Argumentative Writing (CER) - Reinventing the Toilet

This argumentative writing activity (CER = Claim, Evidence, Reasoning) is centered on an interesting question: Why is Bill Gates so interested in toilets?

The (shortened) backstory is that 2.6 billion people in the world don't have sanitary toilets, which leads to contamination, illness, and malnutrition. Bill Gates launched a challenge to reinvent the toilet for cities and villages that don't have modern plumbing systems. Links to several videos are included to share with your students. Click here for the most recently released video from Bill Gates about this project.

So this activity requires students to use the CIA's World Factbook website to collect data, which they then use to make a recommendation back to Bill Gates about which country would benefit from the reinvented toilets. The two pieces of data used are life expectancy and sanitation facility access. The student handouts include links for students to access the data, and tables for them to complete.

The download includes:

• lesson plans
• student handouts (5 pages) include a guided and non-guided CER page, as well as a scoring guide.
• a completed example of student handouts (see the preview)

If you have any questions about this activity, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Thanks!