This critical thinking exercise for teachers focuses on helping students to develop arguments – all part of aMap’s critical thinking educational resources for teaching critical thinking in classrooms across schools and colleges. To help teach critical thinking we also provide “pocket argument guides” perfect for use in the classroom. Check our pocket argument guides here!
Developing arguments critical thinking exercise
The ability to develop a good argument is an essential skill to have in everyday life – whether for professional or personal reasons, the ability to argue well will get you a long way in life.
Arguing shouldn’t be seen in negative terms as having a good argument should be a positive experience for all involved. One way of viewing arguing is to think of it as a form of exercise – both mental and physical. From a mental perspective arguing should exercise both your analytical and verbal communication skills; from a physical perspective arguments can often raise the blood-pressure a little (if heated) and also get the arguers adrenalin going too.
The following section provides background information on arguing as well as a teacher critical thinking exercise to support lessons around the question of “how to develop an argument” – excellent for use in classes!
What is an argument
The definition of an argument in Wikipedia is “In logic, an argument is a set of one or more meaningful declarative sentences (or “propositions”) known as the premises along with another meaningful declarative sentence (or “proposition”) known as the conclusion.”
Arguments based around “formal logic”
An argument based around “formal logic” generally takes the form of a series of premises and a conclusion. For example:
- Premise one: a good singer always sings in tune
- Premise two: Madonna always sings in tune
- Conclusion: Therefore, Madonna is a good singer
Arguments based on informal logic
From a practical everyday perspective people argue based around an “informal logic” structure. This is a 4-part structure, involving a position, proposition, reason and evidence – as follows:
- Your position: “I think . . .”
- Your supporting proposition: “Because . . .”
- Your supporting reasons: “As . . .”
- Supporting evidence / facts: “Supported by . . .”
So, in the heat of the moment, someone arguing about President Obama might argue:
“I THINK President Obama is a great president” (POSITION)
“AS he’s a great leader” (PROPOSITION)
“BECAUSE he listens to people and commands respect” (REASON)
“SUPPORTED BY the fact that he runs monthly town hall meetings where he answers people’s questions” (FACT)
N.B. it’s often the case that the arguer will miss out parts of an argument structure collapse part of their argument structure together. For example, sometimes an arguer will leave out “supporting evidence” or on other occasions an arguer will collapse their “propositions and reasons” into one. Having said that, it’s important to try and structure your argument as definitely and well as possible, so we’d recommend using all 4 parts in structuring your arguments.
What’s a good argument
The quality of an argument based on informal logic is dependent on how “persuasive” it is (i.e. whether the audience listening is persuaded by the argument).
Aristotle developed up a list of three criteria that to identify a good persuasive argument, these are:
- Pathos: whether the argument connects and convinces the audience
- Ethos: whether the argument is well-founded, trust worthy and believable
- Logos: whether the argument is well structured
However, the quality of an argument based on formal logic is dependent on whether it’s “valid” (i.e. whether the conclusion follows the premises) and whether it’s “sound” (i.e. whether premises are true and the conclusion follows the premises).
The everyday arguments you and me have are generally based around “informal logic”, however philosophical arguments are generally more rigorous and so are based around “formal logic”.
Indicator words
There are certain words that indicate a particular element of an argument. These are called Indicator words.
Examples of indicator words are:
- “I think”, “I’d argue”, “I believe”: these indicate a POSITION
- “As”, “Because”: these indicate a PROPOSITION
- “As”, because”, “since”, “in order to”: these indicate a REASON
- “Supported by”, “indicated by”, “the fact that”: these indicate EVIDENCE
N.B. as you’ll see, “As” and “Because” both indicate a “proposition” and a “reason”. These are interchangeable and will depend on the arguer’s preference.
We hope you find this critical thinking exercise useful and use it in your critical thinking classes! Also we hope you take a look at our pocket argument guides and buy some for use in your classes!
