DIRECTIONS: Read the argument, then sort its six sentences by the job each one does.
Should the constellations be taught as real groups?
1. Teaching constellations as if they were groups of stars gives children a false picture of space.
2. The seven bright stars of Orion range from 250 light years away to 2,000.
3. Objects that far apart cannot be neighbors in any sense, so the only thing the seven have in common is the direction we happen to look to see them.
4. Star charts print the joining lines in the same ink as the stars themselves.
5. A line drawn between two things is how every other diagram a child meets shows a real connection, so the convention teaches the opposite of the truth without ever stating it.
6. The patterns are worth teaching, but they should be taught as things people drew rather than things that are there.
CLAIM what the writer wants you to accept. EVIDENCE what is the case — checkable by somebody who disagrees. REASONING why that evidence makes that claim true. It never contains a
new fact. That is how you tell it from evidence.
CLAIM
EVIDENCE
REASONING
Write the sentence numbers into the boxes.
What Each Part Was Doing
Grade 7 · Reading · Page 2 of 2
Cover the two REASONING sentences with your hand and read the rest. What is left?
Now cover the EVIDENCE instead. What is left, and which of the two removals damaged the argument more?
Sentence 5 states no fact at all. Explain how a sentence with no facts in it can be the most important one on the page.
Sentences 1 and 6 are both claims and they are not the same claim. What changed, and why would a writer narrow their claim at the end rather than the start?