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Phones in Class: Shared Facts, Different Conclusions

Compare two original arguments about classroom phone bans, analyzing how authors emphasize evidence and interpret shared facts differently.

Grade 7ELAInteractive · Printable

Aligned toRI.7.9

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Single worksheet
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1 Common Core standard
Printable answer key
13 questions
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Details

Format: Interactive · Printable
Grade: Grade 7
Subject: ELA
Question types: Multiple choice, Matching, Circle the answer, Short answer

About this worksheet

What students practice

Students compare how two authors emphasize different evidence about classroom phone rules.
Students analyze how authors interpret shared facts to support different conclusions.
Students support comparisons of arguments with specific evidence from both texts.

How to use

Have students read both articles and mark shared facts before answering. Discuss how authors can agree about a fact while disagreeing about what policy it supports.

Curriculum

Common Core standard covered

RI.7.9

Analyze how authors writing on the same topic shape it differently by stressing different evidence or reading the facts differently.

Preview

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Name Date

Phones in Class: Shared Facts, Different Conclusions

Compare how two authors use evidence to argue for different classroom phone rules.

Read the arguments

Both authors address whether schools should ban personal phones during class. Track what each author emphasizes and how each interprets shared facts.

Text A: Put Attention First — by Dalia Chen

1A classroom phone rule should begin with what a lesson requires: attention that students and teachers can count on. Schools should prohibit personal phone use during instructional time, with planned exceptions for health and accessibility needs. Students could keep phones switched off and stored in their bags rather than surrendering them for the entire day. This is not a claim that phones have no value. It is a judgment about which tools should be available by default while a class is learning together.

2A phone can photograph a diagram or open a reference page. The same device can also receive messages unrelated to the lesson. Even when an alert is silent, a student may turn toward a lit screen or wonder who has written. A stored, switched-off phone removes that invitation before the teacher has to interrupt instruction to address it. The practical question is not whether students intend to concentrate, but whether classroom routines make concentration easier.

3Supporters of flexible rules point out that students need practice managing digital distractions. That goal matters, but practice does not require personal phones to remain available throughout every subject. Teachers can plan digital activities using school devices when those devices are available. Where they are not, a lesson can use printed references or another planned method. A quick photograph of notes may be convenient, but convenience alone should not decide the rule. The teacher must consider classmates whose attention may be pulled away as well as the student holding the phone.

4A consistent default also gives teachers a clear starting point. They would not need to decide whether each glance at a screen serves the assignment. Exceptions should be arranged privately so students who rely on a device for health or accessibility are not treated as rule breakers. Schools should explain the rule and review how it works, including whether it creates new difficulties. Still, the burden should fall on making a necessary exception work, not on repeatedly defending an ordinary lesson from an optional interruption.

Text B: Teach the Decision — by Soren Bell

1Personal phones should be put away during explanations, discussions, and independent work unless a teacher authorizes a specific use. That sounds close to a ban, but the difference matters. A school should give teachers room to use a familiar tool when it serves a clear learning purpose. Permission should have a beginning, an end, and a task attached to it. Schools can protect attention without deciding in advance that every useful classroom phone activity must be replaced.

2A phone can photograph a diagram or open a reference page. Messages unrelated to a lesson can arrive on that same device. Those facts call for a boundary between assigned use and personal use. A teacher might permit students to photograph a complicated diagram, then require phones to return to bags before discussion resumes. This routine makes the change from using a tool to setting it aside part of the lesson rather than leaving students to guess when checking a screen is acceptable.

3School devices can provide alternatives, but they are not equally available in every classroom. Printed materials are useful too, although replacing a phone activity may require different preparation. A teacher should weigh those practical conditions alongside the risk of distraction. Where personal phones are used, students without them need an equivalent way to complete the task, such as a school device or a printed copy. Health and accessibility arrangements must also remain available. Flexibility should widen access to learning, not make ownership of a particular device a condition of participation.

4The strongest objection is that judging phone use can consume teaching time. Clear routines cannot promise to remove that problem, and a class that repeatedly struggles may need tighter limits. Yet a blanket prohibition gives up opportunities to teach students how to follow a purposeful digital routine. Schools should examine both interruptions and the usefulness of permitted tasks when reviewing their rules. The question is not simply whether a screen appeared during class. It is whether students used it for a defined purpose and then returned their attention to the shared work.

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