If you’re noticing a large gap between your students’ speaking skills and the ambitious Speaking and Listening Standards within the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), you’re not alone: many teachers that I talk to share how difficult it is to have discussions or debates in which students actually listen to one another and respond. Mentioning […]
Tag Archives | Debate
Common Core SL.CCR.2 Explained
SL.CCR.2 — that’s the 2nd College and Career Readiness anchor standard within the Speaking and Listening strand of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for ELA/Literacy — reads as follows: Integrate and evaluate information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally. This one took me a minute, because it doesn’t seem to have much […]
8 Reasons I Embrace Arguments in my Classroom
While writing yesterday’s post about the first writing anchor standard (W.CCR.1), I began to list some reasons why arguments really were a highlight of my past school year’s English and world history classes. I didn’t think I’d do anything with the list so soon… Until today. While I was outside in the driveway cutting some […]
Common Core W.CCR.1 Explained
W.CCR.1 — that’s the 1st College/Career Readiness anchor standard within the Writing strand of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for ELA/Literacy — reads as follows: Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence. Before exploring the actual standard, let’s discuss the “specialness” […]
5 Ways to Make Rigorous Arguments Fun
“Argument,” mentions Appendix A of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), “is the soul of an education” (p. 24). Why? According to Neil Postman, argument forces the arguer to consider the strengths and weaknesses of multiple perspectives (p. 24, CCSS Appendix A). In other words, arguing helps you see the complex nature of things; it […]
4 Ways to Screw Up (and Fix) In-class Arguments
Yesterday, something awesome happened during lunch: our school’s burgeoning “Nerd Club” decided to hold a debate on which video game console is the best. Here’s how Sean M. got it kicked off: This was so much fun. I applaud my students for taking it upon themselves to carry out an intellectual debate during their lunch […]