Persuasive Writing and Debate Class Summary 3/24/14

Collaborative Essays

We began class this week with students presenting their homework - collaborative persuasive essays which required use of analogy.  The students did a solid job crafting hooks, writing clear thesis statements and introductions, and organizing supporting points for their arguments.  We heard a variety of interesting analogies:

• A loved leader is like a wheat field of healthy wheat (citizens); a feared leader is like a wheat field overrun with weeds (unruly citizens).

• A leader is like a parent.  A loved parent will be respected, while a feared parent may be obeyed but will not be honored or truly effective.

• A world where people are immortal is like a factory farm over-crowded with animals.

We will hear the essay from the final team of students next week.

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Identifying Fallacies

We moved on to discussing informal fallacies and how to identify them.  An informal fallacy is an argument that is usually psychologically persuasive but logically weak. It is like a “counterfeit” argument - a type of argument that may seem to be correct but which proves on closer examination to be invalid and misleading. Students should learn to recognize these fallacies and avoid using them in their writing and debate.  [We explored informal fallacies of definition in a previous class (2/17/14)].  

Emotional appeals often constitute the source of persuasion in an informal fallacy. We term these fallacies as "informal" because they are most often found in the everyday exchanges of ideas, such as newspaper editorials, letters to the editor, political speeches, advertisements, conversational disagreements between people on social networking sites and Internet discussion boards, and so on.

I provided the students a handout with definitions and examples of some of the most common informal fallacies.  The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy provides a more thorough list of fallacies for those interested in exploring the topic further.

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Next week students will be given some time to finalize their infomercials and then they will present to the class.  Teams will be scored on both creativity and effectiveness.  Those observing the presentations will see if they can identify the types of fallacies used.

Students then paired up to begin brainstorming for the in-class assignment and homework.  I challenged teams to create an original 3-4 minute "infomercial" for a product of their choice (either real or team created).  They were tasked with incorporating as many fallacies as possible into the sales pitch, while still keeping it believable and convincing.

Persuasive Essays

I met individually with students to provide my comments and suggestions for improving their persuasive essay drafts.  Students should continue to work on finalizing their drafts and continue to email me the updated essays.  All are working at their own pace and at various stages of completion.

Homework

In addition to continuing work on the individual persuasive essays, students should collaborate with their partners to write the infomercial they began in class.  Come next week prepared to put the pieces together and make your presentation to the class.  Don't forget to bring your product prop and your list of fallacies used in the commercial!