This theme emerges time and again in our conversations with English teachers nationwide: most students, when writing academic paragraphs or essays, consistently struggle to provide substantive commentary and explanation. While they are often able to craft clear topic sentences or claims and locate relevant evidence to support those claims, young writers frequently fall short when it comes to interpreting the evidence and helping the reader understand its significance.

Several strategies can be employed to address this deficiency. One of our favorites is the “this shows, this also shows” technique, which we cover in detail in this article.

Another strategy we often use to encourage students to incorporate substantive commentary in their writing is the "add a counterargument and rebuttal" technique.

With this approach, we ask students to take a finished piece of writing and reread it while considering what someone who might disagree with them would say in opposition to their assertion(s).

And we encourage students to consider potential opposing viewpoints not just in argumentative writing, but also when they analyze a poem, explain a scientific concept, or trace the causes of the Civil War.

Take a look at this simple analysis of Denise Levertov's poem, Moon Tiger, where students were asked to explain the true identity of a cryptic animal described in the poem.

This analysis is fairly basic. While it does answer the question and isn’t poorly constructed, it lacks depth and the distinctive voice of the student. For anyone who has noticed that students often hesitate to provide substantive commentary, this example will seem familiar. It’s not inadequate, but it doesn’t demonstrate deep engagement either. It feels as though the student has offered just enough analysis to fulfill the requirement, then quickly moved on.

To address this, we could simply ask the student to go back and add more commentary (such as “this shows” or “this also shows”). However, the approach we’re recommending is to have the student engage in a brief debate with an imagined opponent right within the paragraph. I’ve found that students become much more interested when I suggest this—“You want me to argue with someone in the middle of my writing? That actually sounds fun!”

To set this up in essaypop, we have the students add two discrete writing frames to their piece of writing: the counterargument frame and the rebuttal frame. We have them add these components directly after their original presentation of evidence and analysis. It looks like this when completed.

And this is what it looks like once the student has provided the counterargument and rebuttal. Notice that the student has access to comprehensive help cards in the sidebar area, where they can peruse explanations and models of effective counterclaims and comebacks.

Here is what the paragraph looks like as an MLA-formatted document. Essaypop makes this conversion in real-time.

I think you’ll agree that incorporating a counterargument and rebuttal encourages students to delve deeper into their analysis of the poem. After all, debate itself is a form of analysis, and it often feels more natural to students. I’ve noticed that emerging writers who struggle to elaborate on their explanations are frequently able to “unlock” new ideas when asked to defend their assertions against a challenge. By intentionally introducing some opposition, we can spark students’ impulse to defend their thinking and, in turn, enrich the depth of their commentary.

As mentioned earlier, counterargument and rebuttal can appear in virtually any type of writing. As we’ve seen, they can be incorporated into literary analysis, but they’re just as relevant in scientific explanations or expository pieces. I’ve even had students include counterarguments in how-to papers, challenging, for example, a reader’s objections to their method for changing a bicycle tire: “You don’t like the way I explain it? Let me show you why you’re wrong!”

The fact is, kids love to argue and debate. It's just sort of ingrained in them (just ask my own three kids). Sometimes I'll even have them square off and debate their take on a piece of literature live in class, or this can even be done in groups that you set up in the essaypop Hive. Once they've done a little sparring, I get them back to their desks and immediately have them compose their counterargument and rebuttal while the points made during the discussion are still fresh.

A quick note on the placement of counterargument and rebuttal in a paragraph or short essay: you'll notice that in the example above, these components are placed directly after the student's initial presentation of evidence and analysis and just before the closer. Of course, these components may be placed almost anywhere in the writing, but I explain to my students that this is an ideal placement as they've already made some of their major points, so the back-and-forth that follows will naturally use some of the points that have already been made. Ending with a strong, resolute closer then helps the writing achieve a cohesive and natural flow.

Finally, as with all writing frames, essaypop offers students a collection of sentence starters—academic stems and phrases they can browse to find the ideal way to begin their counterargument or rebuttal. We believe in providing students with as much scaffolding as possible, and these resources are easily accessible via the three-dot dropdown menu.

Encouraging students to actively engage with counterarguments and rebuttals transforms commentary from a rote task into an authentic intellectual exercise. By framing analysis as a debate—whether in essays, discussions, or digital platforms like essaypop—teachers empower students to deepen their thinking and clarify their positions. With practical scaffolding and opportunities to “argue” their ideas, students move beyond surface-level analysis, discovering both the confidence and complexity needed for powerful academic writing. Ultimately, when students learn to anticipate and respond to alternative perspectives, their commentary becomes not only more substantive, but also far more compelling and original.