Art of Argument in a co-op???

[ByGrace3]

We are starting Art of Argument tomorrow and I am a little bit of a loss as to how to schedule it. I have the DVD's ... has anyone used them? Are they helpful? Any ideas how to schedule this and how to make it last a year? Our co-op will be 32 weeks, 31 weeks left...

any help is appreciated! I will be teaching it to 3 7th graders...

[RootAnn]

I taught it in a small group (4-5 kids) situation twice now. We cover it in a semester, meeting once per week. I did not use the DVDs. (The sample looked incredibly boring!)

 

Have you looked at the suggested schedules on the CAP website? They schedule for 44 class meetings, so you'd want to combine some of those to get down to 30 or so. 

 

Edited to add: We found that the tests didn't take very long, so we were able to do other activities on the days we had tests. I assigned homework & then we would go over it in class. We read chapters sometimes at home & sometimes in class, depending on the schedule. These helped cut down on the number of meetings. I notice their schedule sometimes has two full class days for review. We found it easier to review in the form of a game (like jeopardy). It usually only took 15-20 minutes. 

Edited September 4, 2017 by RootAnn

[ByGrace3]

I taught it in a small group (4-5 kids) situation twice now. We cover it in a semester, meeting once per week. I did not use the DVDs. (The sample looked incredibly boring!)

 

Have you looked at the suggested schedules on the CAP website? They schedule for 44 class meetings, so you'd want to combine some of those to get down to 30 or so. 

 

Edited to add: We found that the tests didn't take very long, so we were able to do other activities on the days we had tests. I assigned homework & then we would go over it in class. We read chapters sometimes at home & sometimes in class, depending on the schedule. These helped cut down on the number of meetings. I notice their schedule sometimes has two full class days for review. We found it easier to review in the form of a game (like jeopardy). It usually only took 15-20 minutes. 

 

 

I did see the schedule on CAP's website. It just didn't have one for 30-32 weeks. I am thinking I will do the 22 week schedule and then just finish early for the year. I will assign some reading for at home. We will only meet once per week. 

 

When I first planned it, I did not realize it was a one semester class. But I would rather it not be an intense subject so I am ok spreading it out...we plan to do Argument Builder next year in the same manner. 

 

I am wondering how to not make it so boring. If we were doing it at home I imagine dd would watch the videos and just work through the workbook...

 

Review games are easy...but any other tips to liven it up? At home I am all about just "git er done" materials ...but for co-op, not quite the atmosphere we are going for. :lol: 

[RootAnn]

I know plenty of people who spend a year on it. I don't have enough time in my life to spare teaching it for a whole year each time (x5 kids). It is much more fun to do as a group, IMO.

 

We had games to see how many fallacies you could recite in 30 seconds. We played lots of games. We always had time in case people brought in real life examples of any of the fallacies we studied (magazine or newspaper ads, commercials that they could share - usually using youtube, even newspaper or internet news articles). Some of the sections of the book include imaginary discussions with Socrates. People volunteered for parts (new people each time) & we read them out loud. There were a couple of plays at the back that we did as Readers Theater in class. 

 

I had Entrance Quizzes sometimes - where I'd have a question (like tell me one type of Genetic Fallacy) that they had to answer before they were allowed into the classroom. I gave out "bonus points" (little slips of paper that said, "+1") that they could use on a quiz or test to increase their grade. These were usually freebies because unless they came late, they could always go to the back of the line & listen to another kid's answer to try to get in if they didn't know the answer the first time.

 

Some of the review worksheets would be turned into games (matching the fallacy to the example). Most, we broke into two or three groups & whichever team was fastest to the correct # (or whichever had the higher number of correct matches within a certain timeframe) would win (candy or just bragging rights). Some sections, the kids had to do a presentation to explain the fallacy to the rest of the group - with examples.

 

If you look at CAP's schedules, there is a LOT of slop. You could easily cut down on the number of sessions from 44-30 by assigning some homework and pulling out the copious review days. I don't know how long their suggested classtime is, but I think they have most of the work 'in class' where we did some of it at home & saved the more fun stuff for class (sometimes).

 

Edited to add: The kids got tripped up on Composition vs. Division the first time I did it, so we spent more time on that the second time I did it. Less kids missed it since we spent more time on it, IMO. I'll probably run the class again next year (2018-2019 sometime). Each time, it is different depending on the personalities of the kids involved. THe older kids, in general, did better than the younger ones. I had it open to 7th-9th graders.

Edited September 4, 2017 by RootAnn

[SoCal_Bear]

It looks like they suggest adding Argument builder if you divide the year into trimesters. Art of Argument for the first two and Builder for the last.

[mschickie]

I did it at a co-op over two 10 week sessions.  There were a couple of weeks where we doubled up shorter fallacies.  We did watch the DVD for part of the class.  It was good as a conversation starter with the kids.  I also gave them weekly challenges to find previously discussed fallacies in every day life and then there was an end of year challenge to find at least one of each type of fallacy.  We did most of the cumulative stuff in class and would read through some of the Socrates Dialogues in class.  Oh and if you do the DVD make sure you watch the extras at the end of the course.  It is funny.

 

Here is how we laid it out:

 

Due Date

Topic

Read and answer questions (Further Research Questions and Cumulative Worksheets are optional )

9/11

Introduction

p.5-27

 

9/18

Fallacy 1

p. 31-36

 

9/25

Fallacy 2

p.37-41

 

10/2

Fallacy 3

p. 42-46

 

10/9

Fallacy 4

p. 47-51

 

10/16

Chapter 2/Fallacy 5

P.52, (53-57 optional), p.58-62

 

10/23

Fallacy 6 & 7

p. 63-74

 

10/30

Fallacy 8

p. 75-79

 

11/6

Fallacy 9

p.80-85

 

11/13

Fallacy 10

p. 87-95

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Break

Due Date

Topic

Read and answer questions (Further Research Questions and Cumulative Worksheets are optional )

Over Break

Chapter 3/Fallacy 11

 

Fallacy 12

 

Fallacy 13

 

Fallacy 14

 

Unit 2

 

Chapter 4/ Fallacy 15

 

p.96-100

 

p. 102-104

 

p.105-109

 

p. 110-117

 

p. 118-12

 

p.121-127

 

 

 

 

 

 

Winter/Spring Session

Due Date

Topic

Read and answer questions (Further Research Questions and Cumulative Worksheets are optional )

2/5

Fallacy 16 &17

p.128-141

 

2/12

Fallacy 18 &19

p.142-149

 

2/26

Fallacy 20

p.150-159

 

3/4

Chapter 5/Fallacy 21

p.160-166

 

3/11

Fallacy 22 &23

p.167-174

 

3/18

Fallacy 24&25

p.175-187

 

4/8

Unity 3/ Chapter 6/Fallacy 26

p.188-200

 

4/15

Fallacy 27

p.201-203

 

4/22

Fallacy 28

p. 204-212

 

 

 

[Elizabeth_homeschool]

This conversation about using The Art of Argument in a co-op has been very helpful! In the hopes that someone is still reading this thread, I'd like to add a new question for those who have had experience using it: What is the earliest age you'd use this with? Our co-op has 2 groups (1st-4th grade and 5th-8th). As I've been preparing for this upcoming year, I've started to wonder if 5th grade is too young... Appreciate anyone's thoughts on the matter! TIA!

[OakParkOwlets]

I would use with the 7th/8th graders and find something similar, maybe logic through puzzles, to do for 5th/6th graders.