Tuesday,+March+27

Argument Resources

Read/Think
media type="custom" key="13543848" [|Toulmin Model for Argument] Read the prompt and the first student sample (3A) for Question 3 of the 2006 AP Lang Exam. Using the graphic organizer, identify the components of Toulmin's model that are present in the sample argument.

Discuss
Read the other sample responses for that year. Discuss scoring of each essay. What put each student into that top, middle, or bottom tier?

Evaluate
Noting that your last argument has either been placed in the top, middle, or bottom tier, decide on a score you would have likely earned. On an exit slip, write your score and a brief explanation of why you feel this is the score you would have earned.

Write
Look at the following prompt: David Denby's essay "High School Confidential: Notes on Teen Movies" was originally published in the New Yorker in 1999. Paragraph 13 states: //So the teen movie is wildly ambivalent. It may attack the consumerist ethos// //that produces winners and losers, but in the end it confirms what it is attacking.// //The girls need the seal of approval conferred by the converted jocks; the nerds// //need money and a girl. Perhaps it's no surprise that the outsiders can be validated// //only by the people who ostracized them. But let's not be too schematic; the outsider w////ho joins the system also modifies it, opens it up to the creative power of// //social mobility, makes it bend and laugh, and perhaps this turn of events is not so// //different from the way things work in the real world, where merit and achievement// //stand a good chance of trumping appearance. The irony of the Littleton// //shootings is that Klebold and Harris, who were both proficient computer heads,// //seemed to have forgotten how the plot turns out. If they had held on for a few// //years they might have been working at a hip software company, or have started// //their own business, while the jocks who oppressed them would probably have// //wound up selling insurance or used cars.That's the one unquestionable social// //truth the teen movies reflect: geeks rule.//

Defend, challenge, or qualify Denby's assertion that "geeks rule." Think about your own experiences and observations as well as other texts, television shows, and movies.

With your small group, fill in the components of the Toulmin model that are necessary to your argument. Then develop a statement using the model as follows: