Teaching Argument Writing Favorites

I originally rented this book, but now I have decided to go ahead and complete the purchase. I had a lot of my own ideas about how to teach argument writing but still found myself intimidated by it a little. I remember when I was younger, I liked argumentative writing, but that doesn’t mean I was that good at it until after a bit more instruction. I looked back into when I was learning argumentative writing, (even though it was called persuasive back then…) and tried to consider what it was about the writing that was either the largest component I struggled with or what was something I disliked the most about it. Honestly, it all came back to engagement. It was what I had to argue about that really decided for me whether it would be a good essay or not. If I wasn’t engaged with my writing, you could tell. I grew out of that eventually as I grew older but I think that is why I liked this book so much. When looking back to my education and comparing it to the activities in this book, I really wish I had these kind of activities. So for my blog, I’m going to talk about my TOP 3 Activities or lessons from the book and give a bit of a synopses of the lesson and the reasoning behind my finding them favorable.

  

Chapter 3: Solving Problems Kids Care About

The activity presented in this chapter had a lot to do with research. Since gum has been banned at the school, the students conduct their own research on the matter, and gather data (EVIDENCE) to back up their claim of whether or not this ban is helping or hindering the school. I really loved this activity and it, or ones like it can easily be done in classroom. As the students get involved in the activity and because it is something that directly affects them, they can be thoroughly engaged in the research. I think this is great because it doesn’t only put them in a real-world situation, but they decide what would work best as they find information, to prove their point, just as they would as they would if they were pulling evidence from a text. I think getting them involved like this doesn’t us get them interested in the topic, but also the writing that comes after it because the evidence is directly connected to them.

Chapter 5: Answering Difficult Questions - Giraffes Award

I really liked the “Giraffes Award” Activity. I found that all of the activities I liked the most were ones that put students in real-life situations; they could find themselves in if they were on a committee later down the road. The students were to read a description of the award as well as the criteria, and then would accept or reject candidates based on how they met the criteria. The end goal was a discussion where the students would use the criteria as a means to defend their decision in deciding the winners of the award. The students would be acquiring the skill to make well-founded decisions based on evidence and this skill can be applied directly into argumentative writing as they critically analyze evidence.

Also Chapter 5: Answering Difficult Questions – Judgements of Murder

I think this would be a super engaging assignment for the students and I was a little sad we didn’t get to do things like this when I was in high school. After strategically having a discussion with the students that thoroughly define the proper terminology for case studies, the students are separated into groups. In their groups they will analyze the defendant and in the end present the case to the class, share whether they would be charged guilty or not guilty and why. After, the students will have an in class debate about the cases. This doubles as writing skills as well as speaking skill. When I was in school, we loved debates but we didn’t get to do many of them. The best paper I think I wrote in high school was based on research that I had prepared for my debate. It truly teaches students how to consider both sides of an argument and combines many components used in argumentative writing.