Putting the Pieces Together: Arguments

"Arguing isn't communication, it's noise."
Tony Gaskins - Motivational Speaker

I could not resist sharing this quote with all of the educators out there! I had to laugh as I read this and other quotes intended for stopping arguments because there is a huge emphasis placed on arguments in the Common Core Standards. The 2016 Alabama Course of Study: Standards for Mathematical Practice gives students opportunities to “construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others“ (Alabama Mathematics State Task Force, 2010, p. 7). The 2010 Alabama Course of Study: Literacy Standards for grades 6-12 states “Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text including the validity of the reasoning as well as the evidence and sufficiency of the evidence” (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officer, 2010, p. 102). “And while we may still be concerned with the origins and intent of the Common Core Standards, we can’t deny the centrality of ‘argument’ to those standards” (Turner & Hicks, 2017, p. 9). Rather than stopping arguments, we are encouraging them daily, teaching students how to argue effectively and even providing sentence stems to help students engage others in arguments.

The main components of arguments are claims, evidence and warrants (Hicks, 2013 and Turner & Hicks, 2017). The word warrants may be new to some of us in this context. It is described as a bridge to connect a claim to evidence. Without the use of a warrant, the evidence alone may not be enough to convince your audience of the claim you are making. For example,

Claim: Using strategies to solve multiplication facts leads to automaticity with all single-digit facts.

Evidence: Without a strategy, automaticity is only reached with a portion of single-digit facts.

Warrant: Having a strategy helps you to solve unknown facts. Without a strategy, we must rely on our memory. If we forget a fact, we don't have a way to solve for the product.

Without the use of my warrant, my audience may not agree with my evidence. Therefore, my warrant connected my claim to my evidence which strengthened my argument.

The classroom teacher can facilitate the study of the craft of argumentation through Hicks’ (2013) suggestion of starting small. The claims, evidence and warrants are the individual pieces that work together to form the complete argument. By focusing in on one of the pieces at a time through examining mentor texts, students can learn how writers craft these components. Multiple opportunities to work with a variety of mentor texts will help students understand the connection between each of the pieces as well. “Providing opportunities for students to write collaboratively and communicate to others outside of the classroom gives them access to an audience that may include business people, academics, service workers, and others around the globe” (Sekeres & Castek, 2016, p. 62). We want students to see communication for multiple purposes to discern what is appropriate for their audience. When I was deciding on my argument in the example above, I first started with comparing lures to live bait. I had to stop and consider my audience. There may not be many anglers in this audience; however, I knew I was talking to educators. So, I quickly changed my argument to focus on a topic in the realm of education. I also considered a topic that there is still much debate around – multiplication facts.

“Inquiry tasks provide unique opportunities for students to learn the digital literacy skills and strategies they need for effective online communication” (Sekeres & Castek, 2016, p. 74). Therefore, we can help students to put all of the pieces of argumentation together successfully through the use of inquiry tasks. This is the time where students apply each of the individual pieces and small steps we have been working on together in class with the support of mentor texts and try it out for themselves while working towards mastery of the Common Core Standards.

References:
(2018, June 5). Nothing Personal: Healthy Arguments in the Classroom .... Retrieved September 20, 2018,
from https://www.advancementcourses.com/blog/nothing-personal-healthy-arguments-in-the-classroom

Alabama State Department of Education. Alabama Mathematics State Task Force

(2010). 2016 Revised Alabama Course of Study: Mathematics. Montgomery:

Author.

Alabama State Department of Education. National Governors Association Center

for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officer (2010). 2010

Alabama Course of Study: English Language Arts. Montgomery: Author.

Cline, Austin. (2018, June 27). Language, Meaning, and Communication.

Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/language-meaning-and-

communication-249756

Hicks, T. (2013). Crafting digital writing: Composing texts across media and

genres. Portsmouth: Heinemann.

Sekeres, D. C., & Castek, J. (2016). Collaborative online inquiry: Exploring

students’ skills in locating, reading and communicating information. Journal of

Interactive Online Learning 15(2). Retrieved from

http://www.ncolr.org/issues/jiol/v14/n2/2

Turner, K. H., & Hicks, T. (2017). Argument in the real world: Teaching

adolescents to read and write digital texts. Portsmouth: Heinemann.