Finding and Creating Arguments From Our Own Lives: A Lesson You Can Use Now on Argumentative Writing
Finding Arguments in Your Morning Routine
#NoPromptsNeeded
I first became familiar with the pre-writing portion of this assignment during a C3WP session I attended in 2019 through the National Writing Project. C3WP stands for College, Career, and Community Writers Program. If you are unfamiliar with the National Writing Project, it is an amazing network of literacy educators that often think outside of the box when it comes to teaching reading and writing. There is also a mission entrenched in the idea of “teachers as writers,” and continuing professional development as an integral way to continue building skills as an educator. Many of the writing sessions that are geared toward both adults and children focus on the inspiration from the life of the writer as a way to access the entire writing process.
Back in 2019 when I first wrote about generative writing, I said:
The term “generative” writing has a few different meanings in the world of writing.
It can take the form of an idea brainstorming in creative writing. It is often unedited and looks like a stream-of-consciousness exercise where the writer is not concerned with conventions like grammar, spelling, or punctuation. The cool thing about generative writing is that the students are the prompts. Your job as a teacher is transformative when you help facilitate the writer to discover their own writing process-including idea generation. Generative in the sense of this post means the ideas are generated from the writer’s life and then transposed into a variety of genres. This post will walk you through how to do this with argumentative writing, and then apply it to a writing workshop.
Idea Brainstorming and Generating
Starting with Student Ideas
Taken from the C3WP Teacher Workshop, one of the best ways to introduce argumentative writing is to have students write about their morning routines in detail such as how they got to school that day. The genre of argumentative writing seems static and distant at times because students are often given the prompts that they need to argue, given the articles that provide evidence, and then told to follow a script to setup how they argue on paper. Allowing them to become part of the prompt then transforms the idea of argumentative writing into something more relevant.
The writing generator: Write a detailed schedule labeled with times regarding how you got up for school (or work if you are a teacher) and how you arrived at the exact spot or location you are currently at filling out the answer to this question.
A teacher's example:
(Note: It is a great idea to have a mentor text schedule already done so students can walk through the process with you. If in a rush, feel free to borrow this one)
My Teacher Morning Routine and Schedule
Cell phone alarm goes off at 5:30 am
Get up, brush teeth, wash face, get dressed, put on makeup, and complete other parts of the routine
Fix breakfast, make coffee, get into the car, travel to work
Arrive at work, walk through entry doors, walk down the hallway, say hello to security staff and building secretary
Walk to the classroom, open the door, walk over to the desk, put items away
Bell rings to start class, first hour class walks in, students have 5 minutes to get to class
The first period begins
Remind students that when they are doing their morning routines and schedules they can be as messy as possible, but details are what matter when making their writing idea really come alive. Also, remind them that grammar and punctuation don’t matter. Ideas are messy. I recommend a timer on the board as a way to get ideas out of their heads and then headed in the direction of choosing topics.
Narrowing Down the Topic
Here is the best part! (At least I think so) Show them that arguments are everywhere. Walk them through the example morning routine and connect arguments to what they are living in their day-to-day lives. You are about to remind them that they are living, breathing, primary sources of information and are part of a larger interconnected web of the world around them.
These are just some of the issues that are connected to the daily habits of this particular morning routine.
My Teacher Morning Routine and Schedule
Cell phone alarm goes off at 5:30 am Cell phone radiation issues, technology over-consumption, social media use, times that start the work day and end the work day
Get up, brush teeth, wash face, get dressed, put on makeup, and complete other parts of routine Water consumption, product testing, chemical authorization, housing resources and laws
Fix breakfast, make coffee, get into the car, travel to work Gas emissions, climate change, caffeine consumption, product manufacturing guidelines, products made abroad vs. in the United States
Arrive at work, walk through entry doors, walk down the hallway, and say hello to security staff and building secretary School security issues, teacher resources
Walk to the classroom, open the door, walk over to the desk, put items away
Bell rings to start class, first hour walks in, students have 5 minutes to get to class Bell system, schedules at schools
The first period begins Teacher/student classload allocation, school zoning, redlining
Entering the Writing Workshop
I feel like the writing workshop can get complicated quickly. There is prep and planning, implementation, strategies, and more. Whenever it is mentioned in professional development, eyes can easily roll because it is one of those things that everyone seems to have an opinion about and only English teachers have the right answers.
Not so.
A writing workshop is just a dedicated time and space focused on writing. The presence of someone who is wildly enthusiastic about the content and the process helps. Any teacher can have a writing workshop, and there does not need to be a set of certain rules to follow to make it work in all classrooms.
Pre-Writing
The pre-writing phase involves all types of brainstorming. This is one of the most creative parts of the writing process because the writer is unrestricted by the possibility of ideas. When you have students look at their daily schedules and then look at the examples, guide them toward choosing something they are passionate about or interested in as a person.
Then, one of the biggest parts of pre-writing is focusing on the idea of curiosity and research. The goal of argumentative writing is to provide claims and evidence pieces on a topic that are not only interesting but impactful to a number of people. Start by having them choose 2-3 interesting topics, and then show them how to research materials to narrow down what they think they can also learn from their writing. One of the best parts of writing is not just reporting information you already know ahead of time in a manner that you can guess (a five-paragraph essay). The goal is to become more knowledgeable, more curious, and a better researcher by the end of the process. This is the key to good writing.
Pre-Writing Steps:
Students review their own schedules and example.
Students choose 2-3 interesting potential topics.
Students research their 2-3 top choices.
Students make a final decision on their topic based on what they found.
Then, after they have narrowed down a topic with ideas, they can talk about how they want to organize their writing. The most common setup for this would be a claim followed by evidence that includes elaboration and connection back to the stated claim.
Drafting
I think when I started teaching argumentative writing, I had a vision in my head about a debate between students. While this stands the test of the genre, it also speaks to the idea that argumentative writing should not only persuade but should inform. Genres are often fluid. The best arguments I have ever heard often involve personal narrative writing as a means to provide anecdotes and base an argument on appeal.
However, during the drafting process, allow students to create their own arguments. This process starts with a claim that can be supported by evidence. You may have to teach students about reliable sources and where to find information depending on the timing of the school year, but the focus should be on how to present knowledge to back up a claim.
What is the teacher doing during drafting? I recommend getting a clipboard. ASAP. A clipboard is a tool for the writing teacher to check in with all students during each part of the writing process and keeps you sane.
Read more about Hop-Checks here.
Revising and Editing
Using the same mantras from hop-checks, you as a teacher of writing, are not going to touch each paper during each part of the writing process. I spent years doing this in my classroom. I would grade each claim, introduction, body paragraph, rough draft #1, and rough draft #2, and so on. My students were learning at a massive rate, but I was burning out far before I needed to light that candle.
Grading as a whole is an inefficient process.
So, what do we as teachers of writing do instead? We talk to writers. We conference with them about their writing. This starts with relationships and rapport, but it also starts with knowing where students are going to falter along the way. For example, students always struggle with the elaboration of evidence. I could bet money on it at times. Therefore, I would have a round of conferencing where I just talked about how they were going to elaborate on one piece of evidence. This can then be applied to other pieces of evidence throughout their writing.
Revising and Editing Steps:
Check in with writers verbally.
Choose one area at a time to focus on for conversations.
Give extra feedback if needed to help a writer (Teacher discretion)
Choose when you will give feedback on purpose in writing. This takes up the most time.
Read more about writing conferences here.
Read more about grading tips here.
Publishing and Sharing
The best part of the writer’s workshop and writing process is the sharing piece. All too often, we as teachers rush to the next unit and next lesson because we feel like we have to in order to accomplish goals. However, the joy in writing is sharing the newfound information with others and inspiring others to care about what we have to say. This is the key to building a classroom community in any type or subject of the classroom.
