ABSTRACT
This chapter explores attention to underlying rationalities can promote an approach to the teaching and learning of argumentation as a mode of inquiry that embraces the complexity, diversity, ambiguity, and uncertainty of human life and social relationships. It discusses contextualized definitions of rationality. The distinction between decontextualized and contextualized definitions of rationality reflects the tension around teaching universal rules of logic versus teaching awareness of and judgment informed by the particular social contexts and situations in which people are attempting to craft their everyday lives. It is to understand the rationalities of people's tactics in their everyday lives within the context of the strategies and rationalities of the social institutions they inhabit. From Habermas's perspective, decontextualized and abstract logic that exists outside of human interactions is a non sequitur. The chapter examines five instructional conversations that take place in Ms. Johnson's class over a four-week instructional unit. The instructional unit are organized thematically around exploring tensions and complexities in argumentative writing.
