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

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students will need direct instruction in the skills associated with that game. Table I.3 (page 15) shows the argumentation skills associated with each game. Here, we provide guidelines and suggest instructional activities for teachers to use to teach each of the thirteen overarching argumentation skills.

       Distinguishing Fact From Opinion

      To understand the basic concept of an argument, students have to tell the difference between facts, which are statements that can be verified, and opinions, which express personal beliefs and may be accompanied by reasons for those beliefs. Teachers can use the following process to teach students to distinguish fact from opinion:

      1.Explain what facts are.

      2.Explain what opinions are.

      3.Give examples of facts, opinions, and statements that do not clearly fall into either category.

      This process is based on strategies described by Robert Marzano and Debra Pickering (1997). Here, we briefly describe each step of the process.

      Table I.3: Argumentation Skills Associated With Games

       Explain Facts

      As stated previously, a fact is a statement that can be verified. For example, the statement “December is generally colder than August in the United States” is a fact. It can be confirmed or disproved by checking data on temperatures in the United States during each month. When teaching students about facts, explain that a fact is a statement that is verifiable and can be confirmed. If a fact is disproven, it is no longer a fact, but an incorrect statement. Emphasize that not all statements can be classified as either facts or opinions. For example, “Barack Obama was born in Kenya” is not a fact or an opinion because it can be disproven. Since there is evidence—a birth certificate specifying that he was born in Hawaii—to invalidate it, the statement is not a fact or opinion, but a false or incorrect statement. Finally, students need to understand what facts are and be able to confirm or disprove them so they can use facts to support their opinions.

       Explain Opinions

      Opinions are statements with which others may agree or disagree. They cannot be verified, but they can be supported with evidence. For example, the statement “Ronald Reagan was the best president” is an opinion. There are two points to emphasize when teaching students about opinions. First, opinions are often (although not always) accompanied by support or evidence; the person expressing an opinion can usually explain why he or she holds that opinion or belief. Second, statements do not always fit neatly into one category (opinion) or another (fact). Instead, they fall along a continuum, with facts that can be empirically verified at one end (for example, “Eight convicted felons were executed last year”) and statements that are pure opinion at the other (for example, “Capital punishment is wrong”). If students are having trouble classifying a statement as fact or opinion, it is likely because it is close to the middle of the continuum (for example, “Capital punishment deters crime”).

       Give Examples

      After teaching students the difference between facts and opinions, give them clear examples of each and discuss why they are facts or opinions. We present several examples of each in table I.4.

      To reinforce the idea that facts and opinions fall along a continuum—with pure facts at one end, pure opinions at the other, and some statements in between—also give students examples of statements that fall closer to the middle of the continuum. Students will likely find these statements more difficult to classify as facts or opinions. Examples of such statements include:

      There is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.

      I think it’s going to rain this afternoon.

      Increased taxation stifles economic growth.

      After presenting a number of examples of facts, opinions, and statements that fall in between, ask students to make statements or find them in the media. Discuss as a class where each statement falls on the continuum from fact to opinion or whether it belongs on the continuum at all.

       Presenting and Supporting Claims

      Presenting and supporting claims involves stating opinions and providing evidence to support them. To teach students how to present and support claims, we recommend the following process:

      1.Present an example claim to students and model how to support it with evidence.

      2.Explain the concepts of claims, grounds, backing, and qualifiers to students.

      3.Explain that certain words and phrases can signal different parts of an argument.

      This process is based on a number of sources (Marzano & Heflebower, 2012; Marzano & Pickering, 1997). The following sections describe each step of the process in detail.

       Present and Support an Example Claim

      Introduce the idea of presenting and supporting claims by modeling it for students. State a claim about an issue that will be of interest to students (for example, “Students should attend school year-round”). Explain that you are going to try to convince them to agree with your claim. Ask them to notice the strategies that you use to persuade them. Then present evidence for your claim. For example, you might say, “Students should attend school year-round because they often forget what they learned in school over the summer. A 2007 study by three researchers named Alexander, Entwisle, and Olson found that during the school year, the academic growth of low-income students was comparable to that of other students but during the summer, low-income students forgot more information than other students. It’s true that year-round schooling may not be the only solution to this problem of forgetting information, but it would prevent achievement gaps that are created by summer breaks.”

      After presenting a claim and support for it, ask students to explain the strategies they observed you using. You can prompt them to notice specific parts of your argument using the following questions:

      What opinion was I trying to persuade you to agree with?

      What reason did I give you to agree with me?

      What evidence did I give to support that reason?

      Which potential objection did I address?

      The first question is designed to help students identify the claim, the second prompts them to identify grounds for the claim, the third highlights backing, and the fourth concerns qualifiers. Once students have answered questions like these, you can introduce the formal terms for each part of an argument.

       Explain Claims, Grounds, Backing, and Qualifiers

      Robert Marzano and Tammy Heflebower (2012) described four elements of an effective argument, which

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