Teaching Argument Writing with Frankenstories

"Why is the claim justified?"

In a nutshell

• A reason is a 'because' statement that supports the claim.
  • Claim: "We should ban cars from downtown Beaverton..."
  • Reason: "...because other cities with car bans have thrived."
• Claims in complex arguments often have multiple supporting reasons:
  • Reason: "...also because it will be better for the atmosphere."
  • Reason: "...and also because it fits the eligibility criteria for grant funding to convert downtown roads to entertaining hedge mazes."
• The 'because' doesn't have to be explicit; it can be left to the audience to infer.

Reason types

Reasons also reflect issues and argument types:

• Causal reasons: "...because other cities with car bans have thrived."
• Proposal reasons: "...because we should be trying to create walkable neighbourhoods."
• Evaluational reasons: "...because it's the best of our available options."
• Definitional reasons: "...because it fits these legal criteria."
• Ethical reasons: "...because it's a moral imperative."

Going deeper

• A reason is not evidence.
• A reason is essentially another claim—but ideally a less-contested claim that supports the more contentious claim you're trying to get the audience to accept.
  • For example, "Other cities with car bans have thrived" is a claim, but hopefully one that has enough evidence that it is easily accepted by the audience.
• This is an insight into how arguments work: they use less-contested claims to build a bridge towards more contested claims, so that by the end the audience can stroll to the desired conclusion without being forced to make leaps that they might reject.
• Once you realise that an argument is claims all the way down, you understand why we have to make assumptions.

In Frankenstories

• In a standard game, players give reasons and evidence in R2 & R3.
• That means describing the issue and making a claim in R1, then inventing at least two reasons and providing evidence over the next two rounds.
• Players can come up with more reasons, but that doesn't leave much time for evidence.