If you’ve ever felt like your students are tossing out opinions without backing them up—or writing essays that feel more like rambling journal entries—then it might be time to teach them the Claim, Evidence, Reasoning (CER) framework.
Although the CER process has its roots in the science classroom, English teachers are starting to realize what science teachers have known all along: CER helps students build critical thinking, make evidence-based arguments, and communicate more clearly.
In short? It’s a great way to boost writing skills and student engagement—especially in middle and high school ELA.
I know that my own students’ writing became more detailed, more specific, and more analytical when I implemented CER!
So how do you take the CER strategy and make it work in English Language Arts?
Let’s break it down.
(Need to introduce C-E-R fast? Check out my CER Writing Resource Bundle right here!)
What Is CER?
In short, CER is a writing framework or formula you can use to scaffold analytical writing–just like you would use a 5-paragraph essay framework to scaffold essay writing.
CER stands for Claim, Evidence, Reasoning—a writing structure originally used in general science to help students explain their thinking using the scientific process. It’s a way to build a complete and logical argument:
- Claim – A clear statement or answer to a question
- Evidence – Data, quotes, or observations that support the claim
- Reasoning – An explanation of how the evidence proves the claim, using logic or principles
In a science classroom, students might make a claim about a chemical reaction, cite data from a data table, and explain the scientific principles behind it.
But in English Language Arts (and even social studies), the CER framework is just as powerful. Students can make claims about character motivation, cite lines from a novel, and explain how that quote supports a theme—developing analytical skills that transfer across any subject area.
If you need a better breakdown–with specific examples–be sure to check out my blog post, “Claim, Evidence, Reasoning: What You Need to Know.”
Why Teach CER in Your English Class?
You might be wondering why an approach based on scientific explanations and the scientific process belongs in your high school ELA classroom. But let’s be honest—CER isn’t really about scientific principles. It’s about teaching students how to think.
In ELA, we ask students to wrestle with important questions, analyze primary sources, and interpret the natural world through literature and nonfiction texts. Sound familiar?
Just like scientific argumentation helps explain lab results, the CER method can help students explain what’s going on in a novel, a poem, or even a close reading of an informational text.
The CER framework gives them a scaffolded way to respond to complex texts, whether they’re exploring Native Americans in ancient history, or interpreting a short story through a social studies lens.
CER is the perfect way to lay a foundation for writing–whether you teach middle school students who are just starting to write essays or high school students whose writing skills are lagging.
How to Teach Claim, Evidence, Reasoning in English
Before you can use CER with students, you’ll need to begin with some direct instruction.
Start by going over the framework as a whole. Students benefit from a visible structure.
Then, you can dive more deeply into the individual parts–the claim, the evidence, and the reasoning.
I recommend teaching and practicing each piece separately before challenging students to put them all together. This helps scaffold instruction and build confidence in students.
As you move through the year, you can integrate the CER process into Socratic seminars, class discussions, or even whiteboard sessions using interactive whiteboards.
I recommend my CER Introduction Slideshow as a way to begin the process of teaching CER.
This slideshow actually includes 5 mini-lessons:
- Lesson 1 gives an overview of CER
- Lesson 2 dives deeper into claims
- Lesson 3 covers evidence more fully
- Lesson 4 explains reasoning
- Lesson 5 reviews the whole structure
Throughout the whole slideshow, students will examine an example. They’ll also see how to cite evidence and get ideas for writing conclusion sentences.
And don’t forget to offer students supports!
My favorite student support is my C-E-R Handout! It’s a two-sided, visual handout that breaks down the CER structure and offers tips for writing. You can get it for FREE below by signing up for my email list.
How to Teach the “Claim”
The claim is the student’s main idea or argument—it should be clear, specific, and answer the prompt directly.
You can help students initially with sentence starters like:
- “The author suggests that…”
- “A theme that emerges is…”
- “The character believes…”
Before moving on to evidence and reasoning, give your students time to practice writing claims.
You can give them a variety of questions to answer and challenge them to write strong claims that would answer each question.
I recommend using these Claim Task Cards! They include a variety of sentence types and focus on strong vs. weak claims.
How to Teach the “Evidence”
“Evidence” is more than just quoting a random line in a text.
Make sure you cover evidence (specifically “textual evidence” in ELA), as well as how to use quotation marks, citing evidence, and smoothly integrating evidence into an original sentence. (I always tell students to avoid “floating quotes”–quotations with no anchor text or dialogue tag.)
In ELA, evidence can come from:
- Informational texts
- Primary sources
- Novels or short stories
- Dialogue and description
- Even data tables in nonfiction readings
Also, make sure that your evidence lesson teaches how to select relevant evidence that truly supports their claim. These Evidence Task Cards focus on just that!
How to Teach the “Reasoning”
Ah, the reasoning piece—where students fall apart. This is where you’ll likely spend the most time.
Your goal is to teach students why their evidence matters. What’s the deeper connection? How does it support their claim? What scientific thinking (or literary interpretation) are they demonstrating?
I also like to teach (or review) conclusion sentences when I teach reasoning since their reasoning should end with one.
Surprisingly, my students often struggled with conclusion sentences more than their reasoning.
Try modeling with examples. Show a claim, give evidence, then invite students to make the connection through reasoning.
My Reasoning Task Cards offer plenty of examples for students to work through.
Putting CER Together
Once students are familiar with all of the parts, the next natural step is to have them write CER-style responses.
I like to build short (one-paragraph or so) writing prompts into my novel study units. These offer natural practice for CER and literary analysis skills.
If your students are working on research, you could pose research questions instead of literary ones. At the beginning of the year, keep the prompts simple. As students grow, let them develop their own questions to explore.
But be sure to offer student supports, especially in the beginning. The CER Handout I mentioned above is one such support you can offer.
You could also use graphic organizers to help students write in the beginning.
Use a graphic organizer to help students connect the claim to their evidence. A graphic organizer can help them cite correctly and avoid cherry-picking.
My Claim, Evidence, and Reasoning Graphic Organizer also offers tips and sentence starters in the margins to help students if they get stuck.
Moving Beyond CER
Once students master the CER framework, don’t stop there. Use it as a springboard for more complex writing and discussion tasks.
A natural next step is the five-paragraph essay. After students master CER, the transition to essays is much easier!
A thesis is like a big, overarching claim. Each body paragraph is essentially one CER paragraph. And those new conclusion sentence skills will be tested when students have to expand those sentences into conclusion paragraphs.
If you want resources that continue using the CER language while teaching the essay, be sure to check out my Five-Paragraph Essay Writing Resources here.
How To Teach Claim, Evidence, Reasoning in ELA: Final Thoughts
Whether you teach general science, English Language Arts, or something else entirely, the CER method is a great way to boost student engagement, build critical thinking, and prepare students to tackle the real world with clarity and confidence.
Want ready-to-go materials that walk your students through the CER process in the ELA classroom?
Check out my scaffolded CER resources [here] and save yourself hours of prep!