Animal Shelter Project: Includes a Common Core Argumentative Essay - This is Part 1

Students ask me each year why we have to do this project which is hurtful for someone like me who feels so strongly the need to protect innocent animals.
However, the answer to that is that according to state standards in art, they must do a community project - this is our community project. For ceramic students, I have them (when I taught kindergarten and 2nd grade students, they made ceramic dog and cat face refrigerator magnets) make ceramic dogs and cats with magnets put on the back for refrigerator magnets.
For Intro. to Art, I buy generic Shrink Film from Amazon - (comes in 25, 30, or 50 sheets). I cut it into 1" X 2" pieces. and students make "Shrinky Dink Style" earrings of dogs and cats. These projects are sold at a gallery in our town and the money goes to our community animal shelter. The other projects go to the Humane Society where my husband and I purchased our 2 rescue dogs.

I then begin the project by telling the students that I will preload them with information about my experience with raising a puppy so that they can begin to fill out our chart. On the top of the chart I have written, "Some People Say That Purchasing a Puppy is Better Than Purchasing a Rescue Dog."
Under it I have put a line down the center of the chart. On one side I have written "Shelter Dogs," and on the other side I have written "Puppies."
I tell them the story of our puppy (with a couple of photos of her on the board):
1. Urinating everywhere
2. Destroying many items
3. Expensive vet visits
etc....
In the next post, I'll post a typical chart soon so that you can see what Info. students usually give. This chart will be posted after students help fill out the "Shelter Dogs" side of the chart also(so that you can see how one side of the chart relates to the other). We fill out that side of the chart after students take turns reading parts of shelter dog articles to give them the knowledge they will need, and show them photos that I took at the animal shelter nearby as well as the humane society to help them see what the places are like hopefully encouraging them to consider going there.
Then, I ask students to help me fill out the chart.
For this project, we are writing an essay as a class so students can practice writing an argumentative essay with assistance. The way I grade this essay is:
Students who sit and follow along with us writing the essay, paying attention the whole time receive a "C-." Students who volunteer answers filling out the chart, assist reading articles about rescue dogs, ask appropriate questions, volunteer experience/knowledge of their own and help compose the final essay that we write receive 1 point for each answer given: 1 point=C+, 2 points =B-, 3 points = B+, 4 points =A-, and 5 points = A+. I am very easy at giving these points - even for just a tad bit different answer I will give points. I want as many people to support this project as I can and their attention and effort is exceptionally important.