For the Sake of Argument - Sr. Mary Ann's Resource Sharing

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For the Sake of Argument Students excel in response to this urban high schooVs philosophy: The heart of good writing is good thinking. Alex Hernandez, Melissa Aul Kaplan, and Robert Schwartz achers who try to put crit- ical thinking at the forefront of high school literacy nistruction often find that students respond with blank stares, half-hearted responses, and plagiarized papers. Even on those special days when students passionately discuss ideas, it can be challenging for them to translate their discourse into rigorous writing. When so many students read and write belovi' grade level, how can teachers promote critical thinking in literacy? Our experience at View Park Preparatory High School, a charter school in South Los Angeles, suggests that schools do not have to choose between remediation and acceleration. View Park Prep enrolls 375 students in grades 9-12. Ninety-eight percent are African American, and half are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. View Park's literacy program has a single, measurable goal: By graduation, every student will be able to write a 500- word sustained argument free of mechanical error, reflecting his or her ability to reason. The decision to emphasize argumen- tation reflects View Park's philosophy that the heart of good writing is good thinking. Other approaches often teach writing as a process or as a series of discrete skills. Isolated from the larger tapestry of reading and chinking, the ability to write becomes meaningless. Students may dazzle us with their word choice and sentence structure, but they often have nothing compelling to say. In contrast, at View Park, we treat writing not as an end in itself but as a means to an end as students learn effec- tive argumentation and the type of analytical reasoning necessary for college success. The View Park Approach in Action Setting the Stage On the first day of 9th grade English, View Park students are greeted m\h a writing assignment: Describe a moment in your life that you consider special. Although some groan, others get right to work. Most of the students put little thought into the assignment. Personal reflections are easy enough to fudge, after all. Students are surprised, however, by Ms. Kleins' persistent questioning. One student, Jatnes, chooses to write about a family trip to the South, Ms. Klein repeatedly questions him about why he deems the trip "special." Other students volunteer suggestions: because it's fun, because it's exciting, because it's out of the ordinary. After much discussion, the class agrees on a definition of "special." As this classroom exercise shows, the process of introducing high literacy 48 EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP/OCTOBER 2006

Transcript of For the Sake of Argument - Sr. Mary Ann's Resource Sharing

Page 1: For the Sake of Argument - Sr. Mary Ann's Resource Sharing

For the Sakeof ArgumentStudents excel in response to this urbanhigh schooVs philosophy: The heart ofgood writing is good thinking.

Alex Hernandez, Melissa Aul Kaplan, and Robert Schwartz

achers who try to put crit-ical thinking at the forefrontof high school literacynistruction often find thatstudents respond with

blank stares, half-hearted responses,and plagiarized papers. Even on thosespecial days when students passionatelydiscuss ideas, it can be challenging forthem to translate their discourse intorigorous writing. When so manystudents read and write belovi' gradelevel, how can teachers promote criticalthinking in literacy?

Our experience at View ParkPreparatory High School, a charterschool in South Los Angeles, suggeststhat schools do not have to choosebetween remediation and acceleration.View Park Prep enrolls 375 students ingrades 9-12. Ninety-eight percent areAfrican American, and half are eligiblefor free or reduced-price lunch. ViewPark's literacy program has a single,measurable goal: By graduation, everystudent will be able to write a 500-word sustained argument free ofmechanical error, reflecting his or herability to reason.

The decision to emphasize argumen-tation reflects View Park's philosophythat the heart of good writing is goodthinking. Other approaches often teachwriting as a process or as a series ofdiscrete skills. Isolated from the largertapestry of reading and chinking, theability to write becomes meaningless.Students may dazzle us with their wordchoice and sentence structure, but theyoften have nothing compelling to say.In contrast, at View Park, we treatwriting not as an end in itself but as ameans to an end as students learn effec-tive argumentation and the type ofanalytical reasoning necessary forcollege success.

The View ParkApproach in ActionSetting the StageOn the first day of 9th grade English,View Park students are greeted m\h awriting assignment: Describe amoment in your life that you considerspecial. Although some groan, othersget right to work. Most of thestudents put little thought into theassignment. Personal reflections are

easy enough to fudge, after all.Students are surprised, however, by

Ms. Kleins' persistent questioning. Onestudent, Jatnes, chooses to write abouta family trip to the South, Ms. Kleinrepeatedly questions him about why hedeems the trip "special." Other studentsvolunteer suggestions: because it's fun,because it's exciting, because it's out ofthe ordinary. After much discussion,the class agrees on a definition of"special."

As this classroom exercise shows, theprocess of introducing high literacy

48 EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP/OCTOBER 2006

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The process of introducing highliteracy standards in urbanschools often has humble, if notdownright messy, beginnings.

standards in urban schools often hashumble, if not downright messy, begin-nings. But the class's opening discus-sion of what makes an experience"special" has laid the groundwork forintroducing an esseniial question forthe students' first exercise in literaryargumentation later that week: Whatmakes the moment in EtheridgeKnights "Haiku 111" so special? In addi-tion, the teacher has systematicallyintroduced several key practices of theschools literacy program;

• Personal reflections help students

connect their personal experiences toliterary texts as they reflect on a simpli-fied version of an essential question.

• Socratic discussion developsstudents' critical-thin king skills as theyare pushed to define terms and extendtheir reasoning. The class deepens itsthinking about the essential questionlong before students put pencil topaper. Writing, when it happens, will

8 be an extension of student thought andT discussion.I • Essential questions provide a lens forI literary interpretation, set the parame-I ters for student arguments, and define

the culminating writing assignment.

Readingjor Understanding[̂ To begin the class's study of "Haiku Ul,"5 Ms. Klein asks students to read the

poem and identify the poem's five Ws(Who, What, When, Where, and Why)and one H (How):

Eastern guard tower

glints in sunset; convicts rest

like lizards on rocks.

—Etheridge Knight, 1968.Reprinted with permission.

The students quickly identify thefirst four Ws but struggle to find theWhy. Ms. Klein draws attention to thepunctuation, asking the class about thepurpose of the semicolon. No one

recalls the purpose of this particularn:iark. Ms. Klein reminds them that asemicolon connects two completesentences and sometimes signifies acause-and-effect relationship.

Keisha cries out in frustration, "Yeah,hut how could the sunset cause thecon\icts to rest on rocks?" Ms. Kleinasks students to sketch the scene.Almost immediately, Rochelle burstsout with pride, "The sun is blinding theguards!"

Text selection is crucial to the successof the program, and "Haiku III" isappealing for several reasons. First, thebrevity of a haiku makes it accessihle tonearly all students in the class, most ofwhom have limited reading compre-hension skills. Second, the haiku, inspite of its hrevity, contains powerfulideas wonhy of Socratic discussion,making the text suitahle for argumenta-tion. These ideas hold the interest ofadvanced students but also respect thecritical-thinking skills of students withacademic deficiencies. A 14-year-oldv^th 3th grade reading skills can stilldiscuss the concept of "specialmoments." Finally, students connectwith the African American author andhis personal story of redemption,which Ms. Klein has shared with them.Although we do not advocate usingonly African American authors withAfrican American students, creatively

ASSOCIATION FOR SUPERVISION AND CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT 49

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U^thOnklng^cnv —WUlCcvm/ZtA^^r^er

connecting students to texts is impor-tant, especially for 9th graders whomay resist reading and writing.

Making the Argument"OK, class! By saying that this momentis special, you are makmg a clflim," Stillfocused on the text, Ms. Klein asks thestudents to take several minutes towrite a claim answenng the essentialquestion. What makes the moment inEtheridge Knight's "Haiku III" sospecial? This first draft of the unitsculminating assignment builds on theclass discussion, illustrating forstudents that writing is an extension ofthinking. After a few minuies, Ms.Klein writes several student answers onthe board:

Keisha: This moment is special becausethe guards can't see the prisoners.

James: The moment is special becausethe guards are blinded,

Rochelle: The moment is special becausethe piisoners have a moment of freedom.

Ms. Klein points out that all threeanswers contain some truth accordingto the class's interpretation of the poem,

and then she asks the students tocompare the answers. The studentsconclude that both James and Keishagave factual answers, but Rochelle usedfacts to interpret the events. As Ms.Klein explains, Rochelle's is the onlyanswer that contains an arguable claim.

View Park students never begin aformal writing assignment until theymap out their arguments and refmetheir reasoning through Socratic discus-sion. In this example, the class's discus-sion about why the moment in "HaikuIII" is so special leads to a claim, whichbecomes the starting point for thewritten assignment, to write a completeargument using evidence from thehaiku,

A Model of ArgumentationThis example from Ms, Kleins 9thgrade class illustrates how students areintroduced to the concept of a claim,the first of four elements of an argu-ment mcluded in Stephen Toulmin's(1958) Model of Argumentation. ViewPark bases its literacy instructionthroughout the grades on tbis model.Students devote most of their 9th

grade year to learning the fourelements of an argument: claim (theposition); clarification (qualifierslimiting the claim); evidence (supportfor the claim); and warrant (thereasoning that connects the evidence tothe claim).

The central goal of 9th grade Englishis for students to learn to use themodel and write one good argument.This argument may only be a para-graph in length, although somestudents produce longer and morecomplex arguments by the end of thefirst year.

We require 9th and 10th gradestudents to be explicit in their argu-ment by formally labeling the fourelements. Struggling writers benefitfrom the model's clear structurebecause it tells them how to navigatethrough an assignment, avoiding the "Idon't know where to start" syndrome.Because the writing assignment relieson students' ability to express theirreasoning, plagiarism becomes virtu-ally impossible.

On each writing assignment,students receive feedback in two areas:strength of argument and mechanicalaccuracy Teachers assess strength ofargument using a rubric emphasizingthe four key elements. They assessmechanics only in temis of their effecton the argument. For example, ateacher might write, "This is a run-onsentence. Would shorter sentenceswith transition words better illustrateyour point?" Although teachers high-light every error in a student's piece ofwriting, they often do so on a separatecopy of the paper. Students are lessdiscouraged by marked papers repletewith errors because they see that thepurpose of improving mechanics is tostrengthen their argument. View Parkdoes not use any grammar texts orprewritten grammar exercises for high

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school students. Students leamwriting mechanics within thecontext of their writing goals.

In 10th grade, students gainfacility in using the model. Theystart to write with more purposeand elevate the quality of theSocratic discussions. By themiddle of 10th grade, teachersoften observe their lowest-achieving students showingsparks of great thinking. Socraticdiscussions become more studentdriven as students recognizeweaknesses in other people'sarguments and offer rebuttals.Most students can sustain argu-ments roughly one page long bythe end of lOih grade. By then,approximately 60 percent of thestudents are prepared to leave theformal structure of the Toulminmodel.

View Park students neverbegin a formal writingassignment until they mapout their arguments.

Acceierating StudentAchievementThe training wheels come off in 11thgrade, and students write withoutexplicitly labelmg the components oftheir arguments. Students still generallyuse the Toulmin model in their notesand drafts to organize increasinglysophisticated arguments, adding sub-claims, expanded clarifications, andrebuttals when appropriate. Teacherspromote this acceleration by posingmore challenging essential questions,using texts that support multiple inter-pretations, and choosing largerpassages from which students analyzeand select evidence. By the end of fouryears, we expect every student to beable to sustain an argument in responselo college-level material.

For example, 11th graders exploreNathaniel Hawthorne's "YoungGoodman Brown" using the question.Does this short story assume that

humankind is inherently good or inher-ently wicked? They study Ken KeseysOne Flew Over the Guckoo's Nest using

the question. Does R, P McMurphyserve to liberate or further imprison hisfellow patients on the ward? Twelfthgraders read Shakespeare's Antony andGleopatra and consider the question, Asillustrated in this drama, does passiondegrade or beautify the human experi-ence?

View Park uses the Toulmin model asa writing-across-the-curriculumprogram. For example, l l th gradehistory students study Dr. MartinLuther Kingjr.'s "I-etter from Birm-ingham Jail" and develop argumentsaddressing the question. Is civil disobe-dience ever justified?

In chemistry, 10th grade students areasked to make a written argumentabout the primary causes of fish kills ina local river, using data on watertemperature, pH levels, and ion

concentration as evidence. Thisessential question requiresstudents to use higher-orderthinking skills to interpret tech-nical data and determine causalrelationships among observablephenomena.

In math, 9th grade studentsuse the Toulmin framework toargue whether two differentshapes can have the same area.Students analyze two shapes on agrid to create the evidence thatwill support their arguments. Theexercise helps guide studentstoward investigation and justifica-tion and away from rote applica-tion of algorithms.

The Toulmin model provides acommon language for students todiscuss their reasoning in allclassrooms. Moreover, by savingindividual teachers the timerequired to develop and imple-

ment norms for writing and classroomdiscussion, this common frameworkincreases instructional time,

Chailenging TraditionOur experience suggests that highschool literacy programs that focus oncritical thinking can produce powerfulresults for urban students. In 2005,View Park students had the highest testscores among African American highschool students in California (Cali-fornia Department of Education API,2005), In addition, our African Amer-ican students posted higher proficiencyrates on the California EnglishLanguage Arts exam than their whitepeers in the distnct did (CaliforniaDepartment of Education STAR, 2005).

The success of a critical-thinkingframework like the Toulmin modeldepends on a student-centered schoolin which all teachers agree on acommon approach to accelerating

A S S O C I A T I O N FOR S U P E R V I S I O N A N D C U R R I C U L U M D E V E L O P M E N T 5 1

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By the middle of 10th grade, teachers oftenohserve their lowest-achieving studentsshowing sparks of great thinking.

improvement in literacy With students

entering high school so far behind, no

teacher can single-handedly prepare

them for college. Accelerated learning

requires a sustained, collaborative effort

in which all teachers reinforce the same

set of critical-thinking skills. Strong

instruction becomes the link that holds

this teaching model together.

Basing adolescent literacy on critical

thinking represents a radical departure

from tradition, particularly for students

performing below grade level. But the

urgent need to improve the success

rates of low-income students in high

school and college demands radical

changes in our expectations and in the

way we support these students. At View

Park, we have found that students rise

to the challenge. S!

'Teacher and student names arepseudonyms.

ReferencesCalifomia Depanment of Education

Academic Performance Index (API).

(2005), Available: http://api,cde,ca,govCahfomia Department of Education Stan-

dardized Testing And Reporting (STAR)Program. (2005), Available: http://star.cde.ca.gov/star2005/viewrepon, asp

Knight, E, (1968), Poems from Prison.Detroit, Ml: Broadside Press.

Toulmin, S, (1958), The Uses of Argument.Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UniversityPress,

Alex Hernandez is the Director ofSchool Improvement at Portland PublicSchools and a former teacher andadministrator at View Park PreparatoryHigh School; alexh@stanfordalurr)ni.org,Melissa Aul Kaplan is Chairperson ofthe Engiish department at View ParkPreparatory High School; melissa.kaplan©yahoo,com. Robert Schwartz is thefounding Principal of View Park Prepara-tory High School; rschwartz©viewparkprep.org.

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