Another book on the list... How boring..... That's what I thought, however, after reading the first four chapters of "Teaching Argument Writing" I found myself interested.I really enjoyed chapter one, not only because it has pictures but the students write as if they are investigators. The chapter fully explains how whodunit mysteries can help students learn how to "write arguments to support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence." I am sure that I learned this in high school, yet I do not really remember. I believe that this form of writing is great because when the students are presented the picture they are able to immediately draw questions from it. It allows the students to try and determine what really took place at the crime scene. This is something that I would definitely use in order to teach my students about argument writings. I love how the pictures can be full of details, yet the students get to use their creative side.
Chapter 2 talks about The Proper Mascot, and how students are asked to: "develop a model for informal reasoning, use a model for informal reasoning to analyze data and draw logical conclusions, and apply a model for informal reasoning in writing an analysis of a problem that requires the application of criteria in judging the relative merit of a set of proposed school mascots." I really like this activity because the students are able to gather their thoughts and judgments. When in their groups, they are able to come together with one another and talk about the pros and cons of each school mascot. In the end, even if the paragraphs are short, they should contain the major three elements of an argument: a claim, evidence, and a warrant explaining how the evidence supports the claim. Whether the activity is simple, as this one, or more complex each argument must contain the major three elements.
As I read through chapter 3 I found myself thinking of many different problems that could be researched. I cannot say how many times I have been at work and I want an answer yet no one can provide me with that. I am always ready to research the answer because I want to know the meaning behind it. As for teaching students to draw arguments from researchable problems is an excellent idea. I believe this is a great way to get the students involved and it allows the student to voice their arguments after the research is completed.
100 pages down..... 12 pages to go....
Chapter 4 discusses judgments and unexamined assumptions. Well, who has not made either of these, I know I have. The funny part is that each time I make judgments or assumptions, I USUALLY end up feeling horrible because sometimes my judgment or assumptions are wrong. I believe that this goes back to chapter three when it talks about researching the problems. Students need to be able to understand that having evidence is important, especially when making assumptions.
Now that I have finished this assignment I can that I actually enjoyed reading this book, I learned more than I thought I would. Each one of the ideas / activities that I talked about will be used in my classroom when teaching argument writing.
I must finish this book to learn some new activities.
