Teaching Argumentative Writing? Start With Debates

If you’ve taught a writing unit before, you know one of the hardest parts for students is getting started. I used to have students who – days into a new unit – were still trying to figure out where to begin. That’s a lot of wasted time (and frustration for everyone involved). While teaching argumentative writing one year, I had a lightbulb moment: what if we started with a classroom debate? It would get students’ brains churning, and get them over the “I don’t know what to write” hump. I’m sharing how you can bring debates to your argumentative writing unit, and why it works.

What is Argumentative Writing?

Let’s start with the basics: what is argumentative writing? Argumentative essays require that students do some investigation or research on a topic, and then choose a clear stance. Argumentative essays include evidence to support a stance and a counterargument.

What can make writing argumentative essays a challenge for students is picking their stance. A lot of students aren’t sure where to start. Or they jump too quickly into writing without thinking through the evidence they will use. That’s where debates are a life-saver: they get students thinking about the different positions before they begin writing, so they can take a strong stance from the beginning.

Teaching Argumentative Writing with Debates

As I said, getting started can be one of the hardest parts of the writing process for students. Students might feel overwhelmed or frustrated by writing, so they drag their feet to start. Or maybe they jump into writing too fast without thinking through their stance. 

Starting with a debate solves both of these issues. Just like in an essay, students have to investigate, choose a stance, and argue their point (in a meaningful way) during a debate. Holding a verbal class debate is basically a giant brainstorming session. It will help students generate ideas and let them lean on their classmates for support.

How to Hold a Class Debate

I can already hear the rebuttals! “Sounds great, Martina, but how am I going to get twenty-five 7th graders to participate in a debate?” Like anything in middle school, it’s not a walk in the park. But it’s doable. Middle schoolers love to argue about random things – and you’re giving them a platform to do exactly that! Make it fun and lean into it.

#1 Choose a Topic

Should parents be allowed to spy on their kid’s phones? Should certain video games be banned for middle schoolers? There are tons of argumentative essay topics out there, but I suggest choosing one that students can have a passionate opinion about (especially if this is your first time teaching argumentative writing to this group of students).

#2 Give Them Time to Brainstorm

After you introduce the topic, give students time to brainstorm independently. Set the timer, and have students jot down their thoughts. This is similar to a quick write – so they don’t need to worry about grammar or writing in the “correct” format. 

You can also encourage students to brainstorm “for” and “against” the topic before they can decide which stance to take. This will also help when it comes time to write a counterargument.

#3 Debate with a Partner or the Class

When the timer is up, pair students together and have them debate with each other. During this debate, students are sharing their position and the evidence they have to support it. The other partner is looking for areas where they disagree, and they can share their position and evidence.

You may have pairs where both students took the same position. In this case, one student can play “devil’s advocate” and argue for the other position (this is also great for helping them write counterarguments). Then they can swap out, so each student has a chance to argue for their original position.

You can do this debate on a larger scale as well by splitting the class into two teams. Each team will take a different position, and the team will work together to share evidence that supports their position. It’s more challenging to get the whole class involved this way, but it’s a good strategy to model classroom debates if it’s their first time.

Before you send students off to debate, I highly recommend setting some ground rules. What does this debate look like and sound like? You might do a practice round to model a debate or show them a video of a classroom debate.

#4 Debrief the Debate

After the debates, you want to hold a debrief. During this time, share key vocabulary around argumentative writing and reinforce how to write an argumentative essay. Collect some of the evidence used in the debates, and have students rate the strength of the argument. You can also brainstorm counterarguments together.

This debrief is one of the most important parts of teaching argumentative writing because it helps students gather more ideas for their argumentative essays. I highly recommend having students write down the evidence shared in the debate (or you can create an anchor chart during your debrief). This is going to give students a strong start to their argumentative essays.

Argumentative Writing Unit

If teaching argumentative writing is making your head spin, check out my done-for-you Argumentative Writing Unit. This unit scaffolds how to write and teach argumentative essays!

The unit includes 23 full lesson plans, slide presentations, notebook pages for students, teacher keys and examples, student reference pages, and more for a well-rounded unit. You’ll start the unit with a debate (just like we talked about here!) and guide them through a finished essay.