Worksheet Grade 11 English Language Arts

Hedging and Certainty in the Vellamy Ridge Well Memo

A grade 11 worksheet on hedges, absolutes, and agentless passives in a draft engineering memo about a fictional well whose yield fell across one summer.

Grade: Grade 11
Subject: English Language Arts
Material: Worksheet
Time: 40 min
Prep: No prep
Materials: None

Standards

W.11-12.2 Common Core ELA

Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.

How this material aligns: Items 8 and 11 require students to rewrite and summarize the memo's finding accurately, selecting wording that conveys the evidence without overstating it.

All materials for W.11-12.2 →

RST.11-12.7 Common Core ELA

Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., quantitative data, video, multimedia) in order to address a question or solve a problem.

How this material aligns: Items 1, 6, and 7 require students to test each memo sentence against the well run log and decide which claims the quantitative record can carry.

All materials for RST.11-12.7 →

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This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely, without attribution. Updated 2026-07-23.

Objectives

Students will classify sentences as hedged, absolute, or conditional and match each to the evidence available.
Students will identify an agentless passive construction and name the information it withholds.
Students will rewrite an overstated claim so that it matches what the data support.

Vocabulary

Drawdown: Drawdown is how far the water level in a well drops when a pump pulls water out. The harder and longer you pump, the bigger the drawdown gets.

Also: hedge, absolute claim, agentless passive, static water level, qualifier

Teacher overview

Technical writing carries its certainty in small words, and a reader who misses them misreads the finding. This worksheet gives students a draft memo about the fictional Vellamy Ridge well field, where Well 4 lost roughly a quarter of its output over one summer, and asks them to sort what the writer knows from what the writer suspects. The misconception the worksheet is built to correct is the belief that hedged writing is weak writing; students often mark the hedged sentences as the memo's flaws and leave the two unsupported absolute claims untouched. The run log is included so that every judgment can be checked against a record rather than against a feeling about tone.

Hedging and Certainty in the Vellamy Ridge Well Memo — Grade 11 English Language Arts

Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

The fictional Vellamy Ridge Well Field supplies about a third of one town's drinking water. Well 4's output fell through the summer, and a consulting engineer has drafted a memo for the town board. The board's clerk has asked you to review the draft before it is sent. Use the run log below to judge what each sentence can support.

Well 4 run log (fictional).

Date	Static water level (feet)	Pumping water level (feet)	Drawdown (feet)	Yield (gpm)
May 6	42	96	54	410
June 10	45	104	59	388
July 15	51	121	70	342
August 19	58	138	80	305

Static water level is the depth to water when the pump is off. Pumping water level is the depth to water while the pump runs. Drawdown is the difference between the two.

Sentences from the draft memo.

Sentence A. Well 4's yield has declined from 410 to 305 gallons per minute since May.
Sentence B. The decline was caused by the new orchard wells south of the property.
Sentence C. Static water level appears to be falling somewhat faster than ordinary seasonal decline would explain.
Sentence D. It was determined that the pump itself is not at fault.
Sentence E. The well screen may be partly blocked by mineral scale, though no downhole inspection has been performed.
Sentence F. Every well in this valley is going dry.
Sentence G. If the current rate of decline continues, Well 4 will not meet summer demand next year.

Questions

Classify Sentence A as hedged, absolute, or conditional. State whether the run log supports it and how you know.
Sentence B names a cause. Explain what the run log can show about the decline and what it cannot show about the orchard wells.
Sentence C contains two hedges. Quote both and explain what each one holds back.
Sentence D is passive and names no actor. State the information a reader needs that the sentence withholds.
Sentence E states a limit on its own claim. Quote the limit and explain why including it makes the memo more useful to the board, not less.
Using the run log, state what happened to drawdown between May 6 and August 19. Explain whether Sentence A by itself would tell a reader that.
Sentences B and C both concern the cause of the decline. Explain how their levels of certainty differ, and state which of the two the run log can bear.
Rewrite Sentence F so that it claims only what the run log supports.
Rank Sentences B, C, F, and A from the best supported by the run log to the least supported. Justify your first and last placements.
Sentence G opens with a condition. Explain how that opening changes the responsibility the writer takes for the prediction.
Write a two-sentence summary of the memo's finding, pitched at the level of certainty the run log supports.

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: Absolute, and the run log supports it. The sentence states a measured change with no qualifier, and the yield column shows 410 gallons per minute on May 6 and 305 on August 19.
Answer: The run log can show that yield fell and that both water levels dropped over the same months. It records nothing about the orchard wells, their depth, their pumping schedule, or their distance, so it cannot establish that they caused the decline rather than a dry season or a fouled screen.
Answer: "Appears to be" and "somewhat faster." The first holds back the claim that the level is certainly falling faster; the second holds back any statement of how much faster, which the writer has not measured.
Answer: The reader needs to know who determined it and on what basis. Without an actor, the board cannot tell whether a pump technician tested the equipment or the engineer assumed it, and cannot judge how much weight the conclusion deserves.
Answer: The limit is "though no downhole inspection has been performed." Naming the missing test tells the board exactly what would settle the question and warns them not to act as though the scale explanation were established.
Answer: Drawdown rose from 54 feet to 80 feet, meaning the pump had to pull water from steadily deeper. Sentence A would not tell a reader that, because yield alone can fall for several reasons and does not show that the water level itself is dropping.
Answer: Sentence B asserts a cause outright, while Sentence C only reports that the static level appears to be falling faster than seasonal decline would explain. The run log can bear Sentence C, because the static column does show a steady decline, but it cannot bear Sentence B, since it holds no data on the orchard wells at all.
Answer: Accept any rewrite limited to Well 4 and to the record, such as: "Well 4's static water level and yield both declined between May and August." Rewrites that keep "every well" or "going dry" are not supported.
Answer: A, then C, then B, then F. Sentence A restates measured values from the yield column and is best supported. Sentence F is least supported, because it claims something about every well in the valley while the log covers one well. Accept a swap of B and C only if the student argues that C's comparison to ordinary seasonal decline is itself unmeasured.
Answer: The conditional clause makes the prediction depend on a stated assumption, so the writer is answerable only for the reasoning, not for the outcome. If the decline stops, the sentence was still accurate, which is why engineers prefer this form for forecasts.
Answer: Accept any two sentences that report the measured decline and treat the cause as unresolved, such as: "Well 4's yield fell from 410 to 305 gallons per minute between May and August, while drawdown increased from 54 to 80 feet. The cause has not been established, and a downhole inspection would be the next step."

Differentiation

Support

Provide a classification card defining hedged, absolute, and conditional with one example of each drawn from outside this memo, and mark Sentences A, C, and G on the handout with their categories already supplied so students can work by comparison. Give item 8 as a fill-in frame: "Between May and August, Well 4 ___, and its static water level ___."

Extension

Ask students to draft the paragraph the engineer should add to the memo explaining what evidence would be needed to test Sentence B, including which measurements would have to be taken at the orchard wells and over what period. The paragraph must stay in the hedged register the memo uses elsewhere.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "yield," "drawdown," "static," and "screen" with a simple cross-section drawing showing a well casing, the water level with the pump off, and the lower level with the pump running. Provide a hedging word bank containing "appears," "may," "suggests," "in the period measured," and "has not been established" for items 8, 9, and 11. Allow items 1 through 4 to be answered with quoted phrases and short notes before students write full sentences.

Extensions

Have students exchange their item 11 summaries and mark one another's for any word that claims more than the run log supports. The reviewer must name the specific column that would have to exist for the claim to stand, which turns the revision conversation toward evidence rather than style preference.