Title: Competency Assessment: (CU2 M1) Generate a Claim
Course: SkillsCom WR 122 15.0 > Section: Credit Unit 2 Module 1 - Toulmin's Structure of Argument

Before beginning this Competency Assessment, review the instructions, linked below, for the next essay you will be writing:

Essay #2 Instructions (Google Doc)

Competency Assessment: Generate a Claim

Read the assignment sheet for your second essay and begin to consider what you might like to write about. Choose a question that you’d like to research in some depth.
This should be a topic of interest to you that meets the following criteria:

- It must be a question that is currently up for debate in our society.
- So, for instance, society has settled the broad question of Should murder be legal? However, we are still debating Should the government be able to impose capital punishment?
- It must be a question that reasonable people with clear knowledge of the field could have different answers about.
- For example, scientists and climate scholars nearly unanimously agree that climate change is occurring and will have negative impacts upon the global population. Therefore, Is climate change real? would not be a suitable question for debate. However, this issue seems to be up for debate because people without intricate knowledge of the science fields regularly discuss the issue without solid research. There are questions surrounding this issue that are clearly still up for informed discussion: What steps should my city make to prepare for the changing climate?

Choose only a topic in which you have enough knowledge to make a reasonable and informed argument. Your major field of study may provide a good starting place. Once you’ve generated a question, do some research to begin narrowing your topic or to inform yourself further about the current debates in that field. When you’ve completed some research, generate a one-sentence answer to your question that takes the form of a claim. The claim should state your answer and your major evidence (reason) for having that answer. For example, "my town should impose water restrictions for lawn-watering because it will contribute to saving our reservoir."