| Link sentence saying how that evidence supports reason 2 |
Part 2. The other side
| Slot | Write here |
|---|---|
| Counterclaim, written as the other side would write it | |
| Best evidence the other side has | |
| The part of the counterclaim I accept, which is my concession | |
| Signal words that mark the turn from concession to rebuttal | |
| Rebuttal, meaning what still stands once the concession is granted | |
| What my rebuttal does not answer |
Part 3. Line of reasoning
Claim → Reason 1 → Reason 2 → Concession → Rebuttal → Restated claim
| Step | The sentence I will write |
|---|---|
| Claim | |
| Reason 1 | |
| Reason 2 | |
| Concession | |
| Rebuttal | |
| Restated claim |
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Completed Exemplar
The scenario: the Inglemoor Dam on the Velden River holds a license that expires next year, and the county council must recommend either a new fifty-year license with a fish passage requirement, or removal of the dam. Every figure below belongs to this fictional case.
Part 1. My position
| Slot | Exemplar |
|---|---|
| Claim, in one sentence naming the action and who should take it | The county council should recommend a new license for the Inglemoor Dam on the condition that a fish passage is built within four years. |
| Audience, meaning who decides and what they are able to do | The council, which can recommend conditions on the license but cannot order the dam removed. |
| Reason 1 | Conditions attached to a license are enforceable, while a removal recommendation the council cannot carry out is not. |
| Evidence for reason 1, with the source named | The county counsel's memo of March 4 states that the council's authority is limited to recommending license conditions. |
| Link sentence saying how that evidence supports reason 1 | If the council's only enforceable tool is a condition, then a condition is the option that can actually change what happens at the dam. |
| Reason 2 | Fish passage has produced measurable results on a comparable dam in the same basin. |
| Evidence for reason 2, with the source named | The Velden River Council's four-season count above the Tenwick dam ladder rose in each of the four years after the ladder opened. |
| Link sentence saying how that evidence supports reason 2 | A rising count on a dam of similar height in the same river makes it reasonable to expect passage at Inglemoor to work rather than to fail. |
Part 2. The other side
| Slot | Exemplar |
|---|---|
| Counterclaim, written as the other side would write it | The council should recommend removal, because a ladder moves some fish past one barrier while leaving the reservoir, the warmed water, and the trapped sediment in place for another fifty years. |
| Best evidence the other side has | The 2025 habitat survey found the water in the four miles of channel above the dam too warm and the gravel too silted for spawning, which suggests the problem is habitat and not only passage. |
| The part of the counterclaim I accept, which is my concession | A fish ladder does not restore the river above the dam, and fifty years is a long commitment to a structure whose reservoir keeps the water warm. |
| Signal words that mark the turn from concession to rebuttal | Even so, |
| Rebuttal, meaning what still stands once the concession is granted | Even so, the council cannot order removal, and a licensed dam with a passage requirement and a minimum flow condition is a better outcome for the river than a licensed dam with neither. |
| What my rebuttal does not answer | It does not answer whether the reservoir's water temperature will keep the upper channel unsuitable for spawning even after passage is built. |
Part 3. Line of reasoning
Claim → Reason 1 → Reason 2 → Concession → Rebuttal → Restated claim
| Step | Exemplar sentence |
|---|---|
| Claim | The council should recommend relicensing the Inglemoor Dam on the condition that fish passage is built within four years. |
| Reason 1 | The council can attach conditions to a license, and conditions are enforceable. |
| Reason 2 | Passage has raised counts on a comparable dam in this basin over four seasons. |
| Concession | A ladder does not fix the warm, slow water behind the dam or return the upper channel to what it was. |
| Rebuttal | Even so, the choice in front of the council is not between a dam and a free river; it is between a license with conditions and a license without them. |
| Restated claim | Recommending a license with a four-year passage requirement is the strongest action available to this council. |
Differentiation
Support
Give these students the Part 1 table with the claim row already filled in, so the work starts at reasons and evidence. Supply a short list of four candidate counterclaims for Part 2 and ask them to choose the strongest rather than compose one, and provide the frames "I agree that ___" for the concession row and "Even so, ___" for the rebuttal row.
Extension
Ask these students to complete the organizer a second time from the opposite position, then write a paragraph naming which of the two arguments they can support with more evidence and which piece of missing information would change their answer. Require them to identify one row of their first organizer that they filled in with an assertion rather than evidence.
ELL supports
Pre-teach license, condition, passage, sediment, and concede with a labeled sketch of a dam, reservoir, and ladder. Provide a bilingual glossary of the six row labels in Part 3, and allow the counterclaim and rebuttal rows to be recorded first as bulleted phrases before being rewritten as sentences. Pair students so that one drafts the position side and one drafts the opposing side before both complete Part 3 together.
Extensions
Have students carry the completed organizer into a three-paragraph argument, then trade papers and mark where the reader first learns the writer's claim. Papers in which the claim does not appear until the final paragraph should be revised, since the organizer's chain places the claim first for a reason.