2023 ENG 101 Claims Activity

• ​Use appropriate argumentative techniques/strategies

​Today's Objectives

1. Review claims (textbook reference)

2. Claims silent socratic dialogue (audience activity)

​Today's Agenda

Friday, March 3rd

Step 1: Create a Claim

• Decide on a topic and write a claim of fact, value, or policy. Follow that with a brief explanation/reasoning for this point of view. You do not need to write your name on the paper.

Step 2: Respond to the claim on the paper you received.

• Respond in one of the following ways:

• Point out areas of the claim and reasoning don’t understand and ask questions to seek more information and/or suggest how the point could be more effectively argued

• Agree with the point of view and explain why by offering additional information

• Disagree with the point of view and explain why your point of view differs.

• Explain how the claim challenged your thinking on the topic.

​Student’s claim and reasoning:

The increased use of technology in college classrooms is raising the cost of college and negatively impacting students. Technology use in classrooms is not new, but we now rely on it more to complete essential work and tasks. Most classes rely on technology for course management, like Blackboard, and many even use additional programs like MindTap and My Labs Plus. So students not only have to purchase and maintain devices like computers and tablets to complete their work, but they are also paying additional fees for access codes. It seems like this may also be impacting sharing and re-selling of textbooks, as it is easy to acquire a hard copy of a book to reuse, but I don’t think you can re-sell access codes.

Second Student Response: I did not consider the point about access codes and how it might impact textbook selling/exchanges. It seems that these codes are a part of the move toward more affordable textbooks, though won’t there still be a need for buying/re-selling to continue, or is that a thing of the past?  

Example

Step 3: Keep the conversation going. Exchange papers with another group. Then respond and exchange until everyone in the group has had a chance to contribute to each thread.

● Agree or disagree (respectfully) with your peer’s thoughts on the original claim and explain why

● Acknowledge your peer’s response to the original claim. Then point out another part of the original claim (different from your peer’s response) that you’d like to respond to.

​Student’s claim and reasoning:

The increased use of technology in college classrooms is raising the cost of college and negatively impacting students. Technology use in classrooms is not new, but we now rely on it more to complete essential work and tasks. Most classes rely on technology for course management, like Blackboard, and many even use additional programs like MindTap and My Labs Plus. So students not only have to purchase and maintain devices like computers and tablets to complete their work, but they are also paying additional fees for access codes. It seems like this may also be impacting sharing and re-selling of textbooks, as it is easy to acquire a hard copy of a book to reuse, but I don’t think you can re-sell access codes.

Second Student Response: I did not consider the point about access codes and how it might impact textbook selling/exchanges. It seems that these codes are a part of the move toward more affordable textbooks, though won’t there still be a need for buying/re-selling to continue, or is that a thing of the past?  

Third student response: I do think buying/selling is starting to become more obsolete, because in addition to changes from print to online books/access codes, editions of books change more frequently to keep up with content. That said, I do disagree with the idea that tech in classrooms is increasing costs, because all campuses have computer labs available to students. And classes that are heavy on tech use often take place in labs.

Example

Step 4: Exchange papers with another group. Select a thread to read out to the class, and designate different students to read the contributions.