Teaching Argumentation - Julia A. Simms What Principals Need to Know

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Distinguishing a Claim From Alternate or Opposing Claims

      Distinguishing a claim from alternate or opposing claims involves using precise language to refine the meaning of a claim or make it more specific. For example, in the previous example claim, “Batman is the best superhero” (page 23), the term best does not precisely distinguish the claim from alternate or opposing claims. This claim might mean that Batman is the most handsome superhero, or that he is the smartest superhero, or that he is the most resourceful superhero, or that he is the kindest superhero, and so on. These are alternate claims. A villain might define the best superhero as one who doesn’t catch many bad guys (an opposing claim). Depending on how best is defined, “Batman is the best superhero” can mean many different things. Therefore, students need to be able to use precise language to distinguish a claim from alternate or opposing claims. To help students do this, teachers can:

      1.Ask students to examine the words used in the claim, grounds, backing, and qualifiers to identify and revise subjective or imprecise terms.

      2.Ask students to use words and phrases that signal basic relationships to express meaning more clearly.

      Here, we explain and exemplify each strategy.

       Revise Subjective or Imprecise Terms

      Once students have articulated a claim, given grounds for the claim, provided backing for the grounds, and specified qualifiers, they can examine the wording of the claim to eliminate subjective or imprecise terms. For example, figure I.3 (page 23) illustrated the structure of an argument using the simple claim “Batman is the best superhero.” One of the grounds for that claim is “He has a cool costume.” The term cool is a subjective term: what is cool to one person might not be considered cool by someone else. Table I.14 lists other examples of subjective or imprecise terms that might be used in claims.

      all

      always

      amazing

      anything

      awful

      best

      cool

      every

      everyone

      everything

      excellent

      fantastic

      fun/funny

      great

      I think that

      important

      in my opinion

      lots/a lot

      never

      nobody

      none

      often

      quality

      some

      something

      stuff

      things

      The list in table I.14 is not exhaustive. Teachers could have students generate additional words and phrases that might be considered imprecise and discuss better alternatives. For example, in the Batman claim, replacing the word cool with the word useful makes the grounds much more defensible; one can list the distinctive tools and features of Batman’s costume that highlight its unique practicality when compared to others. Similarly, the backing “He never kills anyone” is imprecise because villains sometimes do die as a result of their interactions with Batman. A more precise way of stating that particular backing might be “He never kills anyone on purpose.”

      Another example can be found in figure I.4 (page 29), which organizes text evidence to support the claim “The author of ‘Casey at the Bat’ uses exaggerations to make fun of how seriously some people take sports games.” The student originally chooses to use “The author makes Casey seem like a god” as grounds for the claim, but then she notices that Casey’s strikeout at the end of the poem does not support these grounds very well. This realization causes the student to read the poem more closely. Based on more text evidence, she concludes that while the author does not consistently depict Casey as flawless, the audience reveres Casey throughout the poem. Therefore, the student might revise the grounds statement to read “The audience worships Casey like a god,” which supports her claim more accurately and more precisely.

       Use Words and Phrases That Signal Basic Relationships

      Robert Marzano, Patricia Hagerty, Sheila Valencia, and Philip DiStefano (1987) identified four types of basic relationships that students can use to refine their claims and distinguish them from alternate or opposing claims. Those relationships are:

      Addition—One idea is similar to or adds to another idea.

      Contrast—One idea is different from or subtracts from another idea.

      Time—One idea occurs before, during, or after another idea.

      Cause—One idea is the cause or condition for another idea.

      Each of these relationships has specific subtypes, and each subtype has signal words and phrases associated with it, as shown in table I.15.

       Source: Adapted from Marzano & Heflebower, 2012.

      A student might use the signal words and phrases in table I.15 to refine and distinguish a claim such as “Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote is a funny book.” First, the student might ask herself, “Which of the four basic relationships is represented in my claim?” She decides that her claim is one of contrast; she is asserting that Don Quixote is a funny book in contrast to other, more serious books of its time on the same subject. Then, the student considers the subtypes of contrast relationships: antithesis, alternative, comparison, and concession. After she determines that her claim is essentially one of comparison, she uses the signal words and phrases associated with that subtype to restate her claim in a way that distinguishes it from alternative or opposing claims: “In contrast to other romances of its time, Don Quixote explores chivalry from a humorous perspective.” Notice that the student also refined the imprecise term funny and clarified the genre and subject of her claim.

       Making Inductive Inferences

      Making inductive inferences involves forming reasonable guesses based on observations and background knowledge. Marzano and Pickering (1997) highlighted the process of inductive reasoning and presented three strategies teachers

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