3rd and 4th Grade Before School Workshops: A Mentor and Mentoring Environment for Argument Writing

This morning 43 eager young writers in 3^rd and 4^th grade arrived super early in the morning to debate a hot topic: Position A – professional athletes make too much money, and Position B- professional athletes earn what they make.  We began by creating a “Top 10” list of what we thought to be the most valuable and important jobs in the world.  You’d be surprised at the jobs that were added to our list!  From there we jigsawed two articles: one supporting position A, and one supporting position B.  Through inquiry and dialogue we synthesized a list of pros and cons for each position and jotted notes from both claim and counterclaim.  So far, the majority of our writing group is advocating for position A…leaving only a handful currently supporting position B.  Stay tuned for changes made in our stances based upon researched evidence explored over the next 3 weeks!