Introduction

Ever since antiquity, rhetoric, as bipolar thinking and arguing upon every issue, has been interwoven with the instillation of virtues such as reflection, reasoning, awareness of the civil identity and of the sense of common good. In our era, characterized by rapid social and economic changes at both the polis and the cosmopolis levels, such an effort becomes essential for the formation of a more reasonable and humanistic social reality. Therefore, teaching rhetorical argumentation, even in the earliest stages of education, becomes one of the most powerful tools for the attainment of such a goal through the development of multi-level literacies and the concomitant construction of individual and social identities.

litearcy and citizenship egglezou

Abstract: Definition of the words “argument” and “counterargument” in a case study research with 91 Greek students of 5th and 6th grade present children’s prior knowledge on argumentation and persuasive writing. This study is a part of broader research concerning teaching experimental strategies of an intervention program in Greek public schools with teaching and learning persuasive language, and meaning making in a writing class. The authors discuss the results of this study in evaluation of a questionnaire’s data. The data confirm the existence of cognitive, meta-cognitive and meta-linguistic limitations in their intervention: Children’s pre-existing understanding of concepts and terms, such as “argument”, “counterargument”, “fallacy”, etc., is limited, if not absent. Findings on students’ limited declarative knowledge in defining what an “argument” or a “counterargument” is, indicate the need of a systematic and effective integration of arguments and especially this of counterarguments, as procedural knowledge in teaching argumentative writing with children at the age of 10-12 years.

Key words: definition; argument; counterargument; teaching; writing

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Introduction

An optimum medium for developing abilities such as critical thinking and analysis of an argumentative text down to its components, is the early and systematic training of students in argumentative writing within a school context. An effective way of reaching this goal could be to expose the students to interactive pactives conducive to writing as a social act- able to «address self in society and social relation to self» (Shor, 1987, p. 95). Rhetorical pedagogy is closely related to this effort (freeley and Steinberg, 2009, p.3; Johnson, 1996, p. 46; Strnberg & Spear-Swerling, 1996, pp. 66-8).

teaching for thinking and rhetoric