Writing prompt Grade 8 English Language Arts
Selling Starcross's Recycled Water to a Data Center
A grade 8 argument writing prompt in which students decide whether a fictional town should sell its treated wastewater for data center cooling or keep it in the river.
Objectives
- Students will state a clear claim about a proposed sale of treated wastewater.
- Students will support the claim with two reasons drawn from the provided background.
- Students will state a counterclaim fairly and answer it with evidence.
Vocabulary
- Dissolved oxygen
- Dissolved oxygen is the oxygen gas mixed into water that fish and other underwater animals breathe. Cold, moving water holds more oxygen than warm, still water.
Also: reclaimed water, outfall, counterclaim, contract term
Teacher overview
Water reuse arguments are often framed as a choice between waste and thrift, which leaves out the difficulty that treated wastewater is already doing work in the river it enters. This prompt gives students a fictional town, a buyer, and a river that depends on the discharge in late summer, so a well-supported argument has to account for both sides of the ledger. The task calls for a claim, two reasons drawn from the background, and a fair answer to a counterclaim, which is the argument structure expected at grade 8.
Prompt
Background: Starcross is a fictional town of about 11,000 people. Its water reclamation plant treats everything that goes down the town's drains and releases the treated water into the Quillet River at a spot called the outfall, just below town. That released water is clean enough to meet the plant's state permit, and on many late-summer days it makes up a large share of what is moving in the river past the outfall.
A company has proposed building a data center on the old fairgrounds. Data centers run thousands of computers, and the heat those computers produce has to go somewhere. This design would carry the heat away with water. The company has offered to buy treated water from the reclamation plant rather than drawing from the town's drinking water wells. It would pay for the pipeline, pay the town for the water, and sign a contract lasting twenty years.
Arguments the council has heard in favor: the payments would hold sewer rates down for every household in town; cooling with reclaimed water means the data center would not pump the aquifer the town drinks from; the plant already produces this water and currently gives it away; and the project would bring construction work now and a small number of permanent jobs afterward.
Arguments the council has heard against: the river below the outfall depends on the plant's discharge when natural flow is lowest, in August and September. A shallower, warmer river holds less oxygen, and most fish need dissolved oxygen above 5 mg/L to survive. A twenty-year contract would tie the town's hands if a drought arrived in year three. The permanent jobs are few compared with the size of the building. The state permit that allows the discharge may also require the town to keep a minimum flow in the river, which the town cannot promise if it has already sold the water.
Writing task: The Starcross council has asked residents to write in before it votes. Write an argument essay that states a clear claim about whether the town should sell treated water to the data center. Support your claim with at least two reasons, and use specific evidence from the background for each one. Then state one counterclaim someone on the other side would raise, and answer it fairly. End with a conclusion that restates your position and says what the council should do.
Planning Organizer
Fill in every row before you draft. The rows cover the claim, reasons, and counterclaim the rubric scores.
| Category | Your notes |
|---|---|
| My claim (sell, do not sell, or sell with conditions) | |
| Reason 1, in my own words | |
| Evidence from the background that supports reason 1 | |
| Reason 2, in my own words | |
| Evidence from the background that supports reason 2 | |
| The strongest counterclaim against my position | |
| My answer to that counterclaim, with evidence | |
| Conclusion: what the council should do |
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:
Starcross should not sign a twenty-year contract to sell its treated water to the data center. The town can consider a shorter agreement with conditions, but the deal on the table asks the council to promise water it may need in the river long before that contract runs out.
The first reason is that the discharge is not spare water. The background states that on many late-summer days the plant's released water makes up a large share of what is moving in the Quillet River past the outfall. Water sent to a cooling tower does not reach the river at all. August and September are exactly when the natural flow is lowest, so the sale would take the most water out of the river in the weeks the river has the least. A shallower, warmer river also holds less oxygen, and most fish need dissolved oxygen above 5 mg/L to survive. The town would be selling the flow that keeps that number up.
The second reason is the length of the contract. Twenty years is longer than any drought forecast the town has. If a dry stretch arrives in year three, the council will have already promised the water and will have no way to hold it back. The background also notes that the state permit may require the town to keep a minimum flow in the river, which is a promise the town cannot keep twice. Signing away flexibility for two decades is a larger commitment than the payments justify.
Supporters of the project will answer that the money holds sewer rates down for every household, and that the data center would otherwise pump the aquifer the town drinks from. Both points are real, and neither should be brushed aside. Lower sewer bills matter most to the households with the least room in their budgets, and protecting the wells is a genuine benefit. Those benefits can still be gained without the contract as written. The council could offer a five-year agreement with a drought clause that lets the town cut deliveries when river flow falls below a stated level, and it could set the price high enough that the shorter term still lowers sewer rates. That version keeps the payments and the aquifer protection while leaving the river a claim on the water.
The council should reject the twenty-year contract and open negotiations on a shorter agreement with a drought clause and a minimum river flow written into it. The town can take the company's money without promising water that the river and the state permit may both need later.
Rubric:
| Criterion | Emerging | Developing | Proficient | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claim | No position stated, or the position shifts | States a position that stays vague about what the council should do | States one clear, consistent position on the sale | States a clear position and previews the reasoning that will support it |
| Reasons and evidence | Gives an opinion with no evidence from the background | Names one reason and restates a fact without explaining it | Gives two reasons and ties specific background evidence to each | Gives two reasons, ties evidence to each, and explains why that evidence outweighs the alternative reading |
| Counterclaim and response | No opposing view appears | Names an opposing view but does not answer it | States a counterclaim fairly and answers it with evidence | States the strongest counterclaim, grants what is true in it, and answers it without abandoning the claim |
| Organization | Paragraphs do not follow a plan | Some structure, with reasons and evidence mixed together | Clear paragraphs for claim, each reason, counterclaim, and conclusion | Clear structure with transitions that show how each part builds on the last |
| Conventions | Errors block meaning | Errors are frequent and noticeable | Few errors; sentence structure is varied | Nearly error-free, with sentence variety suited to a letter a council would read |
Differentiation
Support
Give these students a completed first row of the organizer with two claims to choose between, and provide the background's evidence sentences already sorted into a for column and an against column. Allow the counterclaim and the answer to be written as three sentences rather than a full paragraph.
Extension
Ask students to write the drought clause itself in two or three sentences of plain contract language, naming what river condition would trigger it and what the town would be allowed to do, then to explain which side of the debate that clause is likely to satisfy and which it is not.
ELL supports
Pre-teach "reclaimed water," "outfall," "counterclaim," and "contract" with a simple map of the fictional town showing the plant, the outfall, the river, and the proposed building. Provide sentence frames for the counterclaim paragraph, such as "Supporters will say ___, and that is true because ___. Even so, ___." Allow the organizer to be completed in short phrases.