ABSTRACT
The authors of this chapter study teaching, learning, and development in two different disciplines—literature and science—yet share a common concern: in the United States, the discourses of school-based argumentation have socialized students into diminished understandings and experiences of our disciplines. In this chapter, we address this concern first by exploring the cultural nature of argumentation. Then we look at the cultural nature of the study of argumentation by examining both Stephen Toulmin’s and Yolanda Majors’ models of argumentation. We then shift our focus to histories of power and assimilation in United States K-12 classrooms, the tendency of classrooms to present arguments as “ready-made,” and attempts to broaden disciplinary engagement. Finally, we look across everyday and academic argumentation in the sciences and literature to create a hybrid set of characteristics that might be useful in developing instructional models for argumentation in the classroom. These hybrid characteristics include: building relationships; attending to curiosity; disrupting normative assumptions and taking multiple perspectives about how the world works; appropriating and adapting tools; engaging in playful and imaginative ways; and creating narratives. Attending to these characteristics could help teachers and learners design instruction that disrupts settled expectations and creates opportunities for expansive learning.
