Writing prompt Grade 8 Social Studies & Civics
Funding Pipe Replacement in Hartwell: A Grade 8 Writing Prompt
A grade 8 argument prompt where students decide how a town should pay to replace aging water pipes, using real national infrastructure and affordability data as evidence.
Objectives
- Students will write an argument essay that states a claim, addresses a counterclaim, and supports both with evidence.
- Students will use real national infrastructure data to evaluate a local funding tradeoff.
- Students will weigh the costs and benefits of a public policy decision for different groups affected by it.
Teacher overview
Water pipes buried underground do not last forever, and replacing them costs far more than most household budgets, which forces towns to decide how quickly to pay for the work and who bears the cost. This prompt asks students to recommend how a town's water utility should fund an overdue pipe-replacement program, using national data about infrastructure condition and household affordability as their evidence rather than opinion alone.
Prompt
Background: Hartwell (a fictional town used for this prompt) built most of its water system more than 70 years ago. Its public works department now reports frequent pipe breaks. Hartwell's pattern echoes a national one. Across the United States, a water main breaks somewhere roughly every two minutes. The American Society of Civil Engineers' most recent report card gave the nation's drinking water infrastructure a grade of C- and its wastewater systems a D+. Replacing Hartwell's oldest pipes over the next ten years would cost far more than the utility's current budget can absorb. Its governing board is debating two funding approaches.
Option 1 is to raise water rates by an average of 18 percent over the next three years. This pays for pipe replacement quickly through higher bills starting now. Option 2 is to borrow the money through a long-term municipal bond instead, spreading smaller rate increases across the next 20 years. Because the town must repay the bond with interest, Option 2 costs more in total dollars than Option 1. The board also has to weigh affordability. A widely used rule of thumb, built by adding two EPA benchmarks, treats combined water and sewer costs above roughly 4.5 percent of a household's income as a high financial burden, though the EPA itself has no single official cutoff. Hartwell's board does not want its lowest-income residents to cross that line.
Writing task: Write an argument essay that states a clear position on which funding option, Option 1 (faster rate increases now) or Option 2 (a 20-year bond with smaller increases), Hartwell's board should choose. Address at least one counterclaim a resident might raise against your position, and support your argument with evidence from the background material above.
Planning Organizer
| Category | Your notes |
|---|---|
| Claim (which option should Hartwell choose?) | |
| Reason 1 + evidence from the background material | |
| Reason 2 + evidence from the background material | |
| Counterclaim a resident might raise | |
| Your rebuttal to the counterclaim | |
| Concluding statement |
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:
Hartwell's board should choose Option 2, a 20-year municipal bond with smaller rate increases spread over time, because it protects residents from an affordability crisis while still addressing an infrastructure problem that is part of a documented national pattern. The nation's drinking water infrastructure currently earns a C- and its wastewater systems a D+ on the most recent national report card, showing that Hartwell's aging pipes are not an isolated problem but part of a widespread, gradual crisis that most towns are managing over years rather than fixing overnight. A gradual bond-funded approach matches the true scale of the problem without forcing a sudden financial shock onto residents.
Some residents will argue that Option 1, raising rates faster now, makes more sense because pipes are already breaking and every year of delay raises the risk of a major failure, echoing the national pattern of a water main break occurring somewhere roughly every two minutes. This is a fair and serious concern, and Hartwell's board should not ignore the safety risk of deferred maintenance. However, the board can still address the most urgent breaks immediately using its existing budget while spreading the larger, systemwide replacement over the bond's 20-year term, rather than forcing all of the cost onto residents within three years. A steep 18 percent rate increase within three years risks pushing Hartwell's lowest-income households above the 4.5 percent of income that a widely used rule of thumb treats as a high financial burden, a risk the board explicitly wants to avoid.
Hartwell's board should approve the 20-year bond. It responds to the same infrastructure problem documented nationally, while protecting the residents least able to absorb a sudden jump in their water bill.
Rubric:
| Criterion | Emerging | Developing | Proficient | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claim | No clear position stated | States a position but it shifts or is vague | States one clear, consistent position on which funding option to choose | States a clear position and previews the essay's main reasoning |
| Evidence & reasoning | No evidence from the background material | Restates one fact without explaining its relevance | Uses at least one specific fact from the background material and explains how it supports the claim | Uses two or more specific facts and explains how each supports the claim |
| Counterclaim | No counterclaim addressed | Mentions an opposing view without a rebuttal | States a counterclaim and offers a rebuttal | States a counterclaim, rebuts it specifically, and ties the rebuttal back to the claim |
| Organization & conventions | Ideas are disconnected; frequent errors interfere with meaning | Some organization; errors are noticeable but do not block meaning | Clear paragraph structure; few errors | Clear, purposeful structure with a strong concluding statement; virtually error-free |
Differentiation
Support (below grade level)
Provide sentence starters for each row of the Planning Organizer ("Hartwell should choose Option ___ because the background material says ___.") and allow the counterclaim and rebuttal to be combined into a single, simpler sentence rather than two separate paragraphs.
Extension (above grade level)
Ask students to research, using only the background material provided rather than outside sources, what a municipal bond is and why it lets a town spread a large cost over many years, then add a second counterclaim addressing whether it is fair for future residents to help pay off a bond for pipes replaced before they moved to Hartwell.
ELL supports
Pre-teach infrastructure, counterclaim, and affordability with a simple visual (a cutaway diagram of an old, cracked pipe next to a new one) before the writing task begins. Allow the Planning Organizer to be completed with phrases rather than full sentences before drafting starts.