Week 7 — Your Argument Essay: Claim, Grounds, and the Warrant Between Them — Traditional alternative (no AI)

Instructors: publish this instead of the adaptive version if you prefer, and unpublish or delete the adaptive one.

Assignment 7 of the term — audit a chatbot's argument for invented grounds, straw men, and fallacies, then map and write an argument essay of your own with a stated warrant, an honest qualifier, and a steel-manned counterargument you answer.

This week you learned to build an argument on purpose: an arguable claim with an honest qualifier, grounds you can point to, the warrant that links them, a steel-manned counterargument, and a rebuttal that answers it, along with the common fallacies that make weak reasoning look strong. In Week 4 you built an arguable, specific thesis and saved the third point of your essay map for the counterargument; in Week 6 you explained how someone else's text persuades. This week you build your own case and answer the other side. This week's lecture tutorial, quiz, discussion, and Writing Studio practise the same moves from other angles; this assignment is where you put them together in a full essay.

The task

You will argue from your own reasoning and from evidence you have observed yourself. This essay uses no outside sources: finding, judging, and citing sources is the work of the research weeks. The course takes no side on any topic below, and you may argue whichever side you can support, including a side you do not hold.

Part A — audit a chatbot's argument. A student asked a chatbot to "write a strong argument for a four-day class schedule." Here is the kind of argument a chatbot might return. It was written for this course to contain mistakes; it is not a real chatbot's output, and it is attributed to no one:

1. "The college should move to a four-day class schedule."
2. "A recent national study found that four-day schedules raise grades by a large margin."
3. "Many students commute long distances, and a four-day week would save them a full day of travel each week."
4. "People who oppose the change only want to keep things the way they have always been."
5. "Everyone I have talked to supports the idea, so it must be the right call."
6. "If the college keeps five days, soon classes will run six days a week and students will burn out."
7. "Saving a day of travel matters because a class schedule should fit the lives of the students it serves."
8. "This is a brilliant, airtight argument that no reasonable person could reject."

Of the 8 sentences, 1 invents a study, 1 builds a straw man, 2 commit other named fallacies, and 1 praises itself without pointing to anything; say how many sentences can stay as they are, and how you got that number. Then label every sentence with its Toulmin part (claim, grounds, or warrant) or with the flaw it carries: a source you cannot find, a straw man, a named fallacy (say which one, by definition), or hollow praise. For each flawed sentence, write one repair: cut the invented study and say what kind of observed evidence could replace it; rewrite the straw man as a steel man that a supporter of the five-day schedule would accept; and say what each fallacy would need instead.

Part B — your argument essay. Choose one topic: a four-day class schedule, a campus parking or transit change, the dining hall's hours, a community library's hours, a workplace's meeting policy, or the use of AI in the writing classroom. Your argument map names 1 claim, 2 grounds, 2 warrants (one for each of the grounds), 1 counterargument, and 1 rebuttal; say how many labelled parts your map must show. Write that map first, with each part labelled C, G, W, CA, or R. Your claim must pass the two-part test from Week 4 and carry one honest qualifier, such as "by default", "in most cases", or "for evening students". Each of the grounds must be something you know or have observed; do not invent a statistic or a study. Then draft an argument essay of 750–1,000 words built on the map. State your thesis at the end of the introduction or explain why you placed it elsewhere. Give each of the grounds its own body paragraph, with an explanation that states its warrant. In a separate paragraph, steel-man the strongest objection, concede what it gets right, and answer the rest with a rebuttal. End with a conclusion that answers "so what?" for your reader. Lead with logos; use ethos and pathos to support the reasoning, not to replace it.

Explain it to a non-expert

A relative who manages a small restaurant wants to convince the owner to stay open an hour later and says, "I'll show them the sales numbers and that should be enough." Write a 3–5 sentence message that tells them, in everyday words, what your work this week shows about why evidence needs a stated reason it matters, and why answering the owner's biggest worry helps. Name one honest limit of the advice — for example, that an owner who already agrees may need only the numbers. Explain any term your relative might not know.

For a different, ungraded example, imagine a neighbor asking a building board for a bike rack who says, "Lots of people ride bikes here." Model answer: "Tell the board why that matters: people who ride are locking bikes to the stair railings, which blocks the exit, and a rack would keep the stairs clear. Then answer what the board will worry about, like cost, by pointing out that a small rack fits in the unused corner by the mailboxes. Saying the reason out loud and answering the worry is what turns a fact into a case. If the board already wants a rack, a quick note may be enough."

Use that pattern for your relative, with your own explanation of what you learned this week.

Reflect on your revision

After you revise your first draft, answer one of these two options in 2–4 sentences; they carry the same weight:

• (a) Which warrant in your essay changed most between your drafts, and what made you see that the first version was really another piece of evidence?
• (b) How did your counterargument paragraph change between your drafts, and how would a reader who holds the other side now react to it?

Deliverables

Submit in the assignment entry: the Part A labels and repairs with your count and how you got it; your labelled argument map with your count of its parts; your argument essay; your message to your relative; and your reflection, with the first-draft sentence you changed and the revised version beside it. Each part may be written, or recorded as audio or video with a transcript; every form is graded by the same scoring criteria.

Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text.

How you'll be graded

The full analytic rubric is attached to this assignment in Canvas.

Academic integrity and AI use

The labels, the repairs, the map, the essay, the message, and the reflection must be your own words. This version of the assignment asks for no chatbot at any step. Do not invent statistics, studies, or quotations; describe what you have seen yourself, and save sources for the research weeks.

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