A position that can survive its strongest objection
Retrieve the four load-bearing parts
Use the essay preparation completed at the end of Lesson 6.
State your recommendation, strongest reason, strongest limitation and revision condition in four sentences.
- Use the signed or precisely unresolved decision record from Lesson 5. Do not begin a new topic.
- Your partner listens for the point where an opposing stakeholder would stop recognising their position.
Choose the opening that gives the essay a real argument to develop.
1. Which thesis is specific enough for the station-office essay?
2. Which sentence represents an opposing view rather than dismissing it?
3. Which conclusion remains open to evidence?
A model that recommends a method for choosing
A trial should promise a method, not a result · Model essay
The old station office can support only one main activity during its six-month trial. That limit makes the choice real, but it does not make prediction reliable. Neither proposal has produced outcomes yet. The forum should therefore choose the first use through a published feasibility test, then judge it through evidence tied to its purpose. What it can promise now is a fair method, not a successful result.
Mara’s workshop offers a clear possible benefit. A dependable place for repairs could let practical knowledge move between generations and reduce waste. Yet people can rely on it only if volunteers cover a stable timetable. Earlier consultation might have clarified their availability, but it would not have guaranteed it. Selecting the workshop without that check would turn enthusiasm into a promise the organisers might be unable to keep.
Ivo’s study-room proposal starts from a different need. Quiet desks and supported sessions could widen access for residents who lack space or help. His insistence on speaking to non-users matters because a busy room reveals nothing about people unable to attend. From his perspective, success means completed tasks and fewer barriers, not a high attendance total. The final recommendation must preserve that point even if the workshop is chosen.
The strongest objection is that a feasibility test can become a polite way to postpone a difficult decision. The building cannot be organised around an abstract method; one activity must receive the room and timetable. This objection is fair. The test should be short and decisive: each proposal should submit a minimum staffing plan, a deliverable schedule and one purpose-linked measure. The activity meeting those conditions more securely should become the main trial.
The review must have consequences. For a workshop, the forum could examine hours delivered, repairs attempted and skills practised. For a study room, it could examine completed tasks and barriers to access. In either case, the organisers should publish the evidence they expected, the experience they could not capture and the condition that would trigger change. Not only would this make the choice accountable, but it would also prevent flexibility from becoming a series of unexplained reactions.
A community builds trust before it knows whether a project will succeed. It does so by making a limited promise and admitting what the evidence cannot show. The station office should begin with the feasible main use and a stable schedule. Its longer future should depend on a review that residents can understand, question and use to change direction.
Identify how the model sustains one argument across several perspectives.
1. What does the model recommend before it recommends either activity?
2. Why does the third paragraph remain necessary if the workshop is eventually selected?
3. What is the purpose of the strongest objection in paragraph four?
4. How does the final paragraph avoid claiming a result that does not exist?
Six paragraphs, one developing claim
The argument map
| Paragraph | Job | Cohesion into the next paragraph |
|---|---|---|
| 1 · Frame and thesis | Name the real constraint, reject an unreliable assumption and state the recommendation with its condition. | The recommendation creates the test used to examine the first option. |
| 2 · Main case | Give the preferred option’s intended benefit, practical mechanism and strongest limitation. | The limitation opens space for a perspective the main case cannot represent alone. |
| 3 · Signable opposing view | Present its priority, reason, constraint and measure of success in terms its stakeholder would accept. | End by showing what the final recommendation must preserve. |
| 4 · Objection and response | State the strongest objection to your own thesis, accept the valid part and revise the proposal where necessary. | The revised proposal supplies concrete conditions for review. |
| 5 · Evidence and revision condition | Say what would be measured, whose experience would count and what could justify changing direction. | Separate the limited first choice from the longer conclusion. |
| 6 · Conclusion | State what can be promised now and what must remain conditional. | No new reason, slogan or imagined result. |
The cohesion test. Underline the last sentence of each paragraph and the first sentence of the next. Name the relationship: option → limitation; limitation → missing perspective; opposing view → requirement; objection → revised method; review evidence → limited conclusion.
The grammar budget. Use a cleft only for a named rival, an inversion only for an earned two-part claim, a hedge only on the uncertain element, and a modal perfect only for a past alternative. The essay is not required to contain all four. Every marked form needs a discourse job; everything else may remain plain.
Restore the bridge sentence that lets each paragraph develop the same argument.
The workshop could support practical exchange, provided that volunteers can sustain a dependable timetable. [1]
The study-room case exposes that missing question: a service may be reliable for the people inside it while remaining inaccessible to others. [2]
That requirement strengthens the review, but it also creates a risk: the forum could postpone the main choice indefinitely while asking for more information. [3]
Once a main use has been selected, the review must connect evidence to purpose rather than to activity alone. [4]
The first choice can therefore be firm without pretending to be permanent.
Turn a loose plan into an essay claim
Rewrite each planning note as a sentence suitable for the essay. Preserve evidence status and the opposing perspective.
General theme → arguable thesis
Community projects are important and should help everyone.
Imagined result → intended benefit
The workshop reduced waste and taught young people useful skills.
Dismissal → signable opposing view
Ivo just wants computers, but a workshop is more social.
Ceremonial concession → consequential objection
On the other hand, some people may disagree with the workshop.
Vague review → testable condition
The group should review the project later and make changes if necessary.
Absolute ending → limited conclusion
This is definitely the best project for the future of the neighbourhood.
Check the decisions you must make before drafting.
1. Which position may the essay take?
2. What makes paragraph three more than a token counter-argument?
3. What should the conclusion add?
Write the portfolio draft
Twenty-three minutes: five to plan, fourteen to draft, four for a reader audit. Aim for 380–420 words. The finished portfolio target is 400 words; this lesson produces the complete draft that Lesson 8 will assess and finalise.
Stage 1 · Alone · 5 minutes · Map the argument
Prompt: What should the old station office become first, and how should the neighbourhood decide whether to continue or change direction?
Plan six paragraph jobs before writing any prose.
- 1: constraint and thesis. 2: main case and its limitation. 3: signable opposing view. 4: strongest objection and response. 5: evidence and revision condition. 6: limited conclusion.
- Choose workshop, study room, or a short feasibility test with an exact deadline and decision rule. “More information is needed” is not a position.
- Beside each empirical statement, mark K (known in the scenario), P (proposed), H (hypothetical) or I (your inference).
Stage 2 · Alone · 14 minutes · Draft 380–420 words
Write for a neighbourhood forum member who has not attended the earlier discussions.
Produce a self-sufficient future-building argument whose trade-off remains visible.
- Use precise references and make every paragraph boundary carry a named relationship from the argument map.
- Keep known facts, proposed actions, possible outcomes and past alternatives distinct. Do not report a fictional benefit as an achieved result.
- Represent the strongest opposing perspective in terms its stakeholder could sign, then let it change or constrain your recommendation.
- Use clefts, inversion, hedging or modal perfects only where their Lesson 4 discourse gate passes. There is no structure quota.
- End with what can be promised now, what evidence will count and what could justify changing direction.
Stage 3 · Pairs · 4 minutes · Reader audit
Swap drafts. Do not line-edit the whole essay.
Give four pieces of evidence the writer can act on before Lesson 8.
- Position: box the thesis and underline the exact condition attached to it.
- Perspective: mark the opposing paragraph S if signable or Q if you need the stakeholder’s qualification restored.
- Cohesion: draw an arrow across each paragraph boundary and name the relationship. Circle one boundary the reader must infer.
- Evidence status: find one sentence where K, P, H or I changes without support. If none does, mark the clearest controlled shift.
- Return the draft with one priority repair, not a rewritten paragraph. The writer records that priority for Lesson 8.
Choose the revision that changes the essay most
Choose the revision priority that addresses each reader response.
1. The reader can find the thesis but cannot state when the recommendation should change. What comes first?
2. The opposing stakeholder would reject your summary. What comes first?
3. One sentence treats a possible benefit as an achieved result. What kind of repair is required?
Revision appointment
Write the single priority repair at the top of your draft.
State what you will change, where it occurs and how the reader’s experience should improve.
- Keep the annotated draft, decision record and Lesson 6 repair log together for the final assessment.
A complete draft, ready for evidence-based revision
Exit ticket
Lesson 8 assesses the written essay and the spoken discussion at the B2 exit point.
Read your thesis and conclusion aloud. Confirm that the first makes a choice and the second preserves its review condition.
- Bring the 380–420-word draft with reader marks and the priority repair visible.
- Bring the full unit evidence set: Lesson 1 baseline, error log and discussion decision record. These show development; they are not extra writing tasks.