When you claim that something is true, you state a belief. And in a free country, you can believe whatever you want. That doesn’t mean that other people will agree with you, though. You might believe that you were visited by aliens or that a ghost lives in your attic. However, other people won’t necessarily share your belief unless you can provide some proof.
The same thing is true when you create a written argument: Once you state your opinion, you need to back it up with evidence. Otherwise, readers (including your teacher) won’t take your claim seriously. By the end of this lesson, you’ll put this rule into practice: You’ll write a claim about Lois Lowry’s novel The Giver, and you’ll support your claim with evidence.
The first step in this process is to write a claim statement, a sentence that states what you believe to be true about one of the novel’s themes, or big ideas. Your claim statement doesn’t need to list all the evidence―that comes later. However, it’s often a good idea to hint at the kind of evidence you will provide.
Read these two claim statements about The Giver.
Events in The Giver, along with the changes that occur in Jonas, suggest that memories add real value to people’s lives.
The setting of The Giver―a community that ensures safety by requiring conformity or “sameness”―suggests that freedom often involves risk.
Question
The writer of the first claim statement hints that evidence for the claim is found mainly in the novel’s events. What source of evidence is mentioned in the second claim statement?
