Part 1 of this post — which includes the argument and counter-argument builder exercise and models, in addition to description of the way that these have been used with partner teachers this spring and summer — can be found here.  This post will be devoted to highlighting some of the points of professional learning that have come about through our argument work on the debatable question, Is soccer the best sport in the world?

Analytical Discoveries during Professional Capacity-Building

Through the course of the discussions that have ensued during teachers’ sharing out of what they have observed when analyzing their work in building arguments and counter-arguments, and digging into differences from the models that I have shared, we have been accumulating a growing list of discoveries, very useful for instructional practice.  This is a partial list of what our analytical discussions have revealed.

Discoveries Related to Argument Building

The position statement for each side can be a simple and direct response to the debatable question (which in certain contexts is of course called a “prompt”).  Debates on binary (i.e., two-sided) issues often call for clear and simple position statements, though academic argument can of course be as nuanced as it is possible for a writer or speaker to conceive and think through themselves — as long as the nuance reflects clear (not half-complete, incoherent, or self-contradictory) thinking.

The argumentative claims in the models above are focused and clear reasons that the overall position they are developing is true. Academic argument teaches students to organize their thinking; students have to try to think through why they have their position, and then pick out the best of the reasons that they adhere to their position. These reasons should be separate from each other (though they can be logically sequential) and they should approximately parallel.  Claims are typically built up from evidence, and they are approximately “equidistant” from the breadth and generality of the overall position and the granular detail and specificity of the evidence.

The evidence in the model arguments is fact-based.  Much of the evidence in the teachers’ arguments has not been, at least at first. Evidence, across all disciplines, should be as fact-based as possible.  The evidence in the models also is sourced. The citation is included in parenthesis in both model arguments.  Assuming a baseline credibility of the source itself, sourcing evidence is important because it projects to the reader or listener that the information included in the argument’s evidence is, indeed, factual.

All of academic argument is challenging, but reasoning often presents students with the most difficulty.  It is fair to say that partner teachers this spring and summer have been highly intrigued by the three-step process that is illustrated by the models, the acronym for which is A – W – E, as in “Make your argumentative reasoning A-W-E-some.” Students should be taught to start with one or two sentences that analyze the evidence for its substantiating purport. This often means accenting aspects of the evidence that are particularly strong. Some students understand this to mean “paraphrase the evidence.” But students should not simply repeat the evidence in their own words; better, they can understand analysis as “paraphrase with a point,” or “pointed paraphrase.” The models on the soccer issue demonstrate “pointed paraphrase.” They both analyze the solid credibility of the evidence and they both accent what is most pointed in the evidence (e.g., “more than eight times as many people watch and love soccer as football”).

The next step in reasoning that students should be introduced to and practice is warranting the evidence, in another one or two sentences.  The warrant in an argument is the principle, rule, assumption, or point of logic that justifies the evidence as evidence for the claim and position. Often times this means that the writer or speaker explicates and defends the criterion that justifies the evidence. So, in the “affirmative” argument, the warrant within its argumentative reasoning puts forward popularity as a proper and justified criterion for ranking sports. We noted together that the model does not simply assert that popularity is the right criterion, it reasons through why it is the right criterion. A parallel example of reasoning through the warrant is to be found in the “negative” argument model.

The final move in the reasoning portion of an argument that students should be introduced to and should practice is to emphasize the importance of the evidence to the claim and to the overall position. Typically, this emphasis is a kind of summative single sentence. This evidence, both of the models on the soccer issue suggest, isn’t merely adequate to support the claim, it should itself goes a considerable distance to impress on the reader or listener the evidence-based viability, if not the probable veracity, of the overall position.

Partner-teachers have made the point that we do not need to teacher the AWE reasoning steps and sequence as dogma, of course, and we should not. Not all arguments will have all three steps fully developed, either in our students’ writing or in the arguments they read. There are instances when one or the other of the three steps would be unnecessary or redundant.  And of course professional writers are professional writers because they are skilled and original enough to make their own rules when they write, rules that work to help make their ideas and arguments powerfully expressed in their own voice. But the AWE reasoning steps give our students what they ask us for and what they need: a reliable set of steps that will help them build experience in executing robust, powerful argumentative reasoning consistently and across their work.

Discoveries Related to Counter-Argument Building

The partner-teachers and I discovered and discussed that a counter-argument starts with a short summary of the argument that it will respond to. Responding to and refuting arguments should always begin with a summary of the substance of that argument. This is true in writing and speaking (the latter is rarely done in classrooms that are not argument-centered). The summary queues up what in the substance of the argument the counter-argument will directly answer.  Partner-teachers have noted that in the counter-argument models on soccer the summary of the argument is a slightly reduced version of the argumentative claim plus a condensed version of the warrant embedded in the argument’s reasoning.

Students should be taught and have a chance to practice that the counter-claim comes next. Partner-teachers have observed that the use of counter-claim, rather than counter-argument, is very deliberate. The counter-claim is, like an argumentative claim, an assertion without backing (yet). The counter-claim is a reason that the argument is not true.

These counter-claims have to begin with a transition word (“Further”) or phrase (“In reality,” “But this point overlooks the contravening point that”) that is not part of the counter-argument builder, as such.

In the counter-argument models, there are two counter-arguments posed against each argument. Each model has a critical counter-argument and an independent counter-argument. The former (critical) is a counter-argument that critiques the evidence or reasoning in the argument. A critical counter-argument does not present its own new, independent evidence, typically. The latter (independent) is a counter-argument that is a fully evidenced contradiction of the original argument.  The counter-claim in an independent counter-argument is sometimes directed more at the overall position than at the original argument, though it is always advisable to make a counter-argument as specific a response as possible to the original argument.

The first counter-argument for the “affirmative” position, a critical counter-argument, has what looks like evidence, since it refers to facts about basketball, baseball, and the Olympics.  But there are no specific facts being brought to bear here, and the information in the counter-argument is not sourced. The counter-argument is making more of an appeal to a kind of “common knowledge” that we as at least passive followers of sports do not really rank or sports preferences by how many points are scored in the game. The counter-argument here is depending more on a point of logic (criticizing the original argument’s reasoning) than it is depending on adducing evidence of its own. Something similar is taking place in the critical counter-argument for the “negative” position.

The evidence presented in the two independent counter-arguments, we have discussed in some detail, is sourced, just as is the evidence in the original arguments. This counter-argument evidence is also fact-based. The first independent counter-argument has quoted evidence, the second has evidence that is paraphrased.  But both are represented as text-based.

Reasoning for the independent counter-arguments is quite condensed, we have noted. In this condensed form, reasoning more simply connects, or links, evidence back to the counter-claim.  It is, in effect, thinned out reasoning, relative to the thicker, more robust version of argumentative reasoning in the original argument.  This is a function of the larger responsibility that the writer or speaker has in making their original arguments.

Finally, we have discussed the fact that the two counter-arguments addressing each original argument are clearly discrete and separate from each other. This again, is practicing the students; ability to organize their thinking and to distinguish and to evaluate their reasons to support or oppose a viewpoint.

 

These are the kinds of insights into and discoveries of the way that college-ready academic arguments and counter-arguments are formed and can be taught that this exercise and these models on the sport of soccer can elicit — and in fact have been eliciting at ACE partner schools this summer.