Writing prompt Grade 10 English Language Arts
Should Pennerly Require Septic Inspections at Sale?
A grade 10 ELA argument prompt on a fictional township's proposal to require septic inspections before a home sale, with two-sided background, an exemplar, and a rubric.
Objectives
- Students will write an argument with a precise claim supported by relevant evidence.
- Students will develop a counterclaim fairly and answer it with reasoning rather than dismissal.
- Students will distinguish evidence about cost from evidence about risk in a local policy question.
Vocabulary
- Septic system
- A septic system is a small, private wastewater treatment setup buried in the yard of a home that is not connected to city sewers. A tank settles the solids, and the soil in the yard filters the water.
Also: drainfield, ordinance, counterclaim, point of sale
Teacher overview
Homes beyond the reach of a sewer line treat their wastewater on their own property, and the systems that do that work stay invisible until they fail. This prompt puts students inside a local argument that turns on who should pay to find a failing system and when. The question is genuinely contested, because an ordinance that protects a neighbor's drinking water can also arrive as an unexpected bill for a seller who is least able to absorb it.
Prompt
Background
Homes outside a sewer system treat their own wastewater with a septic system. Waste flows into a buried tank, where solids settle out. The liquid then flows into a drainfield, a set of perforated pipes laid in gravel, where soil organisms finish the treatment as the water moves down toward the water table. A working system is quiet and nearly invisible. A failing one may push untreated wastewater to the surface, or send it into the groundwater below before the soil has done its work.
The fictional township of Pennerly has about 2,400 homes on septic systems and no municipal sewer. Most residents also draw their drinking water from private wells on the same properties. The township's health board has proposed an ordinance called point-of-sale inspection. Under it, no home could be sold until a licensed inspector had examined the septic system and filed a report with the township. Failing systems would have to be repaired or replaced before the sale closed.
Evidence for the ordinance
A township engineer's memo reports that Pennerly has no record of the age or condition of most of its systems, and that thirty-one systems were found failing during the past four years, all of them discovered after a complaint. Groundwater moves, so a failing drainfield can affect a neighbor's well rather than the owner's own. Wells on small lots sit close to drainfields by necessity. The health board notes that a sale is the one moment when a property changes hands and a buyer has both a reason to know the system's condition and a chance to negotiate about it. In this fictional scenario, an inspection costs about $450.
Evidence against the ordinance
The Pennerly Homeowners Association objects that the ordinance places the full cost of a township-wide problem on whoever happens to be selling. Replacing a failed system in this fictional scenario runs between $12,000 and $25,000, depending on soil and lot size. Sellers who are moving because of a job loss, a divorce, or a death in the family are the least able to absorb that. The association also argues that an inspection is a snapshot: a system can pass in April and fail in November, so the ordinance would create a document that buyers may trust more than it deserves. It proposes instead a voluntary program with township grants, funded over time.
Your task
Write an argument of 700 to 900 words taking a position on this question: should Pennerly adopt point-of-sale septic inspection? Make a precise claim, support it with specific evidence from the background, develop the strongest version of the opposing position, and answer it with reasoning rather than dismissal. Use only the evidence provided. Address your argument to the Pennerly township board.
Planning Organizer
Complete every row before drafting. The rows match the criteria your argument will be scored on.
| Planning element | What to write here | My notes |
|---|---|---|
| Claim | One sentence stating your position precisely, including any limit or condition you attach to it. | |
| Reason 1 and evidence | The reason, then the specific detail from the background that supports it. | |
| Reason 2 and evidence | A second reason that is not a restatement of the first, with its supporting detail. | |
| Counterclaim | The strongest opposing argument, stated as its supporters would state it, with the evidence they would cite. | |
| Rebuttal | Your response. Name what you concede, then explain why your position still holds. | |
| Conclusion | The consequence or next step you want the township board to take, in one sentence. |
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
Pennerly should adopt point-of-sale septic inspection, and it should pair the requirement with a repair fund so that the cost does not fall entirely on sellers who cannot carry it. The health board is right that the township cannot manage a risk it cannot see. The homeowners association is right that a mandate without help is unfair. Those two positions are not actually opposed, and the board can act on both.
The strongest argument for inspection is that the township currently has no information. The engineer's memo reports that Pennerly has no record of the age or condition of most of its 2,400 systems, and that all thirty-one failures found in four years were discovered only after someone complained. A complaint arrives after a failure has already produced something a person can see or smell. Every one of those thirty-one systems was failing for some period before that, and the township has no way to estimate how many others are failing now. An inspection at sale would build the record, one property at a time, without requiring anyone to open a neighbor's yard. The health board also explains why a sale is the right moment to build it. A sale is the one point at which a property changes hands, and the buyer then has both a reason to learn the system's condition and a chance to negotiate over it. An inspection required at any other time would reach an owner who faces no deadline and no buyer asking questions, which is the same position that has left the township without records for most of its systems.
The second argument is that septic failures do not stay on the property that causes them. Groundwater moves. A drainfield that stops treating wastewater sends that water toward the water table, and in a township where most households drink from private wells, and wells on small lots sit close to drainfields, the well it reaches may belong to someone else. The owner of a failing system has the least direct reason to discover it, since the consequences may land next door. A rule that depends on owners inspecting their own systems voluntarily asks exactly the wrong person to act.
The homeowners association's objection deserves a serious answer rather than a dismissal. Its argument is that the ordinance charges one household for a problem the whole township created by never keeping records. Replacing a failed system costs between $12,000 and $25,000 in this scenario, and the people who sell are often people whose circumstances have changed for the worse. That is a real burden, and it is not answered by pointing out that the buyer benefits. A seller in a hard year cannot pay for a public good out of a private emergency.
The answer is to change what the ordinance does with the finding rather than to abandon the finding. The township should require the inspection, which costs about $450, and should establish a repair fund that a qualifying seller can draw on, with repayment attached to the property rather than to the person. The buyer, who gains a working system, carries the balance over time. That structure keeps the information flowing and moves the cost to the party who benefits from it.
The association's second point, that an inspection is only a snapshot, is accurate and does not lead where the association takes it. A system that passes in April may fail in November. The same is true of a roof, a furnace, and a brake line, and no one concludes from that fact that inspections are useless. A snapshot taken by a licensed inspector at a known date, filed with the township, is more information than Pennerly has now about almost any of its systems. The correct response to the limits of an inspection is to state those limits on the report itself, not to keep a township of 2,400 households in the dark.
Pennerly's board should adopt the ordinance at its next meeting and, in the same motion, fund the repair account. The inspection produces the knowledge. The fund makes the knowledge bearable for the household that receives it. Neither one works well without the other, and Pennerly has relied long enough on complaints to tell it which of its systems have failed.
Rubric
| Criterion | Emerging | Developing | Proficient | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claim | A position is implied but never stated, or it shifts during the argument. | A clear position is stated, without conditions or precision. | A precise claim is stated early, including any limits or conditions, and held throughout. | The claim is precise, qualified where the evidence requires it, and refined rather than repeated as the argument develops. |
| Evidence and reasoning | Assertions appear with little support from the background. | Some evidence is cited, with the reasoning connecting it to the claim left implicit. | At least three specific pieces of evidence are cited and each is explained in relation to the claim. | Evidence is selected deliberately, including evidence that cuts against the claim, and the reasoning accounts for why it still supports the position. |
| Counterclaim and rebuttal | No counterclaim appears, or an obviously weak version is used. | A counterclaim is stated fairly but answered by restating the claim. | The strongest counterclaim is stated fairly and answered with reasoning and evidence. | The counterclaim is stated as well as its supporters would state it, part of it is conceded, and the rebuttal shows why the position survives the concession. |
| Organization | Paragraphs do not follow a discernible order. | An order exists, with transitions missing between major moves. | Each paragraph carries one idea, and transitions mark the moves between them. | Structure serves the argument, with the order of reasons and the placement of the counterclaim doing visible work. |
| Conventions | Errors interfere with meaning. | Errors are noticeable but meaning is clear. | Few errors; sentence structure is varied and controlled. | Nearly error-free, with syntax used deliberately for emphasis in a formal register. |
Differentiation
Support
Provide the background with the evidence for each side already highlighted in two colors, and give students a completed claim row and counterclaim row as models. Shorten the target to 450 to 550 words and allow the rebuttal to be drafted orally with a partner before writing.
Extension
Ask students to draft the ordinance's exemption language, naming which sellers would qualify for the repair fund and on what evidence, then write a short note explaining which objection each exemption is designed to answer and what it costs the ordinance in simplicity.
ELL supports
Pre-teach "septic system," "drainfield," "ordinance," "point of sale," and "counterclaim" with a labeled cross-section diagram showing the tank, the drainfield, the soil, and the water table. Provide argument transitions on a reference card, such as "Supporters of the ordinance argue that ___, and they are correct that ___. However, ___." Allow the organizer rows to be completed in phrases.
Extensions
Have students write the same argument as a three-minute spoken statement for a township meeting, then compare the two versions in a short reflection on what a listening audience required that a reading audience did not.