I absolutely loved reading Teaching Arguments by Jennifer Fletcher. I would recommend this book for high school ELA teachers who are interested in advancing their students' knowledge of argument writing and who wish to enhance their instruction on the subject. Fletcher's book is filled with ideas on helping students understand audience, occasion, and purpose and to understand how to analyze and utilize ethos, pathos, and logos. She includes activities and prompts that go beyond traditional academic writing assignments. Some of my favorite prompts:
1. Argument Essay on Gender and Toys (Chapter 5) 2. Personal Argument Case Analysis (Chapter 7) 3. College Success Letter (Chapter 7) These prompts are relevant to students lives and they can easily make connections, which in turn encourages them and enhances their writing. Along with these prompts, she includes classroom activities that will help students build a sense of purpose for writing. A few of my favorite classroom activities: 1. Analyzing the Rhetorical Situation - This involves using Calvin and Hobbs comics. (Chapter 3) 2. The Back Cover Book Description - This helps students understand audience by having them write a description of their favorite book while keeping the audience's interests and needs in mind. (Chapter 4) 3. The Mock Rejection Letter - Another activity for teaching students to keep the audience in mind that involves real-world writing. (Chapter 4) Fletcher includes detailed descriptions on how to use these activities in class and she provides student samples and anecdotes from the lessons. I could easily implement these in any of my classes. Finally, Fletcher closes with a reminder in chapter 7 on how to teach rhetorically - I agree with Dr. Scanlon that everyone should read this chapter. Of course I enjoyed discussing this book with my Lit Circle as well. They always have different ideas and perspectives of the text that add to my own. This is definitely a book to keep on my desk for future reference.
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