Although student production of arguments in group learning environments has been shown to promote scientific reasoning and understanding of science concepts, little previous work has examined the relationship of the structure of curricular materials to the production of argumentation. In this study, we examined this relationship for a collection of published guided inquiry activities in a general chemistry course. Videorecordings of the weekly in-class conversations of a group of four students using these materials were made during one semester. This student discourse was analyzed using Toulmin's Argumentation Scheme to determine the occurrence and the level of arguments produced. We found that prompts were highly effective in producing arguments, that convergent questions produced more arguments than directed questions, and that the segmented structure of the Learning Cycle approach used in these materials helped to scaffold arguments. These findings provide insight for those who wish to create or modify written activities to promote student argumentation in small group learning environments.