1. Role – Students
Audience – The Museum of Tolerance
Format – 2 paragraph argumentative CEEL/CEEEEL
(Honors: counterclaim)
Topic – what knowledge and/or personal characteristics are required to survive physically and socio-emotionally challenging life experiences
Honors Topic: whether physical or socio-emotional knowledge and characteristics are more important, or equally important, for surviving challenging life experiences

2. Stanford Honors: Anaeiss, Dan, Daniela, Lunna
CEEEEL: Emily Avedian, Kaylin, Ivan, Alexa, Dez, Anthony, Angelena, Nare, Liliana, Sebastian, Manny, Emily Avanesian
CEEL: Genaro, Griselda, Yaretzi, Luvette, Jose, Evan, Jonathan, Mery, Emanuel, Logan, Jesus

3. Yale Honors: Tony, Erik, Vahram, Melissa, Moris, Diego
CEEEEL: Daphne, Hector, Sergio, Cody, Robert, Karen, Dalila, Joceline, Kaylie, Vivian, Emily Z.
CEEL: Emily T., Cesar, Luna P., Kevin, Eddie, Lindsay, Anthony, Chris T., Bryan

4. MIT Honors: Giselle, Allan, Ian, Abraham, Miguel, Ariana, Arianna
CEEEEL: Chris R., Ashley, Torrion, Daniel M., Suncere, Ashton, Joseph, Jose, Michael
CEEL: Diego, Austin, Jason, Jorge, Sadie, Serena, Cristian, Sherlin, Ana

5. Claim (2 sentences) All claims must be arguments!
1. Introduce your claim. Example: As Nhamo’s life demonstrates, socio-emotional characteristics such as bravery are necessary in order to survive because these traits allow individuals to make the decision to face and overcome even the most fear-inducing life challenges.
2. Introduce the counterclaim. Example: However, some argue that physical traits are more important to survive because humans’ biologically ingrained responses to life challenges are more trustworthy than humans’ socio-emotional decisions are when faced with situations of survival.
**Use a thesaurus to look up synonyms for words so that your writing is not repetitive.

6. Evidence # 1 (1-3 sentences)
Your first piece of evidence is from the counterclaim text.

7. Counterclaim Evidence
For the counterclaim text, only introduce the article title and author’s first and last name if you are using a
new and different counterclaim text than the one you used in paragraph 1.
Ex: In the article “Biological Evolution,” Richard F. Taflinger states,
If you are using the same counterclaim text that that you used in paragraph 1, simply introduce the evidence using the author’s last name.
Ex: Taflinger states,

8. Explanation # 1
1. Provide 1-2 sentences explaining the opposition’s (counterclaim) point of view.
2. In your next 1-2 sentences, transition from explaining the counterclaim to arguing your claim. Begin to refute (prove wrong) the opposition’s view (counterclaim) using your claim.

9. Evidence # 2 (1-3 sentences)
Your second piece of evidence is from the young survivor text.

10. Young Survivor Evidence
Introduce the full text titles and authors’ first and last names!
Since you do not have an introduction paragraph with connecting sentences, you need to introduce the text titles and authors’ first and last names when you cite from these texts the first time only.

11. Young Survivor Text Example
In the article “Kelvin Doe – DJ Focus,” Hayley Hudson reveals, “Kelvin Doe is a young inventor from Sierra Leone. At the age of 11, he started scavenging for scrap electronics parts from dump sites” (Hudson, 2015, p. 1). **Put the article title in quotation marks. **Type in evidence correctly to avoid a “no pass”.

12. Explanation #2
Use your second explanation to support your claim and refute (prove wrong) the opposition’s counterclaim.

13. CEEL Paragraphs - ExplanationDo
Stay on topic
Explain how the evidence supports the claim
Clarify pronoun use – he, she, they, it
(Make sure the reader knows who or what the pronoun is referring to.)
Use details from the text (evidence) to explain

14. CEEL Paragraphs - Explanation
Do Not
Do not tell the story
Do not use “this shows” or “that shows” to explain
Do not use confusing pronouns (Who? What?)
Do not use contractions (can’t, won’t, didn’t)
Do not use 1st or 2nd person (you, I, me, my, we, our, us)
Do not say things like “My main idea is…”, “The evidence connects to the claim because…”, “This quote means…”

15. Link (1-2 sentences)
The link sums up the paragraph, connecting back to the main idea of the claim without simply
repeating the claim itself.
The link ends with an important final message about the topic of this paragraph.
Remind the reader of why your claim is stronger and why the counterclaim is flawed.

16. Academic Writing Reminders
No first or second person (I, me, we, our, myself, you, your, our, etc.)
No contractions (can’t, won’t, etc.)
Always refer to the authors and young survivors by last name! (Farmer, Doe, Rogel, Yousafzai, Khatun, Silva)
*Exception: Introduce them by first and last name one time in the writing prompt when introducing evidence from the text for the first time.

17. Writing Resources Summative writing prompt A Girl Named Disaster text
Young survivor text
Evidence analysis organizer