Week 7 Discussion — What Does Your Argument Assume? — Traditional alternative (no AI)

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

Hook

Every argument you make rests on something you never say out loud: the warrant, the assumption that turns your evidence into a reason. This week you learned to map an argument with the Toulmin model, to find that warrant, to scope a claim with a qualifier, to steel-man the other side and answer it, and to name the common fallacies. You watched the running draft's working thesis become a full map, with its strongest objection stated fairly and answered.

Your discussion question — choose Option A or Option B; they carry the same weight and the same rubric, and you say which you picked.

Option A: Should a persuasive piece always answer the strongest objection? Pick a real kind of persuasive writing you read or write (a cover letter, a proposal to a manager, a club's recruiting post, a product page, a letter to a landlord) and argue whether it should steel-man the other side, concede what is right, and give a rebuttal, or whether that genre is better off leaving the objection out. Use this week's terms, including counterargument, concession, and rebuttal, to make your case.

Option B: Where do real disagreements live: in the grounds or in the warrant? Pick a disagreement you have seen up close on a campus, workplace, club, family, or neighborhood question (a meeting policy, a shared schedule, a house rule, a library's hours) and argue whether the two sides disagreed about the evidence or about the assumption that links the evidence to the claim. Use claim, grounds, and warrant to make your case.

There is no single right answer. A cover letter that raises an objection to its own candidate may look careless, while a proposal that skips the obvious objection may look naive; two coworkers who agree on every fact can still disagree about what the facts should make them do. Argue the case you can actually support. Pick one you actually care about, and tell us about the writing or the disagreement you chose.

Expectations

Activity format: one initial post followed by two substantive peer replies. Plan on about 45 minutes across the two deadlines; your instructor sets both due dates in Canvas.

Your initial post — by the first due date (early in the module week):

• Say which option you chose.
• Name the real kind of writing or the real disagreement you chose, so a reader knows what you are looking at.
• Use at least two of this week's terms (argument, claim, grounds, warrant, qualifier, counterargument, steel-manning, straw man, concession, rebuttal) correctly.
• Take a position, give a reason, and state one objection to your own position fairly.
• Length: roughly 150–250 words if written. You may instead record your post as audio or video (about two minutes) and attach a transcript; both forms are scored by the same rubric.

Your replies — by the second due date (the end of the module week):

• Reply substantively to at least two classmates.
• A substantive reply does more than agree: name the warrant a poster left unstated, restate an objection the poster weakened in a form its holders would accept, or point to a genre or a situation where their rule would not hold. "Nice point!" on its own does not count.

What a strong post looks like (illustrative, written for this course):

I chose Option B. At my job, two shift leads argued about whether to post the weekly schedule a week earlier. They agreed on the facts: the schedule now goes up a few days ahead, and people trade shifts at the last minute. The real split was the warrant. One lead assumed a schedule should give workers time to plan their lives; the other assumed it should stay flexible for the store's changing needs. Until they said those assumptions out loud, each one kept repeating the same evidence.

Notice how it names a real disagreement, separates the shared grounds from the two warrants, and states both sides in words each lead would accept. That is the bar.

Participation rubric

This discussion is worth 10 points. The three criteria below look at your initial post and your peer replies.

Post early if you can — the best threads happen when people have time to reply before the second due date.

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