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

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by burning fossil fuels (such as coal), which produces carbon-dioxide emissions (Zehner, 2013). The mining of compounds used in electric car batteries, such as lithium, copper, and nickel, requires high amounts of energy. These compounds can release toxic wastes if improperly handled (Zehner, 2013). The Union of Concerned Scientists reported that when “electricity used to power the vehicle comes from resources such as wind and solar power, EVs [electric vehicles] can operate nearly emissions-free” (Anair & Mahmassani, 2012, p. 2).

      Acknowledging and classifying information that does not support the claim, rather than ignoring it, allows students to construct qualifiers that ultimately strengthen their arguments. However, students should first organize the information that supports their claim into grounds and backing.

       Organize Grounds and Backing

      To review, grounds are overarching reasons to agree with a claim. They often begin with the word because. The claim “Dogs are better than cats,” for example, might be supported by the following grounds: because they are smarter, because they are friendlier, because they are less picky about what they eat, and so on. Backing, on the other hand, is specific evidence (such as expert opinions, research results, or factual information) that shows the grounds are valid. To support the grounds that dogs are smarter than cats, one might cite a quote from an expert animal trainer or research that shows dogs are smarter.

      The information that students collect to support their claim is backing. They can organize the backing they collect into related categories and then write grounds for each category. Table I.10 shows how the student who collected supporting information for the claim “Electric cars reduce pollution and environmental damage” might sort supporting information into categories and create grounds for each category.

Grounds Backing
Electric cars emit less carbon dioxide than gasoline-powered cars. According to a 2012 study, emissions from electric cars compare equally or favorably to gasoline-powered cars. In countries where electricity is mainly generated by burning coal, electric cars produce about the same emissions as gasoline-powered cars. In countries where electricity is generated in cleaner ways without coal, electric cars produce less than half the emissions of gasoline-powered cars (Wilson, 2013). The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA; 2013) projected that the share of national electricity from renewable resources would increase from 11 percent in 2009 to 15 percent in 2025.The EIA also projected that the share of national electricity from coal would decrease from 44 percent in 2009 to about 28 percent in 2025.
Burning fossil fuels in large plants to create electricity that powers electric cars is more efficient and produces less pollution than burning fossil fuels in the engines of individual cars. Elon Musk, CEO of electric car manufacturer Tesla, stated, “In a stationary power plant, you can afford to have something that weighs a lot more, is voluminous, and you can take the waste heat and run a steam turbine and generate a secondary power source. . . . Even using the same source fuel, you’re at least twice as better off” (as quoted in Davies, 2013).
Clean energy sources, such as solar and wind energy, can be used to charge electric cars. The Union of Concerned Scientists reported that when “electricity used to power the vehicle comes from resources such as wind and solar power, EVs [electric vehicles] can operate nearly emissions-free” (Anair & Mahmassani, 2012, p. 2).

      As shown in table I.10, the student sorted the expert opinions, research results, and factual information she had collected into three related categories. She then created three grounds or reasons for the claim, each of which describes one of the categories of backing.

       Write Qualifiers

      Finally, students can use nonsupporting information they find to construct qualifiers for their claim. That is, they can specify situations in which their claim might not apply or address potential objections to their claim as part of their argument. For example, the student who claimed that electric cars reduce pollution and environmental damage found three pieces of information that did not support that claim (see the right column of table I.9). She might construct the following qualifiers using that information:

      While it is true that building an electric car uses more energy and emits more carbon dioxide than building a gasoline-powered car, electric cars emit zero carbon dioxide while being driven, offsetting the initial emissions from their manufacture.

      Although generating electricity to power electric cars produces carbon-dioxide emissions, many countries in the world are switching to cleaner, renewable energy sources for electricity. This means that electric cars will simply get cleaner and cleaner as power grids around the world become cleaner.

       Despite the fact that electric car batteries require lots of energy to produce, when recycled properly, they do not emit toxic wastes. Moreover, compared to the batteries in gasoline-powered cars, the components of electric car batteries are very valuable and therefore more likely to be properly handled and recycled.

      Once qualifiers have been constructed, the student can present his or her argument using the organizational structure shown in figure I.2 (page 22).

       Citing Textual Evidence

      Citing textual evidence involves using specific quotations or information from a text to support a claim. The CCSS require students to “defend their interpretations or judgments with evidence from the text(s) they are writing about” (NGA & CCSSO, 2010b, p. 23). Here, we present two ways that teachers can help students use textual evidence to support and defend their arguments:

      1.Ask students to find textual evidence to support an existing claim.

      2.Ask students to use textual evidence to construct a claim.

      Here, we provide detail about each method.

       Support an Existing Claim

      At times, students need to support an existing claim with textual evidence. When this is the case, first ask students to annotate the text, marking any evidence that might support the claim. Consider, for example, a student who needs textual evidence to back up the following claim: “In the poem ‘Because I could not stop for Death,’ Emily Dickinson personifies death to show that we should not fear it.” The student begins by highlighting all words or phrases in the poem that use personification, a device that attributes human characteristics to nonhuman entities, as shown in table I.11.

Because I could not stop for Death— He kindly stopped for me— The Carriage held but just Ourselves— And Immortality. Or rather—He passed us— The Dews drew quivering and chill— For only Gossamer, my Gown— My Tippet—only Tulle—
We slowly drove—He knew no haste And I had put away My labor and my

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