2 Developing Arguments
I've found that two of the very hardest things to get students to do are linked explicitly: trying to get them to develop an opinion, that will withstand argument, and trying to get them to somehow evaluate others' work so they can assess the ideas and thoughts and principles behind it. Providing opposing views on the same topic is one way, but some of my students have asked but how do you know which view is more important? Or how do you make a value judgement? For many students used to report writing (bullet point syndrome!) or sound bites or lists etc. remedial action is necessary, so we've developed a set of 'critical questions' based on Stephen Brookfield's (developing critical thinking in adult learners) and Gaby Weiner's (using critical questions to evaluate journal articles) work, but that give students a rigorous framework on which to 'deconstruct' papers/essays - in fact anything! At a more advanced level, it's possible to link the outcome of the analysis using the questions, to the themes of the ethos, logos and pathos to enable students to see exactly how and where and why the argument has been constructed and why it has been successful or not. The full list of questions appears at the end of this paper. We've used this method in two ways - for whole class activity - giving a question to each student (or pair of students - depending on class size), or individual work on the whole paper for all questions, or for homework, then as the class follow up, generated a discussion about the argument and whether we're able to make a class judgement about it.