Writing prompt Grade 8 English Language Arts
Apsley's Choice: A New Well or the Regional Line
A grade 8 argument writing prompt asking students to decide whether a fictional town should drill a third well or connect to a regional water line.
Objectives
- Students will state a claim about a town's water supply choice and support it with evidence.
- Students will acknowledge a counterclaim and answer it with reasoning.
- Students will use the background figures accurately rather than in general terms.
Vocabulary
- Aquifer
- An aquifer is an underground layer of rock, sand, or gravel that holds water in the tiny spaces between its grains. Wells reach down into aquifers to bring water up to the surface.
Also: well, counterclaim, rate, affordability
Teacher overview
Apsley is a fictional town facing a decision many small systems face in a real form: repair and extend what it owns, or connect to a larger neighbor and buy water wholesale. Both options are defensible, and the background gives students enough on each side that the essay cannot be written from a general opinion about water. The national bill and affordability figures come from published sources and give students a way to judge whether a rate increase in the fictional town would be unusual.
Prompt
Background: Apsley is a fictional town of about 4,200 people. Its water comes from two wells drilled in 1962 into a sand aquifer. Well 1 still produces normally. Well 2 has produced less water every summer for six years, and the town engineer reports that its screen is corroded and cannot be repaired in place. The council must choose between two options this year.
Option A is to drill a third well about a mile east, where test drilling found the same aquifer. The engineer's estimate for the new well, the pump, and a short pipeline is $1.9 million. The town would keep control of its own supply. The risk is that a new well can produce less than the test suggested, and the aquifer is the same one Well 2 draws from.
Option B is to build a connection to the Varley Regional Water Authority, whose main line ends four miles north of town. The estimated cost of that pipeline is $3.4 million. Varley would sell Apsley treated water by the gallon. Apsley would stop treating its own water and would close both wells within five years. The town would depend on a supplier it does not control, and the wholesale price would be set by Varley's board.
Either project would be paid for through water rates. The engineer estimates Option A would add about $6 a month to a typical bill and Option B about $11 a month. For comparison, combined water and sewer bills across the country rose about 24 percent between 2019 and 2024 and about another 5.1 percent in 2025, which is faster than prices in general. A widely used rule of thumb, based on EPA benchmarks, treats combined water and sewer costs above roughly 4.5 percent of a household's income as a high burden, although EPA has no single official cutoff.
Writing task: Write an argument essay for the Apsley council. State a clear claim about which option the town should choose. Support your claim with at least two pieces of evidence from the background. Acknowledge one counterclaim a resident or a council member could reasonably raise, and answer it. End with a conclusion that follows from your evidence.
Planning Organizer
| Category | Your notes |
|---|---|
| Claim (which option should Apsley choose?) | |
| Reason 1 and the evidence from the background that supports it | |
| Reason 2 and the evidence from the background that supports it | |
| Counterclaim (the strongest point on the other side) | |
| Your answer to the counterclaim | |
| Conclusion (what should the council do, and why does the evidence lead there?) |
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 response:
Apsley should drill the third well rather than connect to the Varley Regional Water Authority. The well costs less to build, it keeps the decisions in town, and the risks it carries are risks the town can measure before it spends the money.
Cost is the clearest reason. The engineer's estimate for the new well is $1.9 million, while the pipeline to Varley is estimated at $3.4 million. Because either project is paid for through water rates, that gap shows up on every bill in town, at about $6 a month for the well and about $11 a month for the pipeline. Bills have already been climbing without any new project. Combined water and sewer bills across the country rose about 24 percent from 2019 to 2024 and about another 5.1 percent in 2025. Adding the larger increase on top of that trend would push some households toward the level a common rule of thumb treats as a high burden, which is roughly 4.5 percent of household income.
The second reason is control. Under Option B, Varley's board would set the price Apsley pays for every gallon, and Apsley would have closed both of its wells within five years. A town that has closed its own wells has little to bargain with when that price changes. Option A leaves Well 1 in service and adds a second working source, so the town keeps a supply of its own to fall back on.
Some council members will argue that the new well is the riskier choice, and they have a fair point. The engineer warns that a new well can produce less than test drilling suggested, and the new well would draw from the same aquifer that Well 2 draws from. If the aquifer is the problem, a third well could disappoint. That risk is real, but it is also the risk the town can study before it commits. A longer pumping test at the east site would show how the aquifer responds before any pipe is laid, while the pipeline offers no similar test, because once it is built Apsley is a customer of Varley for good.
The council should approve the third well and require a full pumping test before construction begins. That choice costs less, keeps a working well in reserve, and leaves the town free to reconsider Varley later if the aquifer will not support it.
Rubric:
| Criterion | Emerging | Developing | Proficient | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claim | No clear position, or the position changes | States a position that stays general | States one clear position on Option A or Option B and holds it | States a clear position and previews the reasoning that will support it |
| Evidence and reasoning | Uses no evidence from the background | Repeats one figure without explaining what it shows | Uses at least two figures from the background and explains how each supports the claim | Uses several figures accurately and explains how they work together, including the national rate context |
| Counterclaim | No opposing view appears | Mentions an opposing view but does not answer it | States a reasonable counterclaim and answers it with evidence | States the strongest counterclaim, answers it specifically, and shows why the claim still holds |
| Organization and conventions | Ideas are disconnected and errors block meaning | Some structure, with errors that distract | Clear paragraphs, a conclusion that follows from the evidence, and few errors | Purposeful structure with strong transitions, a conclusion that recommends a next step, and nearly error-free writing |
Differentiation
Support
Give these students a two-column fact sheet for the fictional town listing the figures for Option A and Option B side by side, and a paragraph frame for the counterclaim: "Some people argue that ___. That concern makes sense because ___. Even so, ___." Allow an essay of three paragraphs.
Extension
Ask students to write a fourth paragraph proposing a third option for the fictional town, such as rebuilding Well 2 or connecting to Varley for summer months only, and defend it against the same cost evidence they used in the essay.
ELL supports
Pre-teach "well," "aquifer," "wholesale," and "rate" with a labeled drawing of the fictional town's two wells and the pipeline route. Allow the organizer to be filled in with phrases, and provide a bank of transition words for acknowledging a counterclaim.
Extensions
Students turn their essays into two-minute statements for a fictional council hearing, then listen to a classmate who argued the other side and write one sentence naming the strongest point the other speaker made.