Susan Golab, literacy consultantOakland SchoolsWaterford, Michigan

ASSESSING ARGUMENT

IN THE BEGINNING…

When teachers’ instruction and formative assessment practices are undergirded by learning progressions, teachers can better use formative assessment to map where individual student’s learning currently stands and take steps to move him forward.

Formative Assessment in Practice ~ Margaret Heritage, Pg. 37

Visible Learning: A Synthesis of over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement

John Hattie: Routledge, 2009

RESEARCH-BASED INSTRUCTIONAL APPROACH

AND THEN CAME ELI…

Professor Jeff Grabill, MSU WIDE Co-Director

TEACHERS AS RESEARCHERS

?

Research Questions:1. To what extent can students learn to become more effective

reviewers?

2. What do students learn about writing from reviewing?

3. To what extent can student learn to become more effective revisers?

4. What do students learn about writing from revision?

http://sites.matrix.msu.edu/swrp/

THERE MAY BE NO SUCH THING AS “ARGUMENTATIVE

WRITING”Who writes, reads, and has a stake in argumentative writing? Informational writing?

Nobody

THERE MAY BE NO SUCH THING AS “ARGUMENTATIVE

WRITING”Writers argue, persuade, summarize, analyze … in a range of situations

Writers make arguments for all sorts of reasons, with and for audiences, using the genres and evidence necessary

THE NEW RHETORIC

Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, in a treatise on argumentation, shift immediately to persuasion [1958/1969]

Foreground audience

Also deal explicitly with ambiguity and uncertainty (rhetoric is the domain of the uncertain; science the certain)

ANCIENT RHETORIC FOR MODERN STUDENTS:

SOURCES OF ARGUMENTSEthos (character of speaker); Pathos (emotions of the audience); Logos (arguments residing in the issue at hand): intrinsic to rhetoric

Modern rhetoric reduces its focus to empirical evidence (“facts”) and expert testimony: extrinsic to rhetoric

ANCIENT RHETORIC FOR MODERN STUDENTS: SOURCES

OF ARGUMENTSBelief isn’t a function of “logic” or reason alone

Belief is also a function of emotion, values, identity, community …

ANCIENT RHETORIC FOR MODERN STUDENTS: SOURCES

OF ARGUMENTSWhere I am going with this …

Rhetorical issues and situations are those about which there is disagreement and uncertainty

Inventing ideas begins with that uncertainty, with audiences, their communities, and beliefs … and addresses them in order to change belief

AND SO …

How does one begin to argue/persuade without audience?

Audience is a resource for invention

Argument/persuasion is inauthentic in situations of certainty—where all we ask students to do is “deploy facts”

Argument/persuasion begins with belief and explores uncertainty to shape belief

WHAT DO YOU SEE?

Table groups…

1.Look across the provided rubrics

2. Highlight where you see any reference to audience

3. What do you notice?

CREATING A DEVELOPMENTAL CONTINUUM

MOVES  

Scores Anchor Moves

Major Claim    

A score of 3: Claim is explicitly and clearly stated

 A score of 2: Claim is partially stated or unfocused

 A score of 1: Claim is confusing

 A score of 0: Claim is missing 

3: “I think the use of cell phones in a school should not only be allowed, but it should be encouraged” 2: “smart phones can be used for such great things in the class room”  1: “I believe that smart phones can be good if they’re used for the right reasons”

MOVES STUDIED

MOVES  

Scores Anchor Moves

Major Claim  Counterclaims

Use and Reasoning with Evidence

Use of Values appropriate for audience

Use of affect appropriate to audience

Implications

Conclusion

  

A score of 3: 

A score of 2:  

A score of 1:  

A score of 0:  

Use of Values appropriate for audience     

A score of 3: Appropriately and explicitly uses ethical

language such as “should” or audience or community norms (“we believe;” “people think”) or ethical examples as a form of reasoning appropriate for the audience.

 A score of 2: Uses language or examples based on values, or

norms with some connection to audience or community norms appropriate for the audience.

 A score of 1: Language or examples based on values or norms

are confusing or inappropriate  

A score of 0: No use of ethical language or values

 3: “Using their cell phone to get homework done in school not only benefits them, it benefits the school as a community. A school’s foundation is its community and if people aren’t getting involved then the community is shot” 2: “cell phones can help us students be more connected to our teachers”  “students will have to do the right thing” 1: “…can be good and bad…” “teachers complain about…” 

Use of affect appropriate to audience    

A score of 3: Consistently (3+ times) and appropriately uses direct

emotional language (such as humor, punctuation, emoticons)  as form of reasoning appropriate for the audience

 A score of 2: Appropriately uses direct emotional language  A score of 1: No use of audience A score of 0: Use of affect is inappropriate for the audience 

    1: “I feel that…” or “I know that…” (flat use of affect, no affect)

0: “I think it’s cool” (inappropriate use  for audience)  

ARTIFACT STUDY

STEP 1Each participant shares artifact.

What was the task? What reasoning do you see in the artifact? What would be qualities of the reasoning you do

find? STEP 2As a table…

Sort the artifacts into a continuum of reasoning from basic to developed.

Have a table member record the continuum into the Google Community