since we last met... a #crwp writing into the day

Since we last spoke school has begun at Rangeview High School and the sleepy juniors in English 11 have studied a few different arguments. They've considered arguments presented in the Room for Debate feature on the New York Times opinion pages. First, they identified arguments that interested them, choosing three debates from the ten I asked them to skim. Next, they looked at the texts of the authors in those debates, interested professionals mostly whose claims line up sometimes messily on two sides of the overarching questions. They've looked for claims and gauged their interests, found and charted evidence while considering their own opinions.

On YouthVoices.live they've completed a similar task: They've looked at 10 posts selected by me and then skimmed the site for posts that interest them. On that youth focused network they've also hunted for claims, finding and considering evidence all the while gauging their own interests.

The formal arguments they've written and submitted support claims of a different sort, though. Their papers have been informational and personal and don't argue against counterclaims. After reading Sherman Alexie's "Superman and Me," and studying the TED talk "Danger of a Single Story," by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi, I asked the sleepy juniors in #english11, 7:30 AM at Rangeview High School, to draw conclusions about an author's view of literacy and then to make a claim about how that author's view compares to theirs about books, stories, literacy and stereotypes.