Standard 3: Critical Reading and Writing

Students will apply critical thinking skills to reading and writing.

10.3.R.5 Students will distinguish among different kinds of evidence (e.g., logical, empirical, anecdotal) used to support conclusions and arguments in texts.

Student Actions 

Teacher Actions 

• Students will understand the argument presented by the author.
• Students will identify different types of explicit and implicit textual evidence.
• Students will draw conclusions/make logical judgments about the information within the text on the basis of evidence and prior conclusions/prior experience.
• Students will evaluate whether the reasoning an author uses is logical.
• Students will evaluate if the evidence used is relevant to the argument or provides enough proof. 

• Teachers provide examples of various arguments.
• Teachers demonstrate techniques used to understand arguments made by the author.
• Teachers provide opportunities for students to discover argument made by the author.
• Teachers provide examples of different types of textual evidence.
• Teachers provide opportunities to students to identify explicit and implicit evidence.
• Teachers provide opportunities for the student to receive feedback on whether or not they can identify different types of textual evidence. 
• Teachers demonstrate how to draw conclusions from text or based on evidence/prior experience.
• Teachers provide opportunities for students to draw conclusions from text and/or prior experience.
• Teachers provide opportunities for students to receive feedback over conclusions.
• Teachers provide examples of logical and illogical reasoning.
• Teachers provide opportunities for students to decide whether an author uses logical reasoning.
• Teachers demonstrate how to find evidence from the text to support the author’s assertions.
• Teachers provide opportunities for students to decide whether the author’s claim is adequately supported.
• Teachers provide opportunities for students to receive feedback about the effectiveness or accuracy of the student judgments.

Supporting Resources

Teacher Insights

• Primary and Secondary Sources (webpage)
• excerpts from The Lang. of Comp. & Everything's an Argument (webpage)

• Evidence can be gathered in different ways and different kinds of evidence can have different effects or make different appeals (ethos, pathos, or logos).

• Evidence that is gathered through primary sources or first-hand knowledge includes personal experience, anecdotes, current events, interviews, surveys and questionnaires, and experiments (anecdotal evidence).

• Second-hand knowledge is evidence acquired through research, reading, and investigation. It includes factual and historical information, expert opinion, and quantitative data (logical and empirical evidence).

• Empirical evidence also includes factual information derived from scientifically proven sources.

• Students should be able to identify the evidence presented and distinguish the specific type of explain how the evidence supports a claim.   

• Students should consider the effects of the evidence on the argument.

• Does the evidence appeal to ethos, pathos, or logos?

• Does the author only use evidence that appeals to pathos?

• Or are there are also appeals to logos?

• Depending on the effects, students can evaluate the quality of the argument.

Due to recursive nature of the standards, it is essential that teachers are aware of how all objectives within and between strands work together for optimal instruction.