FROM THE DESK OF The Structured Writing Teacher

Reese's or KitKat? If you ask a middle schooler to tell you which is best, they can do this immediately. But when you ask Why? you often get: "Because it's good!" "Because I like it!" "Because it's the best!" Most middle schoolers don’t naturally understand how to support their opinions with evidence. Teaching Claim, Evidence, and Reasoning (CER) is one of those higher-level skills that sounds simple—but takes serious repetition to master. I’ve spent years refining how I teach CER to middle schoolers in a way that’s engaging, repeatable, and actually sticks . It’s now a core part of my Structured Writing Workshop, and I break it into three distinct phases that build up both skill and confidence. Let’s dig into what each step looks like—and how you can make CER writing less painful (and way more powerful) for your students. Step 1: Start with Relatable Topics We don’t begin with long articles or complicated texts. Instead, I give them one...