master, pre-eminent
Note that certain signal words and phrases overlap. For example, the phrase according to is listed as a signal phrase for both expert opinion and research results. As with all signal words and phrases, those associated with each element of an argument and with the various types of backing should be evaluated in context. To illustrate, a statement that contains the modal verb should is likely to be an action claim (as in “Kids should be allowed to stay up past 9 p.m.”), but there are also instances when it simply indicates a question (as in “Should we go outside?”). Students should use signal words and phrases as clues to alert them to the various elements of an argument and the various types of backing.
Explaining the Relationship Between Claims, Grounds, and Backing
Explaining the relationship between claims, grounds, and backing involves explicitly stating how each piece of evidence presented supports the original claim. It forces students to think more deeply about the relationships between the various elements of an argument. To help students learn this skill, teachers can:
1.Ask students to make a claim and provide grounds, backing, and qualifiers for it.
2.Ask students to explain relationships within their own claim.
3.Ask students to explain relationships in other claims.
Here, we provide detail about each step of the process.
Make a Claim
To understand the relationship between claims, grounds, and backing, students first need to make a claim and provide grounds, backing, and qualifiers for it. You might ask individual students to each design a claim with grounds, backing, and qualifiers, or students could collaborate in small groups to design group claims and support. For example, a group of students might claim that people should not smoke. As grounds for the claim, they say, “Because many medical organizations have found that smoking causes lung cancer.” Their backing might include research results and expert opinions from the American Association for Cancer Research, the American Lung Association, the National Cancer Institute, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services illustrating that smoking causes lung cancer. They might qualify their argument by saying that there are cases of lung cancer that are not caused by smoking.
Explain Relationships Within Their Own Claim
To explain the relationship between claims, grounds, and backing, students should clearly articulate how their backing supports their claim. To do this, students must make explicit relationships that might be implicit. For example, the small group that claimed people should not smoke because smoking causes lung cancer (grounds and backing) might explain that getting lung cancer is undesirable. Their grounds and backing provide support for the idea that smoking causes lung cancer, but the premise or general rule that links their evidence to their claim is that no one wants lung cancer. Explicitly stating the connection between a claim, grounds, and backing simply involves connecting the backing back to the original claim. It can be useful to think of this process in a circular fashion, as depicted in figure I.1.
Figure I.1: Explicitly stating the connection between a claim, grounds, and backing involves connecting the backing back to the original claim.
Of course, this particular connection—that lung cancer is undesirable—is rather self-evident. Sometimes people automatically connect evidence to a claim without consciously acknowledging or explaining the general rule. However, giving students practice in explaining simple relationships between claims, grounds, and backing in familiar arguments helps prepare them to explain more complex relationships in other arguments.
When students explain the connection between claims, grounds, and backing, it helps them understand that claims are not always the first step in an argument. Often, claims are the result of evidence, or information that leads someone to a conclusion. For example, if you notice that five crimes were committed within two blocks of one another, it might lead you to claim that a particular neighborhood is unsafe. As grounds, you might say, “Because a high number of crimes are committed there.” Backing might include statistics about the average number of crimes per block in the city that year. To explain the connection between claims, grounds, and backing, you could say, “Lots of crime makes a neighborhood unsafe [premise or rule], and this neighborhood has lots of crime [grounds and backing]; therefore, this neighborhood is unsafe [claim].”
Explain Relationships in Other Claims
When students are analyzing their own claims or others’ claims, explaining the relationship between claims, grounds, and backing can help them identify erroneous or illogical reasoning. For example, a student might claim that a woman would make an irrational president because women cry more easily than men (claim and grounds), and give as backing the results of a study showing that women cried more often than men during tragic or sad movies. Another student explaining the connection between claims, grounds, and backing in this claim might point out that this claim is equating “being irrational” with “crying during tragic or sad movies,” two things that are not necessarily equal. This allows students to identify errors in reasoning or claims based on general rules that are not necessarily valid.
Organizing an Argument
Organizing an argument involves arranging claims, grounds, and backing in a logical order. Marzano and his colleagues (1988) defined organizing skills as those used to “arrange information so it can be understood or presented more effectively” (p. 80). Students typically find support for a claim by collecting relatively unorganized information from many sources. To present their argument, they need to organize the information. Teachers can use the following process to help students organize arguments:
1.Help students understand the structure of an effective argument.
2.Have students classify information according to whether or not it supports a claim.
3.Have students organize supporting information into grounds and backing for the claim.
4.Have students use nonsupporting information to write qualifiers for the claim.
Here, we detail how teachers can help students accomplish each step in the process.
Structure of an Argument
Fundamentally, an argument is a claim supported by evidence (grounds and backing). Qualifiers state exceptions to a claim. Based on the CCSS and Toulmin’s (2003) model, we recommend the argument organization template depicted in figure I.2.
