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Classroom activity Grade 8 English Language Arts

Concede or Rebut: The Hexworth Water Main Rounds

A grade 8 ELA activity in which argument cards about a fictional town's pipe replacement plan are passed through restatement, concession, and rebuttal rounds.

Objectives

  1. Students will restate an opposing argument in terms its author would accept.
  2. Students will write a concession that gives up a real point rather than a token one.
  3. Students will answer a conceded argument with a reason instead of a dismissal.

Vocabulary

Water main
A big underground pipe that carries drinking water beneath the streets to a neighborhood. Smaller service lines branch off it to reach each building.

Also: restatement, concession, rebuttal, cast iron, surcharge

Teacher overview

Argument cards about a fictional town's pipe replacement plan move through three writing rounds, so that each card is restated by one student, conceded to by a second, and answered by a third before returning to its owner for scoring. The rounds separate three moves that eighth graders normally blur together, which is why a card cannot be answered until someone has first stated what it actually says. The misconception worth naming out loud is that conceding a point weakens an argument. Students often write token concessions such as "You make a fair point, but you are wrong," and reading the full chains aloud is where that habit becomes visible, because the class is asked to say which concession gave up a real point and what made it real.

Activity Directions

  1. Before class, cut the eight argument cards from the Student Handout so there is one card per student, repeating cards as needed for class size. The town of Hexworth is fictional, and its figures belong to the scenario.
  2. Give every student a full handout and read the situation aloud. The town of Hexworth has 62 miles of water main, 18 miles of it cast iron laid before 1940. Six mains broke last winter. The council is weighing a 15-year replacement program paid for by a monthly surcharge against fixing breaks as they happen.
  3. Hand each student one argument card and three quarter-sheets of paper. Students write their name and their card number at the top of each quarter-sheet.
  4. Round 1, four minutes. On the first quarter-sheet, each student writes a restatement of the card they hold, beginning "What this argument says is." A restatement must be one the card's author would sign.
  5. Pass every card and its three quarter-sheets two seats to the left. Round 2, five minutes. Each student reads the card and the restatement, then writes a concession on the second quarter-sheet, beginning "You are right that." The concession must give up something the card actually establishes, not a courtesy.
  6. Pass again, two seats to the left. Round 3, six minutes. Each student writes a rebuttal on the third quarter-sheet, beginning "Even so." The rebuttal must answer the reason on the card and may not repeat the concession.
  7. Return every card and its three sheets to the student who started it. Round 4, five minutes. That student scores the restatement as fair or unfair and writes one sentence explaining the score. If the restatement is unfair, the student writes the version they would have signed.
  8. Call on four or five students to read a full chain aloud: card, restatement, concession, rebuttal. Ask the class to name the strongest concession they heard and say what made it real.
  9. End the rounds when every card has been scored and at least four chains have been read, which usually takes about thirty minutes in all.
  10. Close with the five debrief items at the end of the handout. Discuss items 1 through 3 as a class and collect written responses to items 4 and 5.
Concede or Rebut: The Hexworth Water Main Rounds — Grade 8 English Language Arts
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Handout

The situation. The town of Hexworth is invented for this activity, and so are its numbers. Hexworth owns 62 miles of water main. Eighteen of those miles are cast iron laid before 1940. Six mains broke last winter. The council is choosing between a 15-year program to replace the old cast iron, paid for by a monthly surcharge of $6.75 on every water bill, and the current practice of repairing breaks as they happen.

The eight argument cards.

  • Card 1. Hexworth had six main breaks last winter, and four of them were on the 18 miles of cast iron laid before 1940. Waiting for breaks means paying crews to work at night, which costs more per foot than work scheduled in advance.
  • Card 2. A monthly surcharge of $6.75 lands the same on every household, whether that household earns a lot or a little.
  • Card 3. Every year the town waits, the same length of pipe costs more to replace, so a program that starts later costs more in total.
  • Card 4. Hexworth has 18 miles of cast iron laid before 1940, and the plan replaces all of it. Some of that pipe has never broken, so the plan spends money on pipe that is still doing its job.
  • Card 5. Emergency repairs close streets with no warning. A planned program lets the town schedule digging around school bus routes and trash pickup.
  • Card 6. Replacing old pipe is real work worth doing, and still, a surcharge that runs 15 years commits councils that have not been elected yet.
  • Card 7. Nobody who has had a main break under their driveway thinks that waiting is cheaper.
  • Card 8. The public works director has shown the council a total break count and nothing else. Without a break rate by pipe age, the town does not yet know which miles matter most.

Debrief. Answer each item in complete sentences.

  1. Which card rests on how people feel rather than on anything Hexworth has measured? Give the card number and explain.
  2. Cards 1 and 4 use the same fact about Hexworth's pipe and reach opposite conclusions. Write the fact both cards use.
  3. One card concedes a point to the other side before making its own argument. Give the card number and copy the words that do the conceding.
  4. A student restates Card 2 as "You just do not want to pay for anything." Explain in two sentences why that restatement is not one the card's author would sign.
  5. A student answers Card 8 by writing "That argument is ridiculous." Rewrite that rebuttal so it answers the reason Card 8 actually gives.

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Answer Key
  1. Answer: Card 7. It appeals to how a homeowner would feel after a break rather than to a count, a cost, or a rate that the town has measured.
  2. Answer: Hexworth has 18 miles of cast iron water main laid before 1940. Card 1 uses that fact to argue the pipe is failing, and Card 4 uses it to argue that much of the same pipe is still working.
  3. Answer: Card 6. The conceding words are "Replacing old pipe is real work worth doing."
  4. Answer: The restatement replaces the card's reason with a motive. Card 2 argues that a flat surcharge falls the same on households with different incomes, which is an argument about fairness rather than an unwillingness to pay anything.
  5. Answer: Accept any rewrite that answers the missing break rate. A model rewrite: "Even so, the director can produce a break rate by pipe age from records the town already keeps, so the council could have that number before the vote rather than abandon the program."

Differentiation

Support

Give these students the restatement round already completed on their card so they begin at the concession, and provide a two-column chart headed "What this card proves" and "What this card does not prove" to plan the concession. Model one full chain with a volunteer before the rounds begin, thinking aloud about why the concession names a real point.

Extension

Add a fifth round in which the card's owner writes a reply to the rebuttal that concedes a second point without abandoning the original claim, then explains in one sentence what the argument gained by conceding twice.

ELL supports

Post the three sentence openers used in the rounds on the board with a completed example under each. Provide a simplified parallel version of the eight cards with the same numbering so partners can work from either version, and preview surcharge, cast iron, water main, and concession with a quick sketch. Allow the round 4 score to be given orally to a partner who records it.

Extensions

Have students turn one full chain into a single paragraph of argument writing in which the concession and the rebuttal are joined by a subordinating conjunction, then compare the paragraph with the chain and explain which version a council member would find easier to follow.