Advocate Online

Thriving in Academe
Best Practices

Argument Groups

Think of three or four arguments that you wish to discuss in class and type them up with each premise and conclusion on a line of its own. Cut up the arguments into bits, so that you now have many slips of paper, each of which contains exactly one sentence. Try to engineer things so that you have one slip of paper (one premise or one conclusion) for each student in the class. You may want to prepare a couple of different sets of arguments and count the students at the beginning of class to determine which set to distribute. If someone is absent, you can also give two slips of paper from one argument to a single student.

Mix up the slips of paper and distribute one slip to each student. Then leave the room for a few minutes and give the students an opportunity to mingle and organize themselves into small groups, each of which will combine their slips of paper to form a coherent argument. The students must also determine which member of the group is holding the conclusion, and that individual will serve as the reporter. When you return to the room, let each group present its argument to the rest of the class. This can serve as the basis for subsequent discussion

next "Thriving" article