Topic: Argumentative Writing.

10-second review: Attempts to explain Toumin’s “warrant” that supports the claim and the data.

Title: “Taming the Warrant in Toulmin’s Model of Argument.” JE Warren. English Journal (July 2010), 41-46.

Summary: The Toulmin model of argument is as follows: The claim is supported by the data. “The movement from claim to data is authorized by a general, unstated proposition Toulmin calls the warrant.” [Did I used to call this an enthymeme? RayS.] “Support for the warrant is termed backing; words that limit the force of a statement are called qualifiers (‘nearly all teachers’….). “Exceptions to the claim are called conditions of rebuttal.”

Toulmin justifies his method of argument by saying that’s the way the real world argues.

Toulmin begins with a syllogism: “All humans are mortal. Socrates is a human. Therefore, Socrates is mortal.” In the Toulmin model, the third statement in the syllogism, the conclusion, is the claim. The second premise is the data. The first statement is the warrant. So, in effect Toulmin stands the syllogism on its head: Socrates is mortal (claim) because Socrates is human (data) because all humans are mortal (warrant for the data).

Comment: The author criticizes textbooks on the Toulmin method for not explaining the warrant clearly and are often incorrect in giving examples of a warrant. I know what a warrant is, I can define it—it supports the data which supports the claim. But after reading the article, I’m no clearer in being able to identify a warrant. RayS.

Topic: Writing Arguments

10-second review: “One of the most radical shifts in high school and college writing instruction over the past 20 years has been the move toward argument as the dominant mode.” P. 41.

Title: “Taming the Warrant in Toulmin’s Model of argument.” JE Warren. English Journal (July 2010), 41-46.

Quote: “In two massive studies of first-year college composition conducted in 1984 and 2004, Andrea Lundsford found that the biggest change in writing assignments during the period was a shift from personal narrative essays to argument essays.” P. 41.

Quote: Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein: “…broadly speaking, academic writing is argumentative writing.” P. 41.

Comment: Next question, how do we teach argumentative writing? RayS.

Topic: Logic in Oral Exchanges in Preparation for Argumentative Writing

10-second review: This author is probably right—logic is a problem, not only in writing, but in conversational exchanges.

Title: “Gateways to Writing Logical Arguments.” TM McCann. English Journal (July 2010), 33-39.

Summary: In preparing for writing, identify the problems with logic in newspaper articles and in normal conversation. Unfortunately, the article does not shed much light on how to analyze the problems in logic in oral give-and-take.

What the article does do is give a model refutation for a parents’ and students’ typical argument.

Timmy: I should have your permission to stay out after curfew at the skateboard park.

Parent: No way.

Timmy: Oh, come on. All of my friends are doing it.

Parent: Yeah, and if all of your friends jumped off a bridge into the Chicago River, would you do that too?

Now here’s a model of how the parent and student should argue:

June: I should have your permission to stay out after curfew at the skateboard park.

Parent: Why do you think you should have permission?

June: All of my friends are doing it.

Parent: So what? How does your friends’ behavior warrant your staying at the park?

June: Adolescents feel a strong need to define their identity by joining with friends in shared experiences.

Parent: How do you know that to be true?

June: A recent survey of 582 child psychologists revealed that 87% of the respondents recognized that children who are excluded from joining with peer-sponsored group activities felt isolated and lonely.

Comment:

I can hear my saying to June: Well, you still can’t stay out.

June: why not?

Me: Because I say so.

The author frames the question—how can we analyze the logic in oral arguments in preparation for writing arguments? If students gathered examples of discussions in which logic is involved, the teacher and students could have some fun analyzing them and offering alternatives. But then they would need to apply what they have learned to writing. RayS.

Topic: The Vocabulary of Argumentative Writing

10-second review: Claim, evidence, warrants, backing, qualifications, rebuttals.

Title: “Teaching Argument for Critical Thinking and Writing: An Introduction.” George Hilllocks, Jr. English Journal (July2010), 24-32.

Quote: “Toulmin’s basic conception of argument includes several elements: a claim based on evidence of some sort, with a warrant that explains how the evidence supports the claim, backing supporting the warrants, qualifications and rebuttals or counterarguments that refute competing claims.” P. 26.

Quote: “That’s a very important point. The arguments we will be talking about are all arguments of probability. That simply means that we can be only fairly certain of our claims. That is why we call such statements claims—because we are claiming they are true.” P. 29.

Comment: A clearly organized model might have helped this article sort out the various elements of argumentative writing. The author describes what he did in class, but stops short of offering a model. RayS.

Topic: A Statement on Writing History.

10-second review: Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. on the purpose of [writing] history.

Title: “Israeli Encounters: Books for Teens about Israel.” LR Silver. English Journal (July 2010), 21-23.

Quote: “They [the books reviewed in this article] promote the historical understanding that Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. referred to when he wrote: ‘The purpose of history is to promote not group self-esteem, but understanding of the world and the past…judgment and perspective, respect for divergent cultures and tradition, and unflinching  protection for those unifying ideas of tolerance, democracy and human rights that make free historical inquiry possible.’ ”

Comment: “…unflinching ;protection for those unifying ideas of tolerance, democracy and human rights that make historical inquiry possible.” That last statement, in my opinion, is most significant. RayS.

Topic: Math, Science and English

10-second review: The teachers of math, science and English need to talk to each other to discuss the ideas they have in common.

Title: “Literature, Logic and Language.” MA Dakin. English Journal (July 2010), 18-20.

Summary: The essence of science, math and literature is logic and language. We need to connect again with our sister disciplines to learn from each other.

Quote: “I do not think the discipline of English needs to be remade: like the cross-communicating hemispheres of a single brain it needs to be re-connected.”

Quote: “If there is a family of universal languages, then math, science and English are the mother tongues of the 21^st century, but our students lack fluency in all three.”

Comment: Way back in the 60’s, I was privileged to be involved in an experiment. The middle school was divided into six teams of teachers, each team consisting of a math, science, English and social studies teacher with a group of 100 or so students. Half of each day was allotted for team planning. It was our hope that the four teachers from different disciplines would talk together, learn from each other, plan together and discover ways in which they could produce common units.

They did and they didn’t. One team did exactly as we had hoped. One team sometimes did as we had hoped and the other four teams stayed within their disciplines and taught their subjects in isolation of each other. Sandy Smith, who was a member of the team that worked together, said, “The more you try to do it, the more ways you find for crossing the borders of the different disciplines.”

I think it is time for the disciplines to work together. But it will take teachers who are willing to learn from teachers of other disciplines.

It is common sense, however, that the four teachers cannot always work on units together. One teacher of math said to me, “Math is math.” Forcing teachers to work in common units or on common themes all the time is a strait jacket that does not allow for the necessity to teach math as math or English as English when it is appropriate. RayS.

Topic: The Five-Paragraph Essay--Again

10-second review: The five-paragraph essay results in writing without thinking.

Title: “From the Editor.” Ken Lindblom. English Journal (July 2010), 14-16.

Quote: “One of the many problems with the five-paragraph essay—at least as it is most often taught—is that it does the thinking for the author. Or, to put it more precisely, it creates a rhetorical situation in which thinking has been rendered virtually unnecessary. Often, that this form creates a pre-thought-out structure is seen as a positive for students: it is intended to help them compose a piece of writing that will allow them to survive typical school-writing scenarios. Unfortunately, the popularity of the five-paragraph essay as a method for helping students get through standardized exam situations has also helped to create a curriculum in which logic and critical reasoning get too little attention.”

Comment: I would suggest that the wrong villain has been selected. Try the short amounts of time available (25 minutes in the SAT and an hour in most state tests). There’s no time to think in these situations. Don’t blame the five-paragraph essay. If used as a model for how to organize expository writing, given enough time, hours, days, etc. students will not only think and shape their thoughts in writing, but they will certainly not limit themselves to five paragraphs.

Although I have used the five-paragraph essay as a model for how to organize expository writing, I’ve never had a student yet who did not expand the opening paragraphs to multiple paragraphs, including the thesis, expanded the middle paragraphs, and broken even the final paragraph into two or three paragraphs. RayS.