Debate kit Grade 6 English Language Arts
Should Quarrymill Require Permeable Paving for New Lots?
A grade 6 debate kit on whether a fictional town should require permeable paving for new parking lots, with two-sided evidence, roles, and a four-level rubric.
Objectives
- Students will build an opening statement that pairs a claim with two numbered evidence points.
- Students will answer a specific point made by the other team using evidence rather than opinion.
- Students will judge an argument against stated criteria and explain one score in writing.
Vocabulary
Key words: permeable, runoff, storm sewer, resolution, rebuttal
Teacher overview
This kit runs as a two-team debate with a prep session and a debate session, and it works with classes of eighteen to thirty. Students argue whether a town should require permeable paving on every new parking lot, a question that turns on real trade-offs between runoff, installation cost, and long-term upkeep. The resolution is genuinely contested because permeable surfaces do reduce runoff and do cost more to build and maintain, so an informed adult could land on either side. The misconception to address before prep begins is the belief that permeable paving works permanently once it is installed, when the Evidence File shows a surface that clogs with sand and silt and stops soaking up water unless it is vacuumed on a schedule.
Resolution & Background
Resolution: "Quarrymill should require permeable paving on every new parking lot built in town."
Background: Quarrymill is a fictional town with a creek called Puckett Creek running through it. Rain that falls on a roof or a parking lot cannot soak in. It runs across the hard surface and into a storm drain, and the drain carries it to the creek. That fast-moving water is called runoff.
Permeable paving is built differently. It has gaps or open spaces, so rain soaks down through the surface into a bed of stone below. From there the water moves slowly into the ground. Less water reaches the creek at once.
The Quarrymill council has proposed a rule. Every new parking lot in town would have to use permeable paving. Builders, shop owners, and neighbors have all asked to speak before the vote.
Roles: Divide the class into two teams. The affirmative team argues for the rule. The negative team argues against it. Each team prepares an opening statement, a rebuttal that answers the other team's points, and a closing. Choose three students as judges who score both teams with the rubric, and one student as moderator who keeps time and calls on speakers. Before the judges announce a result, each of them writes one sentence on an index card naming a score they gave and the moment in the debate that earned it.
Evidence File
Use the numbered points below. When you speak, name the point you are using.
Case for requiring permeable paving:
- Most rain that lands on pavement runs off instead of soaking in. Engineers who size storm drains estimate that about 9 tenths of the rain landing on pavement becomes runoff, compared with about 2 tenths of the rain landing on a lawn. (Source: standard stormwater engineering practice.)
- Runoff from a parking lot picks up oil, brake dust, and litter, then carries all of it to the nearest stream. (Source: the fictional Quarrymill town engineer's report on Puckett Creek.)
- Puckett Creek has flooded its low bank twice in most of the recent summers, and the fictional town engineer links those floods to new pavement built upstream. (Illustrative point created for this debate.)
- Water that soaks into the ground refills the shallow groundwater that feeds the creek in dry months. Runoff that rushes to the creek in one hour does not. (Source: the fictional Quarrymill town engineer's report.)
Case against requiring permeable paving:
- Permeable paving costs more to install. In our scenario, the fictional Quarrymill Builders Alliance estimates it adds about 4 dollars for every square foot of lot. (Illustrative figure created for this debate.)
- The open spaces clog with sand, silt, and leaves. A permeable lot has to be vacuumed once or twice a year, and a lot nobody maintains stops soaking up water at all. (Source: a fictional Quarrymill public works director's memo.)
- Snowplows and heavy delivery trucks damage some permeable surfaces, so a lot that serves a loading dock may need repairs sooner. (Illustrative point created for this debate.)
- A rule that applies to every new lot lands hardest on small businesses, because a small shop pays the same higher price per square foot as a large store with far more customers. (Source: a fictional Quarrymill small business group.)
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Rubric
| Criterion | Emerging | Developing | Proficient | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Evidence use | Speaks without naming any point from the file | Names one point but does not explain what it shows | Names at least two points and explains how each supports the team's side | Names several points, explains each, and says why they outweigh the other side's |
| Rebuttal quality | Does not answer the other team at all | Answers a point with opinion only | Answers a specific numbered point using evidence from the file | Answers more than one point and explains why the team's evidence is stronger |
| Organization and delivery | Hard to follow, with no clear order | Has an order, but parts run together | Moves clearly from claim to evidence to closing, within the time limit | Clearly ordered, well paced, and tied back to the resolution at the end |
| Listening and questions | Does not respond to what was said | Repeats a prepared line regardless of the question | Asks or answers a question that refers to what the other team actually said | Asks a question that exposes a gap in the other team's evidence |
Differentiation
Support
Give these students one evidence card holding the single strongest point for their side, plus the rebuttal frame "The other team said ___, but point ___ shows ___." Let them rehearse the frame with a partner before the debate begins.
Extension
Ask students to write a compromise rule that would satisfy at least two points from each side, then defend the compromise in one paragraph naming the four points it addresses.
ELL supports
Pre-teach "permeable," "runoff," "storm drain," and "rebuttal" with a simple two-panel drawing showing rain on ordinary pavement and rain on permeable pavement. Allow students to read their opening from written notes and to use the numbered points as a checklist while listening.
Extensions
After the vote, ask every student to write two sentences naming the point that most changed their thinking and explaining what made it convincing, whether or not it came from their own side.