Write arguments focused on discipline-specific content.
Common Core State Standards, Grades 9-10, Writing: History, Science & Technical Subjects · Read it at the source · Checked October 14, 2026
What WHST.9-10.1 Means in Plain English
Ninth and tenth graders argue history and science questions with a precise claim set apart from the alternative, data for both sides, the strengths and limits of each, and a conclusion that follows. A history argument cites documents by source and date; a science argument, trials and measurements.
Grades 6 to 8 (WHST.6-8.1) acknowledge the opposing claim and support their own with credible sources. Grades 9 to 10 develop the counterclaim fairly, with its own evidence, link the sections and hold an objective tone. Grades 11 to 12 (WHST.11-12.1) add knowledgeable claims and the reader’s values and biases.
WHST.9-10.1 I Can Statements
I can state a precise claim and set it apart from the alternatives.
I can give the counterclaim its own evidence, strengths and limits.
I can argue in the formal, objective style my discipline expects.
WHST.9-10.1 Worked Example
Both students worked from the same four documents; only one gave the conservation side its best evidence and admitted the limits of its own.
Prompt
U.S. History, document-based argument. Did the Civilian Conservation Corps camp in Ellery County matter more as relief for struggling families or as conservation of the land? Argue one side and develop the other fairly. Document A, the camp’s final report, 1942: enrollees planted 1.4 million pine seedlings on eroded hillsides, built 31 check dams in gullies and cut 40 miles of fire trail. Document B, the county relief office, 1938: families on relief fell from 610 in 1934 to 390, and the director credits the camp’s checks, $25 of each enrollee’s $30 monthly pay sent home, for “nearly a third of the drop.” Document C, enrollee Ray Tolliver to his mother, 1939: “I know that money is what keeps you and the girls fed.” Document D, the county forester, 1991: the camp’s pines still hold the slopes along Ridge Road, where gullies once cut the farms apart.
Not YetThe CCC was mostly about helping families because it gave them money during hard times. Some people might say it was about the trees, but helping people is more important than trees. So the CCC was a relief program.The claim takes a side but never gets precise: no county, no years, no numbers from Document B. The counterclaim is waved off with a value judgment, “more important than trees,” instead of developed with Documents A and D, and no evidence is cited by source and date, the convention a history reader expects.
Meets the StandardBetween 1934 and 1942, the Civilian Conservation Corps camp in Ellery County mattered more as relief for families than as conservation, though its conservation work has outlasted the relief. The relief office’s 1938 report is the strongest evidence: families on relief fell from 610 to 390, and the director credits the camp’s checks, $25 of every $30 an enrollee earned, for nearly a third of that drop. Ray Tolliver’s 1939 letter shows what those checks meant inside one house, since he writes that the money “keeps you and the girls fed.” This evidence has limits, however: the director’s “nearly a third” is his own estimate, one letter speaks for one family, and the checks stopped when the camp closed in 1942. The case for conservation rests on firmer ground in one respect, because the camp planted 1.4 million pines and built 31 check dams, and the county forester reported in 1991 that those pines still hold the slopes along Ridge Road. Yet the forester wrote fifty years later about the land, not about what the camp meant to the county while it ran. Judged by what it did during its eight years, the camp was first a relief program, and its conservation work became its longest-lasting result.The claim is precise, one county, eight years and one comparison, and it sets itself apart from the alternative in the first sentence. Each side gets documents with their dates, and the writer names a limitation of each: the director’s estimate and the single letter on one side, the forester’s fifty-year distance on the other. That fair development in a history form is what WHST.9-10.1b and d add, and however and yet mark each turn between claim and counterclaim.
Moves to Use
Make the claim precise: name the place, the years and the comparison.Cite each document by its source and date, as historians do.Give the opposing claim its best documents before weighing them.Name one limitation of your own evidence, not only the other side’s.Conclude with the judgment the weighing supports, in an objective tone.
Common Mistakes with WHST.9-10.1
Opinion in place of the other side’s evidence
“Some people might say it was about the trees, but helping people is more important than trees.”
Try this: Require the counterclaim paragraph to cite at least one document by source and date before the writer answers it.
A claim too vague to argue
“The CCC was mostly about helping families.”
Try this: Have students rewrite the claim until it names a place, a time span and the alternative it beats.
Evidence with no source or date
“It says the money kept them fed.”
Try this: Teach the history convention: every piece of evidence names its source and date, like “Tolliver, letter to his mother, 1939.”
It names the place (Ellery County), the years (1934 to 1942) and the alternative it argues against, conservation of the land, all in its first sentence.
Which limitations of its own evidence does the strong response admit?
The relief director’s “nearly a third” is his own estimate, Ray Tolliver’s letter speaks for one family, and the checks stopped when the camp closed in 1942.
Why is Document D strong evidence for the counterclaim, and what is its limit?
It shows the camp’s pines still holding the slopes fifty years later, a lasting effect, but it says nothing about what the camp meant to the county while it ran.