Example

Catching Views

As a reader, it is important for students to back the right horse in this game. If the author doesn’t make clear assertions, or claims, from the beginning it would be unwise to cash in. There are a few strategies you can give your students to level the stats on each contender. The task is truly, who makes the better argument without making fallacious statements.

• Know the rules: You can’t evaluate a secondary source without knowing the details about the event in question. It would behoove you to study some primary accounts or unbiased (if available) reports on the event.

• Group the shirts with the skins: It is much easier to evaluate pro vs. pro and con vs. con FIRST; then move on to comparing the points of view of the opposing writings. This is of course assuming you have more than two authors for evaluation.

• Play the game: In order to understand the differing arguments, you have to know what to look for:
  • Claims- What are the actual statements regarding the historical event? Is their opinion negative with critical assertions, or is it in praise of the situation? The central claim will be an opinionated topic or thesis statement.
  • Reasoning- How does each author justify his or her claim? In other words, how is the opinion connected to the fact? The reasoning is the logical linking of the claim with the evidence. Consider it the uniform of the competitors; if it is missing, you would have a lot of embarrassed contenders, and no one wins.
  • Evidence- The facts, the proof, the details, the info, the goods… directly from the event in question or from supporting works. Is it present; does it fit; is it used correctly? No? Fail.

Should an author exclude one of these tools, any assessment should crush the erroneous writing like rock crushed scissors, and by crush I mean point out the flaws.

Drill

This drill will be a research, task-based assignment. The nature of the standard suggests that the texts examined be current and comparable. Complete the following steps:

Step One: Locate at least two articles regarding the same historical event related to your current course of study.

Step Two: Complete the following chart with details and support from the articles to evaluate the point of view found in each.

** The articles may or may not have three central claims (a-c). This chart may be duplicated in a larger format to accommodate a more detailed analysis.

Step Three: Using the chart above, complete a 3-5 paragraph analysis in which the two articles are evaluated for their point of view regarding the historical issue or event in question.