Writing prompt Grade 10 Health & Consumer Science
Gates or Driver Lessons at Skirrow Creek: A Flood Argument Prompt
Students argue whether a fictional town should spend flood-safety money on automatic road gates or on teen driver lessons and alerts, using injury-prevention evidence.
Objectives
- Students will explain why moving water over a road injures and kills drivers, and why rain far upstream can flood a crossing under a dry sky.
- Students will write an argument that supports a claim about a flood-safety option with evidence and develops a counterclaim fairly.
- Students will evaluate a public safety option in terms of its intended and unintended outcomes.
Vocabulary
- Watershed
- A watershed is all the land where rain that falls will drain to the same stream, river, or lake. Everyone lives in a watershed, no matter how far from the water they live.
Also: low-water crossing, runoff, injury prevention, counterclaim, unintended outcome
Teacher overview
Many flood deaths happen inside vehicles, when drivers try to cross roads covered by moving water. This prompt places tenth graders, many of whom are starting to drive, inside a decision facing the fictional town of Hessleby: whether to spend its flood-safety money on automatic gates at a low-water crossing or on driver lessons and a flood alert system. The background gives both options genuine strengths and weaknesses, so the counterclaim work expected in grade 10 argument writing rests on real trade-offs rather than on a token concession. The health content is injury prevention, including why changing the environment and changing individual behavior each succeed and fail in different ways.
Teaching note: the misconception most worth addressing before students write is that a flooded crossing is dangerous only when it is raining hard at the crossing itself. A creek carries water from its whole watershed, so rain that fell miles upstream hours earlier can put water over a road under a dry sky. A second misconception is that a heavy vehicle such as a pickup truck is safe in moving water; water lifts vehicles as it deepens, and the tires lose their grip on the road. Students may also assume that an engineering fix settles the question, so the background includes the real behavior of drivers going around barricades. The costs and rescue counts in the background are invented for the scenario, and the exemplar argues for the gates only because one position had to be modeled; essays for either option can earn full credit.
Prompt
Read the background. Then write your essay.
Background: the crossing on Wendle Road
Hessleby is a fictional town. Wendle Road dips down to cross Skirrow Creek at a low-water crossing. At a crossing like this, the road runs across the creek bed on a concrete slab. On most days the creek flows through large pipes under the slab. After heavy rain, the creek rises over the road.
Skirrow Creek drains a large watershed that reaches far north of town. Rain that falls in the hills upstream runs downhill into the creek and can reach the crossing hours later. That means the creek can rise over the road even when no rain is falling in Hessleby. In our scenario, a new warehouse and parking lot were built upstream three years ago. Pavement does not soak up rain, so more water now runs off quickly into the creek, and the water at the crossing rises faster than it used to.
Why moving water is dangerous to drivers
Moving water pushes hard against the side of a car. As the water gets deeper, it also lifts the car, and the tires lose their grip on the road. A car can be pushed off a crossing by water that looks shallow. Pickup trucks and SUVs can float too. Water flowing over a road can hide places where the road has washed away underneath. At night, drivers cannot judge how deep or how fast the water is. The National Weather Service's safety campaign gives drivers a short rule: "Turn Around, Don't Drown."
What has happened at the crossing
In our scenario, Hessleby's fire department has pulled drivers from stalled or floating cars at the crossing four times in the past five years. Three of the four drivers were under 25 years old. Two of them told rescuers they had driven through water at the crossing before without trouble. No one has died there, but during one rescue a firefighter was knocked off his feet by the current. The crossing now has one yellow sign that says "Road May Flood" and a post with painted marks that show the depth of the water.
The two options
The town council has set aside $180,000 for flood safety at Wendle Road and will fund one option.
Option A: automatic flood gates. Sensors would detect water on the road and lower gate arms with flashing lights on both sides of the crossing. Installing the gates would cost $150,000, and the rest of the money would pay for upkeep and repairs for about five years.
- The gates would work without anyone having to make a choice, day or night, for local drivers and visitors alike.
- Public health experts who study injuries generally find that changing the environment protects people more reliably than asking each person to make a safe choice.
- Some drivers go around barricades they think are unneeded. A gate also works only if its sensors and power work during a storm.
- The gates would protect only this crossing. In our scenario, Hessleby has several other roads that flood in large storms.
Option B: driver lessons and flood alerts. The same money would pay for a flood-safety unit in the Hessleby High School driver education course for the next ten years. It would also pay for a text alert system that warns residents when the creek is rising, and for bright depth gauges at the crossing and at the town's other flood-prone roads.
- Every new driver in town would practice judging flood risk, and the lessons apply to every flooded road, not just one.
- New drivers have the least experience judging road hazards, so the lessons would reach the group that has needed the most rescues at the crossing.
- Lessons and alerts work only if drivers choose to follow them, often at night, in a hurry, or with friends in the car urging them on.
- Visitors and delivery drivers from out of town would not have taken the course, and people can ignore or turn off text alerts.
Your task
Write an argument essay addressed to the Hessleby Town Council. Take a position on which option the town should fund, Option A or Option B. Your essay must do all of the following:
- State a precise claim.
- Give at least three reasons, each supported with evidence from the background.
- Explain how your option would prevent injuries and deaths, using what you learned about moving water and about the watershed.
- Present the strongest counterclaim fairly, including a real strength of the other option, and respond to it.
- Name at least one unintended outcome of your own option, and explain how the town could reduce it.
- End with a conclusion that follows from your argument.
Write five to seven paragraphs.
Planning Organizer
Fill in every row before you draft. Each row becomes part of your essay, and the rubric scores each one.
| Part of the essay | My notes |
|---|---|
| My claim: which option should the town fund? | |
| Reason 1 and the evidence from the background that supports it | |
| Reason 2 and the evidence from the background that supports it | |
| Reason 3 and the evidence from the background that supports it | |
| How my option prevents injuries: what moving water does to a car and a person | |
| How my option handles the watershed problem: flooding when it is not raining in town | |
| The strongest counterclaim, including a real strength of the other option | |
| My response to the counterclaim | |
| One unintended outcome of my option | |
| How the town could reduce that unintended outcome | |
| My conclusion |
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
Hessleby should spend its flood-safety money on automatic flood gates at the Wendle Road crossing. The four rescues there show that drivers, including young drivers who know the road, keep misjudging the water. A gate that closes the road whenever water covers it would protect every driver who reaches the crossing, and it would do so without depending on a quick decision made in the dark.
The first reason is that the danger at the crossing is hard to judge from behind the wheel. Moving water pushes against a car and lifts it at the same time, so a car can be carried off the slab by water that looks shallow. At night a driver cannot see how deep or how fast the water is, and the water can hide places where the road has washed out. A lesson can teach a student that these dangers exist, but it cannot help that student see them through a dark, rain-streaked windshield. A gate takes the decision away at the moment when human judgment is least reliable.
The second reason is that the crossing can flood when drivers least expect it. Skirrow Creek drains a large watershed north of town, and rain in the hills can send water over the road hours later, even when the sky over Hessleby is clear. The new warehouse and parking lot upstream have made the water rise faster, because pavement sends rain straight into the creek instead of letting it soak in. A driver who sees no rain has little reason to check an alert or remember a lesson from driver education. A sensor on the road responds to the water itself, whatever the weather in town.
The third reason is the record at the crossing. Three of the four drivers rescued in the past five years were under 25, and two of them had driven through water there before without trouble. Their earlier safe crossings probably convinced them that the water was manageable. This is the kind of problem injury prevention experts have in mind when they say that changing the environment protects people more reliably than asking each person to choose well. The gates would also protect firefighters, one of whom was knocked off his feet during a rescue.
Supporters of Option B make a fair point. The gates protect only one crossing, while driver lessons and alerts would reach every flood-prone road in town and would stay with new drivers for the rest of their lives. That is a real strength, and it is the best argument against the gates. However, Wendle Road is where Hessleby's rescues have actually happened, and a lesson that covers every road still depends on a good choice made under the worst conditions. Lessons also never reach the visitors and delivery drivers who use Wendle Road. Spending a limited budget where people are already being hurt is the stronger choice.
The gates could have an unintended outcome. Some drivers go around barricades they think are unneeded, and drivers who grow used to the gates might assume that any flooded road without a gate is safe to cross. The town can reduce these risks by placing the gate arms so they block the full width of the road, posting a sign that explains the gate closes only when water is on the road, and reminding residents in its newsletter that roads without gates can flood too.
The four rescues at Wendle Road have already shown the town where the danger is. Automatic gates would act every time the water rises, for every driver, at any hour of the day or night. The council should fund Option A so that the next storm at Wendle Road is met by a closed gate before anyone has to make a choice.
Rubric
| Criterion | Emerging | Developing | Proficient | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claim | No clear position, or the essay supports both options without choosing | States a position, but it is vague or shifts during the essay | States one precise claim for Option A or Option B and keeps it throughout | States a precise claim and previews the main reasons in the opening paragraph |
| Evidence and reasoning | Uses no evidence from the background | Uses one or two facts without explaining how they support the claim | Supports three reasons with specific evidence from the background and explains each link | Supports three or more reasons with well-chosen evidence and shows how the reasons build on one another |
| Health reasoning | Does not explain how the option prevents injury | Mentions safety in general terms without explaining what moving water does | Explains how moving water endangers drivers and how the watershed can flood the crossing, and ties both to the chosen option | Explains both dangers accurately and uses the idea of changing the environment versus changing behavior to judge the option |
| Counterclaim and response | No counterclaim | Mentions the other side without a response, or presents it unfairly | States the strongest counterclaim fairly, names a real strength of the other option, and responds with evidence | Presents the counterclaim at full strength and gives a response that directly answers it rather than changing the subject |
| Unintended outcome | Does not name an unintended outcome | Names an unintended outcome but offers no way to reduce it | Names a realistic unintended outcome of the chosen option and a practical way to reduce it | Names a realistic unintended outcome, a practical way to reduce it, and explains why the option is still worth choosing |
| Organization and conventions | Ideas are hard to follow; frequent errors interfere with meaning | Paragraphs are present but transitions are weak; errors are noticeable | Five to seven clear paragraphs with transitions and few errors | Purposeful structure, precise word choice, a conclusion that follows from the argument, and almost no errors |
Differentiation
Support
Read the background aloud with the class and have students mark each bullet under the two options as a strength or a weakness before they choose. Provide sentence starters for the organizer, such as "The town should fund Option __ because __" and "People who favor the other option would point out that __," and allow a four-paragraph essay that combines the reasons into two body paragraphs.
Extension
Ask students to write a second, shorter piece: a message of about one hundred words from the Hessleby fire department to new drivers, written for a phone screen, that explains why the crossing can flood under a dry sky. A second option is to have students research whether their own county lists low-water crossings or flood-prone roads and compare one of them with the fictional Wendle Road crossing.
ELL supports
Pre-teach "low-water crossing," "watershed," "runoff," "barricade," and "unintended" with a simple drawing of a creek, its hills, and the road across it. Allow students to complete the planning organizer in their home language or in short phrases, and pair each student with a partner who restates the two options aloud before drafting begins.
Extensions
Students can interview a driver education instructor, a firefighter, or a local emergency manager about how flooded roads are handled in their own community, then revise one paragraph of their essay using what they learned. A class can also compare its essays by tallying which option each writer chose and which reasons appeared most often, then discuss which reasons held up best against the strongest counterclaims.