Writer’s Notebook: Practice Counterargument and Refutation Paragraphs

For this Writer’s Notebook, you will write two paragraphs, a counterargument and a refutation paragraph. You will use  “What’s a College Education Really Worth?” by Naomi Schaefer Riley as the counterargument. In other words, you will prove why she is wrong in your refutation paragraph. You will defend the thesis statement “The benefits of graduating from a four-year university outweigh the negatives.” 

In your counterargument paragraph, you will quote from the article “What’s a College Education Really Worth?” by Naomi Schaefer Riley in order to prove why students don’t need college.

In your refutation paragraph, you will come up with reasons why graduating from a four-year university has more benefits than negatives in order to prove why students should go to college. 

Follow the templates in the lesson over counterarguments and refutations EXACTLY.

In the end you will have TWO paragraphs: a counterargument that uses Schaefer Riley’s ideas and quotes from that article and a refutation paragraph that has your own ideas about why graduating from college is beneficial. If you want, you may find an article that has a good quote about the benefits of graduating from college and use it in your refutation paragraph. But it is not required. You can simply use your own ideas