Write arguments focused on discipline-specific content.
Common Core State Standards, Grades 11-12, Writing: History, Science & Technical Subjects · Read it at the source · Checked October 14, 2026
What WHST.11-12.1 Means in Plain English
Juniors and seniors argue a question in their discipline with a precise, knowledgeable claim and show why it matters. They develop counterclaims thoroughly, with the strongest data on each side, for readers whose values and biases they anticipate, vary syntax at the turns and keep the field’s formal conventions.
Grades 9 to 10 (WHST.9-10.1) develop counterclaims fairly for the audience’s knowledge and concerns. Grades 11 to 12 add claims whose significance is argued, thorough treatment, readers’ values and possible biases, and varied syntax. This last band is the college and career readiness goal for subject-area arguments.
WHST.11-12.1 I Can Statements
I can state a precise claim and show why it matters.
I can develop counterclaims fully for readers’ values and doubts.
I can mark each turn with varied sentences and close formally.
WHST.11-12.1 Worked Example
Two students answered from the same document set; only one wrote for the alumni who still miss their one-room schools.
Prompt
Did closing Dunmore’s one-room schools and busing their pupils to a single consolidated school, between 1924 and 1931, help or harm the county’s farm children? Write an argument for the county historical society’s newsletter, whose readers include many alumni of the old schools. From the document set: before consolidation, the nearest high school stood 18 miles from most farms, and 14 percent of farm children went on to high school; by 1938, 58 percent did. The longest bus route ran 70 minutes each way. A 1929 letter signed by 212 parents asked the school board to keep the Pine Hollow school open, and in a 1975 interview, former teacher Ada Ferrand recalled that her schoolhouse “was the only place the neighbors ever met.”
Not YetConsolidation was good for the county because more kids went to high school. Some people liked the one-room schools, but they were old-fashioned and one teacher could not teach every grade well. The new school was clearly better, and anyone who says otherwise is just being nostalgic.The claim names no measure or time span, and the 14 and 58 percent figures that would make it precise and show its significance never appear. The counterclaim gets a single sentence that waves it away, the bus routes and the 212-parent letter go unmentioned, and calling readers nostalgic insults the alumni this newsletter is written for.
Meets the StandardConsolidating Dunmore’s one-room schools between 1924 and 1931 helped its farm children more than it harmed them, because it put high school within their reach: 14 percent went on before consolidation, and 58 percent did by 1938. Many readers of this newsletter remember what was lost, and the loss was real. In 1929, 212 parents signed a letter asking to keep the Pine Hollow school open, and former teacher Ada Ferrand recalled that her schoolhouse “was the only place the neighbors ever met.” Those parents had reason to object to the buses as well, since the longest route kept children on the road 70 minutes each way. Yet neither the letter nor the bus routes weighs as much as the enrollment figures, because before consolidation the nearest high school stood 18 miles from most farms. The county traded a neighborhood gathering place for a way past the eighth grade, a cost its alumni are right to remember and a gain its children could not have had any other way.The claim is precise (help outweighed harm, measured by who reached high school), and the 14 and 58 percent figures establish its significance. The counterclaim is developed thoroughly: the parents’ letter, Ferrand’s memory and the 70-minute route each appear as evidence, and the writer grants that the loss was real before showing what counts for more, which respects the alumni’s values. Syntax varies at the turns (a short sentence granting the loss, a sentence opening with Yet), the tone stays objective, and the close weighs both sides.
Moves to Use
Make the claim precise by naming the measure that decides it, then show why it matters.Give the counterclaim its own evidence, as the people who believe it would put it.Grant what the other side gets right, then show why it counts for less.Vary sentence shape at each turn: a short sentence granting a point, then one opening with Yet.Close on the trade-off the evidence supports, in the discipline’s formal register.
Common Mistakes with WHST.11-12.1
A claim with no measure
“Consolidation was good for the county.”
Try this: Have students name the evidence that would settle the question, then rewrite the claim so that evidence could prove it wrong.
Counterclaims in one dismissive line
“Some people liked the old schools, but they were old-fashioned.”
Try this: Require one full paragraph per counterclaim with its own document, then ask what a reader who holds it would say is missing.
Writing for the readers who already agree
Calling the alumni nostalgic in a newsletter they will read
Try this: Have students list what the target readers value, then cut or rewrite any sentence that dismisses those values instead of weighing them.