Worksheet Grade 11 English Language Arts
Quoting the Cawdrey Creek Nitrate Record: Source Integration
A grade 11 ELA worksheet on signal phrases, reporting verbs, and honest paraphrase, using three fictional documents about nitrate in a farm-country creek.
Objectives
- Students will select reporting verbs that match what a source actually claims.
- Students will distinguish an accurate paraphrase from one that overstates or shifts a source's claim.
- Students will integrate a quotation into an original sentence with a signal phrase and correct punctuation.
Vocabulary
- Nitrate
- Nitrate is a form of nitrogen that plants use as food. It gets into water from fertilizer, animal waste, and septic systems, and too much of it is unhealthy for both people and streams.
Also: signal phrase, reporting verb, paraphrase, attribution, runoff
Teacher overview
Research writing at this grade breaks down most often at the seam between a source and a student's own sentence, where a vague signal phrase or a loose reporting verb quietly changes what the source said. This worksheet gives students three fictional documents about nitrate in the fictional Cawdrey Creek, a county advisory, a letter from a growers association, and a monitoring table, and asks them to attribute claims precisely from all three. The scenario is contested on purpose, so that a careless reporting verb such as "proves" or "admits" produces a claim no source actually makes.
Student Worksheet
All three sources below are fictional, written for this worksheet. Grantley County, Cawdrey Creek, and the Grantley Growers Association do not exist.
Source 1. Grantley County Health Department advisory, issued in the fictional county
Nitrate concentrations in Cawdrey Creek have exceeded the county advisory level of 10 milligrams per liter in each of the past four spring sampling rounds. The department recommends that households on private wells within one mile of the creek have their water tested before using it to prepare infant formula. Sampling to date has not identified a single source. Concentrations rise sharply after spring rainfall, a pattern consistent with runoff from fertilized land, though septic systems and a former feedlot north of the county line have not been ruled out.
Source 2. Letter from the Grantley Growers Association
Our members have used nutrient management plans on more than half of the acres in this watershed since 2019. The county's own advisory says no single source has been identified, and we would ask readers to hold that in mind before assigning blame. Nitrate in a rural creek can come from septic systems, from lawn fertilizer in town, and from land no longer farmed at all. We support continued monitoring, and we ask that the county publish the sampling locations so growers can see what is being measured.
Source 3. Cawdrey Creek spring monitoring results, fictional county data
| Sampling site | Land upstream | Spring 2023 | Spring 2024 | Spring 2025 | Spring 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Site A, county line | Pasture and woodland | 4.1 | 3.8 | 4.6 | 4.2 |
| Site B, Route 9 bridge | Row crop and two farmsteads | 9.7 | 11.2 | 12.8 | 11.9 |
| Site C, below Grantley village | Row crop, village, septic district | 12.4 | 13.9 | 15.1 | 14.6 |
All values are milligrams per liter of nitrate as nitrogen.
Answer each item in complete sentences unless the item says otherwise.
Items 1 through 3 use this verb bank: states, argues, speculates, concedes.
Choose the best reporting verb for this sentence and explain the choice in one clause: The county advisory ___ that concentrations have exceeded the advisory level in four spring rounds.
Choose the best reporting verb for this sentence and explain the choice in one clause: The Growers Association ___ that nitrate can come from several rural sources.
Choose the best reporting verb for this sentence and explain the choice in one clause: The county advisory ___ that septic systems have not been ruled out.
A student writes: "The county proves that fertilizer is causing the nitrate problem." Rewrite the sentence so it reports Source 1 accurately, and name the words you removed.
Using Source 3, write one sentence that states what the table shows about how nitrate changes from Site A to Site C. Attribute the sentence to the county monitoring data with a signal phrase.
A student writes: "The Growers Association admits that farming is a likely source." Explain why "admits" is the wrong reporting verb for Source 2, and rewrite the sentence so it reports what Source 2 actually says.
Quote a phrase of no more than eight words from Source 1 inside a sentence of your own, using a signal phrase and correct punctuation. Your sentence must be about the pattern the advisory describes after rainfall.
Paraphrase the second sentence of Source 2 without using more than three words in a row from the original. Keep the association as the subject of your sentence.
Both Source 1 and Source 2 refer to the fact that no single source has been identified. Explain how each document uses that same fact for a different purpose, and name the words in each that reveal the purpose.
Read Source 3 against the claim in Source 2 that nitrate "can come from septic systems, from lawn fertilizer in town, and from land no longer farmed at all." Write one sentence that uses the table to qualify that claim rather than reject it, and attribute both parts.
Write a sentence that attributes a claim to two sources at once, using the pattern "Both ___ and ___ agree that ___." The claim you choose must be genuinely present in both documents.
A classmate's draft ends: "Clearly the farms are responsible, as the data shows." Rewrite that ending as a single claim the three sources actually support, keeping the attribution explicit.
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Answer Key
Answer: states. The advisory reports a measured result that nothing in the document disputes, so the neutral reporting verb is the accurate one.
Answer: argues. The association is making a case for withholding blame rather than reporting a finding, so a verb that marks persuasion is required.
Answer: concedes. The clause grants a possibility that works against the advisory's own leading explanation of runoff from fertilized land. Accept "speculates" only if the student explains that the advisory names possible sources without evidence for them.
Answer: "The county advisory reports that concentrations rise after spring rainfall, a pattern it describes as consistent with runoff from fertilized land." The words removed are "proves" and "is causing," since Source 1 reports a consistent pattern and states that no single source has been identified.
Answer: Any sentence attributing the downstream increase to the county data, such as: According to the county monitoring data, nitrate rises from about 4 milligrams per liter at Site A to roughly 15 at Site C, with the highest values below Grantley village. The signal phrase must name the data rather than presenting the trend as the student's own observation.
Answer: "Admits" implies the association conceded something against its own interest, and it never does. Source 2 does not name active farming as a source at all; it lists septic systems, lawn fertilizer in town, and land no longer farmed. No verb makes the sentence accurate, so the claim must change too, for example: "The Growers Association argues that nitrate can come from several sources other than active farms."
Answer: Any grammatical sentence embedding a short quotation with attribution, such as: The advisory notes that concentrations "rise sharply after spring rainfall," a timing it links to runoff from fertilized land. Check for a signal phrase, quotation marks around the borrowed words only, and punctuation placed correctly.
Answer: Any faithful restatement in the student's own words with the association as subject, such as: The association points out that the county has not traced the nitrate to one origin, and it asks readers to remember this before blaming anyone. Reject paraphrases that keep four or more consecutive words from the original.
Answer: The advisory uses the fact to explain why its investigation continues, signaled by "sampling to date" and by the list of sources still under consideration, while the association uses the same fact to argue against blame, signaled by "we would ask readers to hold that in mind before assigning blame." The purpose shows in the surrounding clause rather than in the fact itself.
Answer: Any sentence that grants the association's point while narrowing it with the table, such as: The association is correct that rural nitrate has several possible origins, yet the county data show the two highest sites lie below row crop land, with Site C rising above 14 milligrams per liter, so the possible sources are not equally likely at every location. Both the letter and the data must be attributed.
Answer: Any accurate double attribution, most defensibly: Both the county advisory and the Growers Association agree that no single source of the nitrate has been identified. Accept agreement that septic systems are a possible source, which both documents name. Reject claims present in only one document.
Answer: "The county monitoring data show the highest nitrate at the two sites below row crop land, and the advisory describes the rise after spring rainfall as consistent with runoff from fertilized land." Any rewrite is acceptable if it drops "clearly," keeps the attribution visible, and stops short of naming farms as the proven cause.
Differentiation
Support
Give these students a reporting-verb bank with each verb defined in one clause, such as "concedes: grants a point that works against the writer," and reduce the assignment to items 1 through 8. Provide item 7 with the quotation already selected so the task is limited to punctuation and the signal phrase. Allow a partner read-aloud of the fictional sources before writing.
Extension
Ask students to write a short paragraph on the fictional Cawdrey Creek that cites all three sources, then to trade drafts and mark every attribution their partner made with a plus if the reporting verb matches the source and a minus if it strengthens or weakens the claim. Students then revise every minus and write two sentences explaining what they changed.
ELL supports
Pre-teach the reporting verbs as a graded set on a reference card, arranged from neutral to loaded, and keep the card available during the worksheet. Provide sentence frames for items 5, 7, and 11, such as "According to ___, ___" and "Both ___ and ___ agree that ___." Allow items 1 through 3 to be answered with the verb plus a short phrase rather than a full sentence, and permit oral responses for item 9.