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Class Plan -- Unit Three, Day 35
Goals Assignment for Day 36

Reading - Read Assignment Sheet for Argumentative Brief; Read annotated bibliographies of group members to see if you can find additional sources that might help your own argument; PHG--"Games the Military Play" (464-8) (Identify and underline the claim and reasons in "Games the Military Play");

Writing - Make an outline (a kind of "brief") of the claim and reasons used in "Games the Military Play" (see the sample briefs on the assignment sheet if you need guidance); Write three possible claims for your own argument. Choose the best of these, then begin "unpacking" it to see what key words and phrases an argument based on that claim would need to address; Refer to PHG 452 ("Developing Arguments") and come up with three "because statements" (reasons) to support the claim you think is your best so far.

Activities:

Daily - Quiz Give students about 5 minutes to answer these questions:

Discussion of Claims - In discussing student responses, start by getting a working definition of "claim" (something like "the thesis of an argument" or "a formal statement of the author's position"), then go on to list the types of claim. To show examples of each type of claim, you could do the following full-class activity, which is a bit more interesting than using the examples from the book:

Get one student to volunteer to read aloud his or her tentative statement of position (claim) from the Proposal Cover Sheet. Ask the class what type of claim this is (Fact, Value, Cause/Effect, Solution/Policy) and ask the student to read the claim again while you write it next to the appropriate category on the board. Then ask the class to rewrite the claim so that it fits the three other categories. For example, if the student gave a claim of cause/effect ("Excessive t.v. viewing causes antisocial behavior in children"), the class can rewrite it as a claim of fact ("Children are watching too much t.v. these days"), a claim of value ("T.V. viewing is negative when done in excess"), and a claim of policy ("The V-Chip is a better policy than the ratings system for controlling excessive and inappropriate viewing of t.v. by chidren"). [Doing this activity helps to demonstrate to students that some types of claims are more sophisticated than others. For instance, the claim of policy above seems to depend on all the other three claims. Making a value judgement or cause/effect assessment is necessary for proposing a particular solution or policy.]

Unpacking a claim - Before you move on to discuss appeals, spend a few minutes modeling one of the things you are asking students to do in their homework: "unpacking" a claim. Have another student volunteer his or her tentative claim from the Proposal Cover Sheet, write it word for word on the board, then ask the class what words or ideas are going to require clarification, definition, or support. Tell students that they are going to have to analyze their own claims in this way, and to decide what needs further development. The next step in their argument will be, of course, to support their claim with reasons.

Discuss appeals and practice identifying the different types - Just as you did with claims, begin by getting a definition (in students' own words) of "appeal" [something like "a way of bringing the audience over to your side" or "conscious attempts to convince the reader"] Then list the types on the board and discuss them briefly. The only one that typically confuses students is appeal to character. Oftentimes they assume (understandably) that this refers to the author's appeal to the audience's good character, not to his or her own good character or credibility.

You can practice identifying these different types of appeals by asking students to read a short passage or watch a short film clip which presents an organized argument. I've used the St. Crispin's day speech from Henry V (See Appendix 26), but I've also seen instructors use a clip from a movie or t.v. show. Ask your students to read or watch the sample, naming as many appeals as they can find. Discuss their responses for about 10 minutes.

Give Assignment Sheet - Argumentative Brief. Hand out the assignment sheet for the Argumentative Brief (See Appendix 25) due Friday. Tell students that after they have decided on a narrow, workable, debatable claim, they will be expected to come up with reasons/arguments to support this claim. The brief asks them to articulate the reasons that will support their claim, and to start assembling the evidence from their sources that they will need to (in turn) support these reasons. Explain that you will be talking about this assignment in more depth next class, but that they should read the assignment sheet for homework.

Exchange Annotated Bibliographies in Groups - Ask students to sit in their research groups as they are copying down their homework assignment. They should get out the extra copies of their annotated bibliographies which they brought to class today, and distribute them to their group members. [They should bring them to class next time if they forgot.] They can use each other's bibliographies as a resource for additional helpful sources for their own arguments. [Explain that this type of collaborative research is o.k.--even encouraged--in CO150, even though that might not be the case in other classes.]

Comment on any parts of the homework assignment which you think might require explanation.

COLLECT ARGUING PROPOSAL PACKETS.