ForeverFamily Posted January 5, 2019 Share Posted January 5, 2019 (edited) CAP's Art of Argument, How do you use it? I started it at the beginning of this year with my daughter, she is 13yo and in 7th. Outside commitments made our year crazier than I would have liked so it was the first thing to get dropped. Now that I feel like our schedule is getting more settled, I would like to start it up again for the second half of this year. Honestly, we only got through part of chapter 1. I don't know why, but I couldn't wrap my head around how to best use this curriculum. So far we just read through the chapter, she orally answered the questions, and we did a bit of discussion, she then watched the relevant DVD section on a separate day (I still can't figure out if that is better done before or after reading through the chapter, I haven't been able to find any recommendation/schedule about that). Am I missing something? Nothing was really sticking. I know we only used it for a short time, but she didn't even remember much from one day to the next. She is usually pretty good at remembering a previous days lesson. How do you use it? Do you add projects, flashcards, etc. It just seems like it needs more, not busywork, but more reinforcement/review? I was hoping the Teacher's Edition would be more helpful, but it is just a copy of the student text/answer key. Help? How well should I expect her to master the material? How long and how often do you spend on Logic? If it is at all helpful, my daughter enjoyed doing Logic Workbooks, that seemed to stick with her a lot more. Is there something more Workbooky that would work better? I really want to like Art of Argument, as I have heard so many good things about it..... Edited January 5, 2019 by ForeverFamily Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blondeviolin Posted January 5, 2019 Share Posted January 5, 2019 (edited) My oldest used it this year for the first semester. She actually worked through the Fallacy Detective first. And last year she read Logic to the Rescue, which was a very good intro to fallacies. So she was familiar when we started AoA. But when we started I quickly realized it would be better for her to do it in a group. I ended up teaching it at co-op, which was a huge hit all around. And she gained a lot from the discussions. We introduced the fallacies, discussed them, then found YouTube videos about them. Then the students were tasked to find that fallacy in real life via commercials or political debates or whatever. In summary, it lends itself very nicely to group discussions and debates. Maybe just use it as a springboard for discussing these things? ETA: FWIW, the 12 MS/HS kids I had liked the class enough that I am teaching deduction this semester. Edited January 5, 2019 by blondeviolin 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TracyP Posted January 5, 2019 Share Posted January 5, 2019 I didn't add anything to it; we just read and discussed it. We would try to spot the different fallacies in real life as well. I did it with 2 of my kiddos, so that gave us a bit more of the group discussion atmosphere. Maybe that helped, but my kids enjoyed it and retained it for the most part. My goal was for them to learn to look for and spot fallacies, not necessarily remember the name and definition of each one. So it could be that we define retention differently... 🙂 If that is the case, then flashcards would probably be helpful. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess4879 Posted January 5, 2019 Share Posted January 5, 2019 Same thing here. We started this in the fall, but it just never got done and their eyes just seemed to glaze over when we read. Hoping it will be better 2nd semester... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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