Students often have difficulty providing enough support for their arguments when writing a paper. To help students remember to include supporting facts and details, provide them with a graphic organizer to use when writing each body paragraph of the essay. The graphic organizer should contain a line for the opening sentence of the paragraph which introduces the point, three lines for facts or details to support the point and a final line for the concluding sentence which summarizes the point.
Before students actually write an argument essay, share sample essays written by former students, teacher-created pieces or pieces found in the local newspaper. Ask students to identify the writer's argument and the points that support the argument. Providing students with a hard copy with the piece of writing and requiring them to highlight the argument in one color and support details in another color will help students remember to include the same type of information in their own essay. Using the rubric that students will be graded with, ask them to grade the sample essays. Be sure to include some bad examples so students know what not to do when writing their own essays.
Help students make their essays more effective by teaching them to avoid logical fallacies. Provide students with examples of slippery slope, hasty generalizations, circular arguments, ad hominem attacks, genetic fallacies, straw man and either/or arguments. Instead of simply explaining to students what is wrong with these examples, ask students to read the examples and determine on their own what is wrong. Students can scour newspapers and magazines to find their own examples of logical fallacies or write a paragraph containing as many logical fallacies as possible to get them out of their systems before beginning an actual essay.
Engage students in the argument writing process by staging a classroom debate. Assign half of the class to write in support of an issue and the other half of the class to write against an issue. After students have written their essays, they can use them as part of the classroom debate. Provide time for each side to state their case and allow students to chime in with facts and support from their individual papers during their team's time to speak.