With midterm elections upon the United States and Americans demonstrating a penchant for argumentation heavy on earnestness and light on amicability, I thought this might be a helpful bit to share. Sometimes teachers write in with questions like this: “Okay, I’m doing pop-up debates, but sometimes they get really intense. What do I do?” Before […]
Argument
The Argument for Earnest and Amicable Argument
Argument, my dear colleague, is precious. I’m not being sarcastic here. Something that is precious (from the Latin pretium, or price) is highly valuable; it is to be treated with the greatest of care. Like an irreplaceable family heirloom passed down through the generations, argument comes to us not at the behest of some list […]
Improving Pop-Up Debates: Tracking the Argument
Here are some problems that have cropped up in my pop-up debates this year: Students give their mandatory speech and then sit down and disengage from the ongoing discussion — so, poor listening; Students repeat one another — which is both a cause and an effect of poor listening; Students make effective arguments that are […]
Boiling Down Argument: Five Approaches to Teaching Argument
Last time, we examined the challenges of boiling down critical thinking into something manageable for teachers and students, ending with the conclusion that, if we teach argument well, we’re going to begin teaching the heart of critical thinking well. In short, we’re wise to “go big on argument” all across the content areas making disciplinary […]
Fulkersonian Argument: The Mixture of Debate and Discussion toward which Pop-Up Debates Strive
In the introduction to Teaching the Argument in Writing (1996), there’s this spot where author Richard Fulkerson beautifully depicts the argumentative culture I hope to build my classes on each year: “…I want students to see argument in a larger, less militant, and more comprehensive context — one in which the goal is not victory but a good […]