Argumentative Writing Vocabulary: Building an Argument Using the CREW Format

These "editable" slides will help students make claims and support them with reasoning, evidence, and a warrant. I use these slides in my 8th grade ELA classroom to introduce argumentative writing vocabulary and model building a basic body paragraph of an argumentative piece. My students write an argumentative essay as a summative assessment to a debate unit, and these slides help students understand the basic building blocks of an argument using the Toulmin Model. A list of useful sentence starters is included to help students get started and organize their thinking.

Vocabulary terms include: claim, reasoning, evidence, and warrant. Each vocabulary slide includes a definition and an example, building a basic paragraph. Use the acronym (C.R.E.W.) to prompt students to build paragraphs in all their writing assignments. I have also included slides for arguing against counter claims. These slides include the terms: counterclaim, refutation, and rebuttal.

Aligned to CCSS ELA Argumentative Writing Standards for grades 7-10.

If you have my informative writing slides already, these slides are similar in that they use the same vocabulary terms, but different in that they are geared towards argumentative writing. The example paragraph is different and written from an argumentative stance rather than an informative one.