The Republican presidential nominee has produced more falsehoods than the major fact-checking sites have identified from a major presidential candidate since they came into existence. The Democratic nominee hasn’t come anywhere close to that. But she’s not exactly dwelling in Honest Abe territory, either.

— New York Times, September 26, 2016, p.B1

Overview

The presidential debates between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are lining up to be intensely dramatic, very extensively watched, and highly consequential to the outcome of the race.  It might be that 100 million Americans view these debates – on September 26^th, October 9^th, and October 19^th.  Almost every one of past presidential elections in the modern era feature memorable (even unforgettable) moments produced by the debates: in the Clinton v. Trump debates history will inevitably be made, and the results of the election may be determined. 

Ninth grade social science classes at one of Argument-Centered Education’s partner high schools ended the school year conducting a rather fully developed argument-centered project on teens’ social media use.  The debatable issue:

Teens social media use makes teens less social. 

There was an interest in closing the year with a project that brought together strands of academic argument studied and practiced during the year with a topic that students would find appealing, perhaps a little entertaining, and with which they’d already be familiar.  Since teens are purported to spend nearly nine hours a day on social media according to a 2015 study by the organization Common Sense Media (!), this debatable issue has the familiarity criterion covered.

El Deafo (2012) is the popular and subtly powerful autobiographical graphic novel by Cece Bell.  It tells the author’s story of growing through the middle grades circa 1980, having just been struck mostly deaf by meningitis.  The protagonist is shown grappling with how disorienting is her disability at first, then with its social and emotional impact on her early adolescence.  The work is notable for its honesty, charm, and surprising poignance.

With one of our partner middle schools this year Argument Centered Education developed the Argument Writing Response Activity (AWRA).  Teachers at this school wanted to be sure that the year ended with an argument writing project that brought together some of the skills-building work they had been doing in classroom speaking and discussion, especially in the second semester.  AWRA has students make interpretive arguments, respond to other students’ arguments with counter-arguments, and respond to the counter-arguments of their peers.  AWRA in effect takes portions of a spoken debate and asks students to put their point/counter-point in written form, enabling students to recognize and enact the underlying bond between classroom argumentative discussion and debate, and academic writing.