Writing prompt Grades 7–8 English Language Arts
Should Cedarville Raise Its Water Rates? An Argument Essay
Students read the real trade-offs behind a town's frozen water rates, then write an argument essay that must answer the strongest case against raising them.
Objectives
- State a defensible claim about whether Cedarville should raise water rates.
- Support the claim with relevant evidence from an informational briefing.
- Acknowledge the opposing position and respond to it without dismissing it.
Teacher overview
This prompt places students inside a genuinely difficult civic question, one that real city councils face every year and usually decide without much public attention. Cedarville is fictional, but its situation reflects the ordinary arithmetic of small water systems. Pipes age whether or not anyone budgets for them, and a rate that never rises leaves the cost of replacement to accumulate for a future council and future residents.
The essay task involves a real tension rather than a neutral practice topic. Students who argue for the increase must consider that a water bill weighs most heavily on the households with the least income, while students who argue against it must explain what happens when a hundred-year-old main eventually fails. Either position can earn full marks. The rubric rewards the central grade 7 skill of acknowledging the opposing claim and answering it with reasons.
Teaching note for the second session: the most common weakness in first drafts is a counterclaim paragraph that states the other side and immediately abandons it ("Some people say rates hurt poor families, but infrastructure matters"). Encourage students to present the counterclaim in its strongest form before they answer it. The exemplar models this approach.
Prompt
The situation. Cedarville is a fictional town, but its situation is a common one. Its city council has not raised water rates in twelve years, and council members are proud of that: the town has the cheapest water in the county, about $28 a month for a typical family. This year, however, the public works director gave the council some uncomfortable news:
- Cedarville's water mains were mostly installed 70 to 100 years ago. Pipes of that generation are reaching the end of their working lives everywhere, not just in Cedarville.
- The town now repairs a burst main about once a month. Each emergency repair costs three to five times what a planned replacement would, because crews work nights, streets are dug up twice, and water is lost in the meantime.
- The repair fund is nearly empty. To replace pipes on a responsible schedule, the director estimates bills would need to rise by about $9 per month, phased in over three years.
- Across the country, water and sewer bills rose about 24 percent between 2019 and 2024. Cedarville chose to hold its rates flat during those years (figures as of mid-2026).
- Roughly one in seven Cedarville households already finds the current bill hard to pay. A $9 increase is small for many families and real money for others.
At the public hearing, one resident says: "Water is a basic need, and keeping it affordable is the most important thing a council can do." Another says: "If we keep putting off these repairs, we will end up paying far more for emergencies than we ever saved on our bills."
Your assignment. Write an argument essay answering the question: Should Cedarville raise its water rates? State a clear claim, support it with evidence from the briefing above, acknowledge the strongest argument on the other side, and respond to it. You may propose conditions (for example, a discount program) as part of your position, but you must still take one. Length: four to six paragraphs.
Planning Organizer
Before drafting, complete each line:
- My claim (one sentence): Cedarville should / should not raise its water rates because …
- My two strongest pieces of evidence from the briefing: (a) … (b) …
- The strongest argument AGAINST my claim: …
- My response to that argument (a reason, not a dismissal): …
- My "even so" sentence — one sentence that shows I understand the cost of my own position: Even so, …
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 essay (arguing for the increase; a "no" essay can score identically):
Cedarville should raise its water rates by nine dollars a month, phased in over three years, because holding rates flat will lead to expensive emergency repairs paid for at the worst possible time. The town's pride in having the county's lowest bill has gradually become a debt, and the briefing shows that the debt is already coming due.
The clearest evidence is what the town is spending now. Cedarville repairs a burst main about once a month, and each emergency repair costs three to five times more than replacing the same pipe on a schedule. This means residents are already paying for the pipe problem, only in the most wasteful way possible. Money that could replace pipes on a planned schedule goes instead to overnight repair crews and to streets that must be dug up twice.
The second piece of evidence is that Cedarville's situation follows from simple arithmetic rather than bad luck. The mains are 70 to 100 years old, which is the end of a pipe's working life. A rate frozen for twelve years, while bills elsewhere rose about 24 percent, did not slow the aging of the pipes. It only meant the town stopped saving for a replacement that everyone knew was coming.
The strongest argument against the increase deserves to be taken seriously. One in seven Cedarville households already struggles with the current bill, and nine dollars a month is real money for those families. Because water is a necessity, a rate increase falls on people who cannot simply use less of it. Yet this problem argues for a better-designed increase rather than a frozen rate. The council could pair the new rate with a discount for low-income households, as many utilities do, so that the families least able to pay are protected while the system is repaired. A rate freeze for everyone actually gives the largest benefit to the largest water users, who tend to be the wealthier households, while leaving struggling families exposed to the same burst pipes as everyone else.
Even so, honesty requires admitting what a yes vote means. Some families will feel this increase, and the council will have made their month harder, which is exactly why the increase should be phased in and paired with assistance. What the council cannot responsibly do is continue advertising the county's cheapest water while the repair fund empties, because each emergency repair costs three to five times what a planned replacement would.
Rubric (4 levels):
| Criterion | 4 — Exceeds | 3 — Meets | 2 — Approaching | 1 — Beginning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claim | Clear, specific, takes a real position with conditions thought through | Clear claim on the question | Claim present but vague or hedged into no position | No identifiable claim |
| Evidence | Uses several briefing facts accurately and explains why each supports the claim | Uses at least two briefing facts accurately | Evidence mentioned but not connected to the claim, or partly inaccurate | Little or no evidence from the briefing |
| Counterclaim | States the opposing argument at its strongest and answers it with reasons | Acknowledges the opposing argument and responds | Mentions the other side but dismisses it without a response | Ignores the opposing side |
| Organization & style | Logical paragraph order; formal tone; transitions carry the argument | Organized paragraphs; mostly formal tone | Some organization; tone drifts casual | Disorganized; hard to follow |
Differentiation
Support (below grade level)
Provide sentence frames for the two hardest moves: "The strongest argument against my position is that ___. However, ___ because ___." Reduce the briefing to three facts (the age of the mains, the cost of emergency repairs, and the one in seven households that find the bill hard to pay) and allow a three-paragraph essay (claim and evidence, counterclaim and response, conclusion). The organizer becomes the outline; students draft one paragraph per line.
Extension (above grade level)
Add a constraint: the essay must also address who should decide. Elected councils respond to voters who dislike rate increases, which is partly why systems underfund pipes. Should rate decisions sit with an independent utility board instead? Students research one real example and fold it into their argument.
ELL supports
Pre-teach rate, bill, main (the pipe meaning, not the everyday sense of "most important"), emergency, and phase in. Read the briefing aloud once as a class. Allow the planning organizer to be completed in the student's strongest language before drafting in English.
Extensions
Hold the hearing before the essay is due. Assign roles — council members, the public works director, a retiree on a fixed income, a restaurant owner, a plumber — and give each two minutes of testimony drawn from the briefing. Students may cite the hearing in their essays as evidence. If students change positions after playing a role they disagreed with, that is worth a class conversation in itself.