Teaching Argument

1. Teaching Argument Derek Buescher Communication Studies/Forensics

2. David Sipress, New Yorker, 12/9/05

3. Overview • Importance of Argument in the Liberal Arts and Argument Training as Civic Responsibility • Basic Argument Model • Argument Spheres/Publics • Argument Validity • Argument Fields • Argument Fields as Generative of Assignments and Evaluation • Argument Focused Work

4. “Beneath every facet of [the work of educational institutions] is a focus on instilling within students notions of civic agency—the ability of people to act together on common problems across differences... If colleges do not instill the skills, habits and values to do this work, while also fiercely protecting the principles required for this work to occur, we will have far less civic capacity than we need in order to address the challenges and opportunities we face.” • Adam Weinberg, President Denison University contributing to Huffington Post, 2/10/2016

5. Argument, Speaking, and the Liberal Arts • “The mission of the university is to develop in its students capacities for critical analysis, aesthetic appreciation, sound judgment, and apt expression that will sustain a lifetime of intellectual curiosity, active inquiry, and reasoned independence. A Puget Sound education, both academic and cocurricular, encourages a rich knowledge of self and others; an appreciation of commonality and difference; the full, open, and civil discussion of ideas; thoughtful moral discourse; and the integration of learning, preparing the university's graduates to meet the highest tests of democratic citizenship. Such an education seeks to liberate each person's fullest intellectual and human potential to assist in the unfolding of creative and useful lives.” • Puget Sound Mission Statement

6. From Pew Research: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/06/12/7-things-to-know-about-polarization-in-america/

7. Joel Pett, USA Today, December 2009

8. Mission Statement: A Closer Look • “The mission of the university is to develop in its students capacities for critical analysis, aesthetic appreciation, soundjudgment, and apt expression that will sustain a lifetime of intellectual curiosity, active inquiry, and reasoned independence. A Puget Sound education, both academic and cocurricular, encourages a rich knowledge of self and others; an appreciation of commonality and difference;the full, open, and civil discussion of ideas; thoughtful moral discourse; and the integration of learning, preparing the university's graduates to meet the highest tests of democratic citizenship. Such an education seeks to liberate each person's fullest intellectual and human potential to assist in the unfolding of creative and useful lives.”

9. Reasons to Focus on Argument • Argument attempts to influence an audience and so • Argument lives at the heart of our mission statement and the values of a liberal arts education. • Argument presents our disciplinary knowledge and teaches students to articulate their positions within disciplinary dialogues. • Argument provides structure and structure reduces anxiety • Argument provides basis for evaluation which can reduce anxiety as it focuses on content. • Argument teaches students to answer the “why” question…why/because • Argumentative Literacy

10. Toulmin Model

11. Argument as Case/Position • Argument vs. argument • Big Picture and detailed view • Making a case for a position that is defensible (Big Picture or Argument) • The components of that position (detailed view or argument) • Toulmin’s model (incomplete here) is the detailed view, the components of a given case. • Toulmin’s model offers a starting point. Supported claims, linked together, create a substantive case.

12. Argument Structure/Level of Dispute(from Ed Inch and Barbara Warnick) • CLAIM • / • / • _____ __Reasoning___________________(Level of dispute) • / • / • Evidence (accepted claim) • / • / • Reasoning • / • Evidence

13. Claims • Fact Claim • Claims that indicate whether something was, is, or will be • Climate change is dramatically altering the environment. • Primary types of fact claims are predictive, relational (causal), or claims of historical fact. • Value Claim • Claims that ask for evaluation of or between ideas, concepts, or things • Climate change is the most serious threat to humanity. • Policy Claim • Claims that suggest a course of action; that an agent of some form should do something • We should take immediate action to reduce the effects of climate change.

14. Argument Spheres Goodnight, 1982

15. Argument SpheresThomas Goodnight, 1982 • Argument spheres are symbolic constructions of deliberative rhetoric • The spheres provide context and “offer a range of taken-for-granted-as-reasonable rules, norms, procedures and styles of engagement.” • Argument spheres shape audience and interlocutor expectations. • Goodnight sees the political public sphere challenged by “cultures of expertise that substitute media spectacle for genuine deliberation.”

16. Argument Validity • Validity tests an argument’s soundness—does the argument’s premise logically lead to the argument’s conclusion. • Validity is the ”soundness of a rhetorical argument” (Farrell, 1982) • For Farrell, validity entails the relationship between argument and audience. • Validity depends on the presentation of that argument and evaluation of that argument • McKerrow—says arguments are ‘sound” within social contexts • All of these ideas, and, notably Zarefksy’s (1982) discussion of argument fields, build upon Stephen Toulmin’s (1958) The Uses of Argument

17. Argument Fields • Fields as terrain of discourse (e.g. legal, medical, scientific) • Fields and Academic Disciplines (subject area) • Argument evaluation varies by field (Rowland, 1982) • “The assumption is that arguments dealing with the same subjects are alike in important ways—origins, structural features, validity standards, etc.-–and that they differ on those same dimensions from arguments on a different subject” (Zarefksy, 1982).

18. Generating Field Specific Criteria and Evaluation • In what ways does your discipline or field evaluate arguments? • How is the validity of evidence determined in your discipline? • What standards or criteria can you generate for evidence evaluation? • What standards or criteria can you generate for argument evaluation? • What specific rules or conventions does your discipline expect concerning argument presentation?

19. Potential Presentation Assignments focusing on Argument • Formal Presentations • Presentations of Work/Research (SSI or Discipline specific) • Pro-Con Speeches (Jasinski) • Debates • 1 v. 1 • 2 v. 2 • groups • Informal • Class Discussion (evidence and reason evaluation) • Group Led Discussion • Debates • Examples from Provost Bartanen—Think-Pair-Share, Collaborative Projects, Questions