Charles Krupa/Associated PressDenver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow was home-schooled. Go to Room for Debate post on the question “Should Home-Schoolers P...
ACADEMIC SKILLS
Teaching ideas based on New York Times content.
Like teachers all over the country, we’ve been thinking about what a shift to the Common Core State Standards will mean, and we’ve done a few posts already on how teaching with The Times in general can be a useful way to respond to the new focus on reading “informational text.”
Today, though, we’re honing in on one of the fundamental points of emphasis in the new E.L.A. writing standards: argument. Here’s how the overview in the Standards document summarizes it:
The ability to write logical arguments based on substantive claims, sound reasoning and relevant evidence is a cornerstone of the writing standards, with opinion writing — a basic form of argument — extending down into the earliest grades.
Now, of course the Times Opinion section as a whole can provide daily models of “logical arguments based on substantive claims,” whether through the Editorial page, Op-Ed columnists, Letters to the Editor or even the collection of Opinion videos. But in this post, we want to introduce Room for Debate, a Times blog that might be especially helpful for students across a range of abilities.
Each Room for Debate post takes an issue or event in the news and rounds up opinions about it from four to six knowledgeable outside contributors. Because each contributor posts only a brief, four- or five-paragraph response, and because the design of the blog makes it easy to quickly grasp how the viewpoints differ, it is an especially accessible format. The posts, on everything from whether the United States has a plan for Iraq to whether store-bought items are O.K. to sell at bake sales, are also easy to scroll through.
Below, we’ve listed some ideas for using this blog and other Times features to help students hone their argument skills. Let us know how else you’re taking on the Standards in general — and this writing standard in particular — in your classroom.
Analyze a Room for Debate Post on a Topic That Interests You
To look closely at how the arguments in a Room for Debate post are built, choose a topic that you care about and take notes as you read. (Our “Debatable Issues” graphic organizer might help.)
For instance, if you’re considering an internship, you might want to read what five experts have to say on the question, “Do Unpaid Internships Exploit College Students?” Are internships “modern-day coal mines” or a “win-win situation”? With whom do you most agree? Who makes the best argument? How is that argument structured? What evidence is presented? What original points does each guest writer make? What points are made by several of the writers?
When you’re done, you might even go so far as to decide how well these various adult writers do on the “college and career-ready” scale by judging their arguments against the Common Core Writing Standards for making logical arguments. (How well did each “write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence,” for instance?)
Create a Student or Community Version of Room for Debate
Is there an interesting controversy in your school or community right now? A school policy question that needs an answer? Create a version of Room for Debate for your school or local newspaper or Web site in which you invite four to six stakeholders with different points of view to summarize their thoughts in four to five paragraphs each.
The idea may remind you of the popular “Vox Pop” or “Man on the Street” interviews that many school and community newspapers (and even satirical papers like The Onion) publish, but follow Room for Debate’s style to take it further. You might give a short summary of each guest writer’s biography above their comments, and create a catchy title for each guest’s post that sums up his or her thinking. In a post about President Obama’s re-election chance with college stud..., for example, one writer’s argument was summed up as, “Obama, Yes. Washington, No.”, while another’s was given the headline, “Were We Wrong About Obama?”
Invent a Fantasy Edition of Room for Debate
What would a Room for Debate with the Founding Fathers on the question of separation of church and state read like? How about a Scientific Revolution edition in which Galileo Galilei, his astronomer contemporaries and Pope Urban VIII debate heliocentrism? Or, perhaps, a literary version in which the characters in a novel you’re reading as a class debate an important issue or question raised in that work? The Room for Debate formula is simple to adapt to suit any curriculum, and students alone, in pairs or in groups can be responsible for writing four- to five-paragraph summaries of the points of view of different people. (And, of course, it’s your Room for Debate, so mix era and figures if you like. You could include Nicolaus Copernicus in your heliocentrism debate, for example, even if he’s from an earlier century.)
Room for Debate and Essential Questions:
Some questions posed on Room for Debate already read like the kinds of“essential questions” that can guide whole semesters of study. An American history or civics classroom could use questions like Is the U.S. Still a ‘Land of Opportunity’? or Is Americans’ Religious Freedom Under Threat? or Should Voting Be Mandatory? as lenses on history or current events.
One idea: Before and after a unit of study, teachers might pose an essential question of their own and have students answer it, each crafting a four- or five-paragraph response like the guests in Room for Debate. How do their answers change after studying the question for several weeks or months? Why?
Transform an Issue in the News Into a Debate
Any day’s Times can suggest scores of great questions that you can use for writing, oral debates, “fishbowl discussions” or just informal journal writing that can help students practice making logical arguments.
For instance, just a few of the meaty debatable issues reported on in The Times last week include access to birth control for women who work at institutions affiliat...; Charles Murray’s controversialnew book about the white working class; and how the U.S. and Israel are responding to the threat of Iran.
Classes that don’t have the time to to take on complex geopolitical or theological arguments might scan The Times for lighter issues to debate, whether people are giving Too Much Information in today’s Facebook world,or whether we should all learn to eat more slowly. Page through a day’s paper and see how many debatable issues you can find.
Practice Your Argument Skills With Our Student Opinion Feature
Every day, we pose a question for students to which anyone 13 and older is invited to write in and respond — and, since it’s the job of both of our blogs to comb the news weekly for important themes and topics, we often end up posing questions that mirror something on Room for Debate.
For instance, Room for Debate asks six experts this week about the advantages and disadvantages of living alone, while we asked students last week, in response to some of the same articles, “Do You Like Being Alone?” Similarly, we’ve both recently asked about whether home-schoolers should be allowed to play on public school teams. Read the experts on Room for Debate, then comegive your newly informed answer on our blog.
We leave almost all our Student Opinion questions open indefinitely, so come anytime and scroll through what we’ve asked, read what others have said and add your own thoughts (first names only, please!). We moderate all comments ourselves, so it’s also a safe place to post.
Have Fun With Questions
Room for Debate isn’t all serious questions about our role in Iraq or how to fix the economy. Occasionally, the editors ask people why they collect stuff, or how science fiction has foreshadowed actual discoveries and inventions, orwhere in Europe Ernest Hemingway would go if he were looking for the dynamic center of the continent now.
What whimsical question would you like to ask five or six experts if you were a Room for Debate editor? Whom would you invite to answer them? If you have some good ideas, the blog invites you to write in and suggest them.
Room for Debate on Issues That Concern Young People:
Last fall, Room for Debate asked 15 teenagers How the Future Looks From High School. Though the blog doesn’t often pose questions directly to young people, there are many posts that concern those younger than 25. For instance, here are some recent questions:
Should Parents Control What Kids Learn at School?
Single-Sex Schools: Separate but Equal?
Are Research Papers a Waste of Time?
