Conflicting Viewpoints Worksheets

Related ELA Standard: RI.8.6

Core Standard
Answer Keys Here

Most works of literature have many different characters within them. Some of the characters are the main attraction, while others just there to serve a supporting role. Regardless of a characters importance to a story, each character is driven by their own motives and agenda. There are many instances where two characters that are seemingly in perfect alignment differ their views on certain events and actions. These worksheets were designed to help you spot differing viewpoints by various characters of any work.

Conflicting Viewpoints Worksheets To Print:

The New Generation Gap? – An essay might be in order here.

What's The Difference? – You are really looking to work with an opinion piece here.

Analyzing Viewpoints – A research piece is helpful here.

Does Everyone Agree? – If everyone always agreed, it would be a very boring life.

Straight As or Experience? – This is good topic for Pre-High School students to ponder.

Addressing Viewpoints – How does Darwin address the conflicting point of view?

Acknowledging Viewpoints – The author acknowledges several viewpoints with which she disagrees. What are they?

The Right of the Strongest – We look at a difference in opinion and author attempts to address it.

Universal Suffrage – Support ones right to vote is fundamental in the U.S.

Should Women Vote? – Why was this ever a question at all?

Opposing Viewpoints – Think about how the author builds his or her argument, including how conflicting viewpoints are handled.

What's for Dinner? – Preparing your own meals at home is both cheaper, healthier and better for the environment than eating out or re-heating processed food.

The Benefits of "High Raw" – Eating raw food is very good for you, but let's face it - for most of us, food is about more than just supplying the body with energy.

My Viewpoints – You will question yourself a whole bunch here.

Dealing with Conflict – An organizer to help you basically set up a knowledgeable debate.

How to Identify Conflicting Viewpoints


Understanding points of view of an author in a text is very important for the overall understanding of that text. There are several occasions in a text where the author presents two conflicting points of views because it is necessary to convey proper information and full meaning to the readers. Identification of such conflicting viewpoints within a text is not too difficult but can be a little trickier at times.


Sometimes, merely reading the whole text carefully can give you a hint of the conflicting viewpoints. However, there are a few ways to locate conflicting viewpoints in a text easily even by skimming it without paying much attention to details. Some of those tricks are given below:


Read The Topic Sentence of Each Paragraph


The topic statements can introduce the main idea of each paragraph by reading them just for one or two times. Reading these statements can help readers in the identification of conflicting viewpoints easily. You can also compare and contrast all the topic sentences in a text to find where the conflicting viewpoints are hidden.


Look for Specific Words That Introduce Conflicts


Within the same paragraph, two opposing viewpoints are introduced by the authors using some specific set of words and phrases. The most common examples of such words and phrases that introduce conflicting ideas include on the other hand, while, however, nevertheless, nonetheless, opposing to this, contrary to this, conversely, contrastingly, etc. you can skim the text for such words and focus on the idea being presented by the usage of such words to identify a viewpoint that opposes the writer’s main purpose of writing the text.


Look for Fact and Figures


An author is likely to introduce a conflicting viewpoint by stating some proven statistics in its favor. Locating facts and figures in a text are likely to take the reader directly to a conflicting viewpoint.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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