Q&A - Argument vs. Pursuasion in the Common Core

Question: We are running some professional development sessions on argumentative writing in middle school and have been discussing the differences between “argument” and “persuasion.” We currently have a unit in our curriculum units around persuasive writing and have been talking about claims and proof vs. emotional appeal. We were wondering your thoughts on the subject as we transition to the Common Core.

It’s a “both/and” situation. Successful persuasion relies both upon the argument-evidence formula of argumentative writing and also the emotional appeal of persuasive writing.

At the argumentative level, students must be able to evaluate whether or not a claim (such as a newspaper headline) is supported by evidence. IT’s the classic “make an argument, break an argument” critical thinking challenge, and most daily newspapers and web sites offer real-world examples for teachers to use. It’s useful when teachers help students take that material and separate it out into “claims”, “arguments” and “evidence.” Then they can evaluate competing claims, arguments, and evidence.

However, evidentiary claims are not always the end of the argument. On some topics, such as the death penalty or childhood vaccinations, the statistics alone do not resolve the argument. If the death penalty is, overall, administered in a statistically accurate method most of the time, how do we deal with the fact that some innocent people are executed? Is it like collateral damage in war? Similarly, we value the freedom of parents to make health decisions for their kids, but what about when they expose other innocent children to deadly risks? Quantitative reasoning only helps us so far in these debates – we need both the mathematical and the emotional to help us sort them out.

I’m afraid that I haven’t made this much easier for you and your students, but in general, I think we need to challenge them much beyond the “save the whales” arguments on one side or the “save the dollars” on the other side. Policy (and humanity) depends upon both quantitative and qualitative reasoning.

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