Standard 3: Critical Reading and Writing

Students will apply critical thinking skills to reading and writing.

12.3.R.5 Students will evaluate how authors writing on the same issue reached different conclusions because of differences in assumptions, evidence, reasoning, and viewpoints.

Student Actions 

Teacher Actions 

• Students will continue to analyze how authors develop different ideas and events on similar issues.
• Students will continue to recognize author’s purpose and identify bias and fact that influence the viewpoint.
• Students will continue to note the differences in the types, evidence, and support required for claims.

• Teachers provide opportunities for students to examine how authors with the same ideas have differing viewpoints.
• Teachers provide opportunities for students to recognize the differences between bias and fact.
• Teachers provide students with opportunities to judge how authors use evidence to support claims.

Supporting Resource

Teacher Insights

• Primary and Secondary Sources (webpage)
• excerpts from The Lang. of Comp. & Everything's an Argument (webpage) 

• Students will need to analyze arguments as a whole--the claim, reasons that support that claim, evidence that proves those reasons, assumptions made within the reasons or evidence, and personal perspective (viewpoint)--in order to judge how the writer arrived at his/her conclusion on an issue.

• Students should also examine the quality of evidence used in each argument and evaluate how well it supports the author’s claims.

• The possibility of bias should be examined in this analysis.  

• Bias is a prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another that is often developed from a person’s experience or schema.  

• Thus, a speaker’s viewpoint can be established because of a bias.  

• By analyzing the rhetoric used in an argument, students should be able to determine the overall quality of an argument.

• A rhetorical triangle may be a helpful medium, or graphic organizer, for this analysis and comparison. Then, evidence can be added onto this organizer by distinguishing what kind of appeal the evidence is making (ethos, pathos, logos).

• Helpful resources for the rhetorical triangle:

• SlidePlayer

• What Do Students Need to Know About Rhetoric?

• ProjectCORA

• Mind Tools

Activity

• Discussion Web

• Students will read two texts on the same issue.

• In the middle box, students will identify the general issue.

• At the top of each column students will identify the position of each author.

• Below, list evidence each author uses to support their claim.

• Finally, students will select which position they feel was argued more effectively and explain their reasoning in the conclusions section.

Due to recursive nature of the standards, it is essential that teachers are aware of how all objectives within and between strands work together for optimal instruction.