Lesson plan Grade 12 English Language Arts
Drafting a Public Comment on Alder Hollow's Rate Increase
A grade 12 lesson where students draft and deliver public-comment testimony on a fictional town's water rate increase, using claim, evidence, and counterclaim.
Objectives
- Students will draft a public comment that states a clear claim about a proposed water rate increase.
- Students will support their claim with evidence drawn from a background packet.
- Students will address a counterclaim a fellow resident might raise about affordability.
- Students will deliver their comment aloud within a two-minute public-hearing time limit.
Vocabulary
- Rate hearing
- A public meeting where a water utility explains why it wants to change the price of water. Customers can ask questions and speak up before leaders vote on the new rates.
Also: public comment, claim, counterclaim, affordability
Teacher overview
Many water utilities must hold a public hearing before raising rates, where residents can speak, and a resident's two minutes at the podium can carry real weight with a rate-setting board when the testimony is specific and well supported. This lesson asks students to write and deliver that kind of testimony for Alder Hollow, a fictional town facing a proposed rate increase, using a background packet that includes real national bill-trend figures to ground their argument. A common misconception this lesson addresses directly: students often assume that expressing strong feeling is the same as making a persuasive case, when a board is far more likely to be moved by one clear claim, two pieces of specific evidence, and a counterclaim that has actually been answered rather than ignored.
Procedure
Hook (5 min): Read aloud, without comment, this one-sentence public comment: "I think the rate increase is unfair and the board should vote no." Ask students to rate its persuasiveness on a show of fingers (1 to 5) and explain their rating to a partner.
Direct instruction (10 min): Distribute the background packet on Alder Hollow's proposed increase. Explain the structure a strong public comment uses: a claim stated in the first sentence, at least two pieces of evidence from the packet, one counterclaim named and answered, and a closing request that tells the board exactly what to do. Note the national context in the packet: combined water and sewer bills have risen roughly 24 percent nationwide from 2019 to 2024 and another 5.1 percent in 2025, and a widely used rule of thumb, built from two EPA benchmarks, treats combined water and sewer costs above about 4.5 percent of household income as a high burden, numbers students may choose to use as evidence.
Guided practice (15 min): As a class, revise the sample weak comment printed in the Student Handout. Identify what it lacks (no specific evidence, no counterclaim), then rewrite it together on the board, sentence by sentence, until it meets all four structural requirements.
Independent drafting (15 min): Students draft their own 150-to-200-word public comment on Alder Hollow's proposed increase, taking either position (support or opposition) and using the background packet as their only source of evidence. Circulate and confer with students who are stating a claim without evidence.
Closure / exit ticket (5 min): In pairs, students read their comment aloud within a two-minute limit while their partner checks off three boxes on an index card: claim stated, evidence used, counterclaim answered. Collect the cards and scan for any comment missing more than one box before dismissal.
Student Handout
Background: Alder Hollow's Proposed Rate Increase
Alder Hollow is a fictional town used for this lesson. Its water utility board has proposed raising the typical residential water and sewer bill from $52 to $61 a month, an increase of about 17 percent, to pay for replacing distribution pipes that are now more than 60 years old and have caused three major breaks in the past two years. The board has scheduled one public hearing before voting.
Nationally, combined water and sewer bills rose about 24 percent from 2019 to 2024 and roughly another 5.1 percent in 2025, a trend utilities point to when explaining why increases like Alder Hollow's are becoming common. A widely used rule of thumb treats combined water and sewer costs above roughly 4.5 percent of household income as a high cost burden, a threshold advocates for lower-income residents often cite when opposing an increase. The figure comes from adding two EPA benchmarks, 2.5 percent for drinking water and 2 percent for wastewater, although EPA has no single official cutoff.
A Sample Comment to Revise (weak version):
"This rate increase is not okay. My family already pays too much for water, and I don't think the board should be allowed to just raise it whenever they want. Please think about the people in this town before you vote."
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Differentiation
Support
Provide a sentence-frame outline for the four required parts: "I [support/oppose] this rate increase because ___." / "One reason is ___, which the packet shows by ___." / "Some residents worry that ___, but ___." / "I am asking the board to ___." Allow students to fill in the frames before drafting full sentences.
Extension
Ask students to research (using only the background packet, not outside sources) how a utility might phase in a 17 percent increase over two or three years instead of all at once, and add a second, alternative request to their comment that proposes that phase-in as a compromise.
ELL supports
Pre-teach "claim," "counterclaim," "affordability," and "rate hearing" with a one-sentence definition and a simple visual (a gavel and podium icon for "hearing," a scale for "counterclaim"). Allow the exit-ticket comment to be handed to the partner to read silently rather than spoken aloud, with the partner still checking the same three boxes.