Raising the Level of Argument Across the School
Some High Leverage Instructional Decisions for
Raising the Level of Argument Across the School
- Establishing a culture of argument
- Advocating for ourselves
- Standing up for others
- Representing beliefs and values
- Making argumentation more visible
- Engaging kids in our arguments
- Developing trajectories: “Growing up With Argument”
- Considering a writing articulation team
- Developingand making argument units visible across grades
- Filling in gaps – go back to go forward
- Moving from social to academic arguments
- Implementing on demand writing and checklists
- Looking across them for patterns – to plan curriculum and conferences
- Compare evidence-based and text-based argument writing
- Norming expectations
- Tracking evidence of “stickiness” of instruction
- Calibrating teacher demonstration texts to on-demands
- Teaching kids to self-assess and set goals
- Teaching logical structure essentials
- Doing logical structure boot camp with social topics
- Sorting reasons and evidence
- Teaching micro-stories, lists, and survey data as evidence
- Tucking in counterclaim within ‘boxes and bullets’ structure
Developing Close Reading Through Literature-Based Arguments
- Practicing an Argument Protocol for Reading to Defend Positions
- Suspending judgment, illuminating complexity
- Collecting, sorting, ranking text evidence to support a claim
- Analyzing and angling evidence
- Recognizing counterclaims and alternate positions
- Defending positions by revisiting the text and angling evidence
- Developing more nuanced readings
- Honing skills at speaking and writing with logic, passion, and attentiveness to audience
- Repeated practice with argument read alouds/anchor text work
- Sharpening close reading by reading with lenses
- Learning to defend positions and angle text evidence
- Pondering moments of complexity in texts
- Analyzing the relationship between craft and theme
- Raising the level of partner interaction and engagement
- Moving argument into book clubs
- Developing juicy, debatable ideas
- Recognizing complexity in stories
- Rereading with critical lenses
- Moving beyond “I disagree” or “I want to add on” to more sophisticated and authentic literary conversation skills
- It feels like there is more to say about that…
- There may be another way to look at it…
- In the beginning I thought that, but now…
- If you look at this other part of the text though…
- In this instance that feels true, but here…
- I’m wondering how that fits with…
- I don’t know if I think the same thing/feel the same way…
- I think we should go back to…
- This reminds me of something that happens in my/our lives too
- When you think about why this part is here…
- Discerning argument in other texts such as songs, speeches, ads, etc.
- Analyzing rhetorical moves/craft moves
- Studying texts as examples of multiple genres
- Mentoring not just for craft but for social action stance
- Actively seeking texts of social and cultural relevance
Critical Reading of Nonfiction Texts for Text-Based Argument
- Analyzing Nonfiction Texts – Instructional Methods
- Assemble a text set
- Controlled
- Strategic
- Accessible
- Strategic release of text
- Shared reading
- Inquiry
- Investigate a text with some probing questions, possibly followed by or alternating with prompts
- Share responses and demand evidence
- Add in technical/literary language
- Compare and contrast across texts and within texts
- Repeated practice on a related fresh text
- Investigating Logical Fallacies / Persuasive Devices
- Scare tactics
- Either-or choices
- Slippery slope
- Overly sentimental appeals
- Bandwagon appeals
- Appeals to false authority
- Ad hominem
- Hasty generalization
- Faulty causality
- Non sequitur
- Red herring
Mary Ehrenworth
Argumentation Institute
Teachers College, Columbia University 2013