Argument

Oh, Yeah?! Chapters 1-2. 4-7, 9 by Smith, Wilhelm, and Fredricksen

Say:
    The definition of argument used in this reading was much broader than the one that I had previously thought of. Before reading this book, I always viewed argument as something that took place between two people who disagreed about something.  Smith, Wilhelm, and Fredricksen, present argument as something that happens every time we make a decision.  For example, if I am choosing something to wear in the morning, by choosing which tie to wear with which shirt, I am making a claim about fashion, or what I need to wear for certain situations.  It was interesting to go back and think about all the arguments that I make on a day to day basis.
     This book is heavily dependent on the Common Core Standards.  It makes sense that they wrote this with those in mind, because at the time of writing this, these standards were the norm for almost the whole country including South Carolina.  This is not to say that now that we are on SC State Standards this book is useless.  In fact, I would argue the exact opposite.  In Vic's class, we did an activity where we matched up the SC standards with similar Common Core State Standards, and our new state standards are pretty much just copied and pasted from the Common Core.  That's all I have to say about the first chapter, because it was just the argument for writing this book to the CCSS and that is self explanatory.
     Chapter Two was one of the more interesting chapters for me to read.  Like I said before, I didn't really know how an argument was structured, or what the process was.  After reading this chapter, I was able to place this structure over any other reading, or discussion that I have had to do.  It was also cool to see how this book was structured as an argument for a good chunk of it.  This also made me think about the Socratic Circles that we talked about two weeks ago.  We could structure a lesson about argument by introducing the basic structure of argument and then have students use this structure when they are having Socratic Circles.
    Chapters four through Seven discuss how we can actually use argument in our classroom, from introducing it, to actually implementing it, and using it to teach specific things.  The use of journalistic articles in order to teach argument is interesting because not only does it give students the opportunity to evaluate another person's argument, but it also serves as a mentor text for students to form their own arguments in class. Chapter five gives us two ways to introduce arguments.  Both ways are accessible, by relating argument to two things that students are already aware of, talk and advertisements.  In our Teaching Composition class, we just began talking about argument and we started our unit by playing "Would You Rather?" This was a good entrance into argument because it gives students a choice to make and then they will definitely have a reason for making that choice.  Lastly, we are given a way to teach argument through reading.  This allows us to give students a text and describe what the author is trying to argue.  This moves into book clubs, socratic circles, and even critical lenses, as they can begin to make arguments about a text. They can do this with their peers through Socratic Circles and book clubs, but they can use the tools of critical theory to also form and support their arguments.

DO:
For this week, I wanted to create a Do that would be helpful in introducing argument to the class.  This will take the form of an interactive mini-lesson where I will present students with the parts of Toulmin's argument structure and then ask them to identify them in different advertisements.  I will use Vic's idea of starting with 'Would You Rather?' as a fun way to begin the lesson and to get the students involved and talking to each other.  I will end with another "Would You Rather?" and have students break down their own arguments using this process.

Argument PowerPoint