Teaching Argumentation. Julia A. Simms
for the idea that smoking causes lung cancer, but the premise or general rule that links their evidence to their claim is that no one wants lung cancer. Explicitly stating the connection between a claim, grounds, and backing simply involves connecting the backing back to the original claim. It can be useful to think of this process in a circular fashion, as depicted in figure I.1.
Figure I.1: Explicitly stating the connection between a claim, grounds, and backing involves connecting the backing back to the original claim.
Of course, this particular connection—that lung cancer is undesirable—is rather self-evident. Sometimes people automatically connect evidence to a claim without consciously acknowledging or explaining the general rule. However, giving students practice in explaining simple relationships between claims, grounds, and backing in familiar arguments helps prepare them to explain more complex relationships in other arguments.
When students explain the connection between claims, grounds, and backing, it helps them understand that claims are not always the first step in an argument. Often, claims are the result of evidence, or information that leads someone to a conclusion. For example, if you notice that five crimes were committed within two blocks of one another, it might lead you to claim that a particular neighborhood is unsafe. As grounds, you might say, “Because a high number of crimes are committed there.” Backing might include statistics about the average number of crimes per block in the city that year. To explain the connection between claims, grounds, and backing, you could say, “Lots of crime makes a neighborhood unsafe [premise or rule], and this neighborhood has lots of crime [grounds and backing]; therefore, this neighborhood is unsafe [claim].”
Explain Relationships in Other Claims
When students are analyzing their own claims or others’ claims, explaining the relationship between claims, grounds, and backing can help them identify erroneous or illogical reasoning. For example, a student might claim that a woman would make an irrational president because women cry more easily than men (claim and grounds), and give as backing the results of a study showing that women cried more often than men during tragic or sad movies. Another student explaining the connection between claims, grounds, and backing in this claim might point out that this claim is equating “being irrational” with “crying during tragic or sad movies,” two things that are not necessarily equal. This allows students to identify errors in reasoning or claims based on general rules that are not necessarily valid.
Organizing an Argument
Organizing an argument involves arranging claims, grounds, and backing in a logical order. Marzano and his colleagues (1988) defined organizing skills as those used to “arrange information so it can be understood or presented more effectively” (p. 80). Students typically find support for a claim by collecting relatively unorganized information from many sources. To present their argument, they need to organize the information. Teachers can use the following process to help students organize arguments:
1.Help students understand the structure of an effective argument.
2.Have students classify information according to whether or not it supports a claim.
3.Have students organize supporting information into grounds and backing for the claim.
4.Have students use nonsupporting information to write qualifiers for the claim.
Here, we detail how teachers can help students accomplish each step in the process.
Structure of an Argument
Fundamentally, an argument is a claim supported by evidence (grounds and backing). Qualifiers state exceptions to a claim. Based on the CCSS and Toulmin’s (2003) model, we recommend the argument organization template depicted in figure I.2.
Figure I.2: The organization of an effective argument.
Adapted from Toulmin, 2003.
As shown in figure I.2, a well-organized argument is typically centered on one main claim. This claim can be supported by as many grounds (young students might call these reasons) as necessary, but it usually has at least two or three, each of which is supported by backing. Students can then use qualifiers to modify or clarify any of these three elements.
To help students understand the structure of an argument, teachers might show them how it works with a simple example claim, such as the one in figure I.3.
Figure I.3: A well-organized argument for the claim that Batman is the best superhero.
In a persuasive essay, the claim—often called a thesis statement—is introduced in the first paragraph or section. Grounds are then presented one by one in the body of the essay, each supported by backing—factual information, expert opinion, or research results.
Classifying Information
As students collect information to support their claims, they will probably also find information that does not support their claims. Each type of information is important and can strengthen an argument if properly organized and then used appropriately. As students collect information, they should classify it according to whether or not it supports the claim. For example, a student collecting information to support the claim “Electric cars reduce pollution and environmental damage” might classify the information she finds as shown in table I.9 (page 24).
Table I.9: Information Related to the Claim “Electric Cars Reduce Pollution and Environmental Damage”
| Supports the Claim | Does Not Support the Claim |
| 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). | Building an electric car produces about thirty thousand pounds of carbon-dioxide emission, compared to fourteen thousand pounds for a conventional car. Unless the car is driven for a long time, an electric car can actually create more carbon-dioxide emissions over its lifetime than a gasoline-powered car, because its manufacture releases so much pollution (Lomborg, 2013). |
| 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). 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. |
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