Offers teaching strategies and resources to instruct sixth- through twelfth-graders on how to prepare and write strong arguments and evaluate the arguments of others, providing step-by-step guidance on arguments of fact, judgment, and policy, and including advice to help students understand how judgments get made in the real world, how to develop and support criteria for an argument, and related topics.
Focuses on how to teach, analyze, and assess arguments. Gives clear examples introducing terms from informal logic, naming particular fallacies, and analyzing samples of student writing to show the various approaches to argument being discussed.
No matter wherestudents' lives lead after graduation, one of the most essential tools we can teach them is how to comprehend, analyze, and respond to arguments. Students need to know how writers' and speakers' choices are shaped by elements of the rhetorical situation, including audience, occasion, and purpose. In Teaching Arguments: Rhetorical Comprehension, Critique, and Response, Jennifer Fletcher provides teachers with engaging classroom activities, writing prompts, graphic organizers, and student samples to help students at all levels read, write, listen, speak, and think rhetorically.Fletcher believes that, with appropriate scaffolding and encouragement, all students can learn a rhetorical approach to argument and gain access to rigorous academic content. Teaching Arguments opens the door and helps them pay closer attention to the acts of meaning around them, to notice persuasive strategies that might not be apparent at first glance. When we analyze and develop arguments, we have to consider more than just the printed words on the page. We have to evaluate multiple perspectives; the tension between belief and doubt; the interplay of reason, character, and emotion; the dynamics of occasion, audience, and purpose; and how our own identities shape what we read and write. Rhetoric teaches us how to do these things.Teaching Arguments will help students learn to move beyond a superficial response to texts so they can analyze and craft sophisticated, persuasive arguments-;a major cornerstone for being not just college-and career-ready but ready for the challenges of the world.
Forming effective arguments is essential to students′ success in academics and in life. This book′s engaging lessons offer an innovative approach to teaching this critical and transferable skill.
Although the Common Core and C3 Framework highlight literacy and inquiry as central goals for social studies, they do not offer guidelines, assessments, or curriculum resources. This practical guide presents six research-tested historical investigations along with all corresponding teaching materials and tools that have improved the historical thinking and argumentative writing of academically diverse students. Each investigation integrates reading, analysis, planning, composing, and reflection into a writing process that results in an argumentative history essay. Primary sources have been modified to allow struggling readers access to the material. Web links to original unmodified primary sources are also provided, along with other sources to extend investigations. The authors include sample student essays from each investigation to illustrate the progress of two different learners and explain how to support students’ development. Each chapter includes these helpful sections: Historical Background, Literacy Practices Students Will Learn, How to Teach This Investigation, How Might Students Respond?, Student Writing and Teacher Feedback, Lesson Plans and Materials. Book Features: Integrates literacy and inquiry with core U.S. history topics. Emphasizes argumentative writing, a key requirement of the Common Core. Offers explicit guidance for instruction with classroom-ready materials. Provides primary sources for differentiated instruction. Explains a curriculum appropriate for students who struggle with reading, as well as more advanced readers. Models how to transition over time from more explicit instruction to teacher coaching and greater student independence. “The tools this book provides—from graphic organizers, to lesson plans, to the accompanying documents—demystify the writing process and offer a sequenced path toward attaining proficiency.” —From the Foreword by Sam Wineburg, co-author of Reading Like a Historian “Assuming literate practice to be at the core of history learning and historical practice, the authors provide actual units of history instruction that can be immediately applied to classroom teaching. These units make visible how a cognitive apprenticeship approach enhances history and historical literacy learning and ensure a supported transition to teaching history in accordance with Common Core State Standards.” —Elizabeth Moje, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, School of Education, University of Michigan “The C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards and the Common Core State Standards challenge students to investigate complex ideas, think critically, and apply knowledge in real world settings. This extraordinary book provides tried-and-true practical tools and step-by-step directions for social studies to meet these goals and prepare students for college, career, and civic life in the 21st century.” —Michelle M. Herczog, president, National Council for the Social Studies
If you want to learn how to shoot a basketball, you begin by carefully observing someone who knows how to shoot a basketball. If you want to be a writer, you begin by carefully observing the work of accomplished writers. Recognizing the importance that modeling plays in the learning process, high school English teacher Kelly Gallagher shares how he gets his students to stand next to and pay close attention to model writers, and how doing so elevates his students' writing abilities. Write Like This is built around a central premise: if students are to grow as writers, they need to read good writing, they need to study good writing, and, most important, they need to emulate good writers. In Write Like This, Kelly emphasizes real-world writing purposes, the kind of writing he wants his students to be doing twenty years from now. Each chapter focuses on a specific discourse: express and reflect, inform and explain, evaluate and judge, inquire and explore, analyze and interpret, and take a stand/propose a solution. In teaching these lessons, Kelly provides mentor texts (professional samples as well as models he has written in front of his students), student writing samples, and numerous assignments and strategies proven to elevate student writing. By helping teachers bring effective modeling practices into their classrooms, Write Like This enables students to become better adolescent writers. More important, the practices found in this book will help our students develop the writing skills they will need to become adult writers in the real world.
A large part of our everyday communication involves argumentation and reasoning--for example, when we want to persuade others, make good purchasing decisions, or analyze the messages we receive from advertisers and politicians. But how well do we prepare students for these tasks? Can they critically evaluate a speaker's point of view? Understand rhetorical devices? Apply logic? Build an effective argument, whether written or spoken? In his new book, Good Thinking, Erik Palmer shows teachers of all subject matters how to transform the activities they already use into openings for improving student thinking. Building on his previous work in Well Spoken (Stenhouse, 2011) and Digitally Speaking (Stenhouse, 2014), he reveals how all students, not just those in advanced classes, can begin developing sophisticated reasoning skills that will improve their oral and written communications. Blending theory with practice, Palmer shares a wide range of classroom-tested lessons, including ways to understand argument in paintings and images, address ad hominem attacks using a traveling debate, create a class comedy club, write syllogisms, analyze character and plot development, and teach logic through a class Booger Patrol. He explains complex concepts in simple, practical language that gives teachers a deft understanding of the principles of good arguments, proper use of evidence, persuasive techniques, and rhetorical tricks. "Once you start looking, you'll see arguments everywhere," Palmer writes. "All of them are opportunities to teach good thinking."
It is essential that middle- and high-school students develop argument skills. This rich resource provides a clear, step-by-step approach that achieves this goal. The method is rooted in peer dialog and makes use of readily available technology. The authors document impressive gains in students’ skills in producing and interpreting both dialogic and written arguments. The method can be used in English or content-area classes, or even be implemented as a stand-alone class or as part of a debate program. This curriculum helps students become critical thinkers prepared for the demands of college, careers, and citizenship. Book Features: Background on why students should develop argument skills and what these skills consist of The nuts and bolts of how to implement the curriculum in your own classroom Alignments to the Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards Accessible video material showing both teacher’s instructions and students’ activities Samples of students’ written work Assessment tools that you can use or modify to fit your own needs An appendix with additional guides, examples, suggested topics, and classroom-ready reproducibles. New to the second edition is a chapter on how you can incorporate this approach into an existing curriculum if you are unable to implement the full program.The techniques are designed to be flexible and adaptable, and work with students of all ability levels—especially with those who are less motivated and engaged in school. This enhanced edition is also accompanied by free bonus eResources, such as suggested readings on different topics and full lesson plans, which you can download and print from our website, www.routledge.com/9781138911406.
Every day, our students are inundated by information-as well as opinions and misinformation-on their devices. These digital texts influence what they buy, who they vote for, and what they believe about themselves and their world. Crafting and analyzing arguments in a digital world could be our greatest possibility to improve dialogue across cultures and continents... or it could contribute to bitter divides. In this book, Kristen Hawley Turner and Troy Hicks draw from real world texts and samples of student work to share a wealth of insights and practical strategies in teaching students the logic of argument. Whether arguments are streaming in through a Twitter feed, a Facebook wall, viral videos, internet memes, or links to other blogs or websites, Turner and Hicks will guide you-and your students- in how to engage with and create digital arguments. The authors' companion wiki provides all of the links to the web-based examples referenced in the book, as well as additional resources to support you as you implement instruction in digital arguments.
Proven methods for teaching reading comprehension to all students The Literacy Cookbook is filled with classroom-tested techniques for teaching reading comprehension to even the most hard-to-reach students. The book offers a review of approaches that are targeted for teaching reading, writing, speaking and listening skills. The book also includes information on how to connect reading, writing, and test prep. Contains accessible and easy-to-adopt recipes for strengthening comprehension, reading, writing, and oral fluency. Terrific resources are ready for download on the companion website. The materials in this book are aligned with the English Language Arts Common Core Standards The website includes an ELA Common Core Tracking Sheet, a handy resource when writing or evaluating curriculum.
