Making a CASE
Improving Use of Text Evidence in Students' Writing
Published in: The Reading Teacher, v. 70, no. 4, p. 479–484
Posted on RAND.org on March 13, 2017
Recent English Language Arts standards emphasize teaching students to use text evidence to support their claims and opinions; yet, students often struggle to do so effectively in their writing. To help students develop this skill, clearer understanding of what effective evidence use entails and targeted feedback to guide students' writing improvement are needed. This article describes four criteria to focus on when helping students use text evidence to support their claims or make a case in their writing. The criteria focus on the extent to which the evidence is complete, accurate, specific, and explained (CASE).
This report is part of the RAND Corporation External publication series. Many RAND studies are published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals, as chapters in commercial books, or as documents published by other organizations.
The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.