Refining CER to differentiate between explanations and arguments based on evidence
Have you wondered how to help students “argue” in a meaningful and constructive way or even avoided the argument practice or dimension?

Have you wondered why there are two different NGSS practices or the Social Studies dimensions that could apply to CER’s?

Add some guidance to your CER prompts and deepen students’ communication and thinking around data as evidence with our "Dataspire: CER – Arguing from Evidence or Constructing an Explanation?" guide! Designed as a quick reference for teachers, this resource includes:

• A breakdown of how the two writing practices compare including:
• Purpose
• Structure
• Use of evidence and core ideas
• Cognitive demand
• An example of each (for MS science)
• A summary table including the goal, tone, and focus of each

Whether you're looking to boost student CER writing skills, deepen their data exploration, or simply save time assessment planning, we think this guide can help. Make teaching evidence based reasoning stronger and easier!

​Product Category: Teacher Guide
File Format(s): digital download (pdf)
Release Date: October 17, 2025
Customer Support: [email protected]

*All digital downloads are non-refundable.