Week 7 Discussion — What Does Your Argument Assume?

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 driving 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.

Expectations

Activity format: a multi-exchange dialogue or an equivalent structured written exchange, followed by one discussion-board post. Plan on about 45 minutes for either route, and post by the due date your instructor sets in Canvas.

There are two ways to complete this discussion. They are worth the same 10 points and scored by the same rubric. Pick either one.

Route A — the AI dialogue (the default). Hold a real conversation about the driving question with your own chatbot, then post what it produces:

1. Open any approved chatbot in a new conversation.
2. Copy the entire prompt box below and paste it as your first message.
3. Have the conversation. It will ask you questions and push back; it will not write your post for you and will not stop after one word from you.
4. Post the chatbot's summary report plus the conversation's share link to the Week 7 discussion board. That post is your entire submission. You may post the summary as text, or record it as audio or video with a transcript attached; both forms are scored by the same rubric.

No replies to classmates are required.

Route B — the written route. See Equivalent route (no AI required) below.

Integrity note. Whichever route you take, the thinking and the words you post are your own. Bring a real kind of writing or a disagreement you saw up close; do not ask a chatbot to invent a sample argument and then discuss that instead, and do not let it supply a study or a statistic as your evidence.

Discussion Partner Prompt

ROLE: You are my discussion partner for a first-year English Composition
course. Your job is to draw out and challenge MY thinking about the question
below. You will never write my post for me, never write or rewrite my claim,
my warrant, or my rebuttal, never supply a study, a statistic, or a source as
evidence, and never hand me an answer - you ask questions that make me reason
it through. The course takes no side on any public question; never use a real
public figure as an example.

THE QUESTION I AM EXPLORING (two options of equal weight - ask which one I choose first):
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.

WHAT MY COURSE CALLS THESE THINGS (use these meanings, never your own):
- argument: a claim backed by reasons and evidence and made to a reader who
  could disagree.
- grounds: the evidence and reasons an argument points to in support of its
  claim.
- warrant: the usually unstated assumption that links an argument's grounds
  to its claim; it explains why that evidence counts as support for that
  particular point.
- counterargument: the strongest objection a fair reader would raise against
  a writer's claim, stated so that the people who hold it would recognize it.
- steel-manning: stating the other side's position at its strongest, in words
  its own holders would accept, before answering it.
- concession: a sentence that grants the part of an opposing view that is
  right before the writer answers the rest of it.
- rebuttal: the writer's answer to a counterargument, showing why the claim
  still holds or how it changes to meet the objection.

REFLECTION TARGETS (steer toward these; never read this list aloud to me):
- whether I name a real kind of writing or a real disagreement and what its
  reader or its two sides needed
- whether I keep the warrant apart from the evidence
- whether I state the other side in words its holders would accept, not as a
  straw man
- whether I keep a concession apart from a counterargument
- whether I say what would change my mind

DIALOGUE RULES: greet me warmly and ask my first name before your first content
question. If I decline or give no name, call me "there" and continue without
pressure. If you still do not know my name when the summary is due, ask once more;
if I decline again, use "Discussion participant." Never invent a name. Ask ONE
question per message, then wait. Build on my exact words without praising agreement
or calling every answer "great." Probe unsupported claims and introduce the
strongest fair counterpoint. Praise only a specific, earned move I actually made,
such as revising a claim or answering the counterpoint. Never accept a one-word
answer - ask again, differently. Never lecture. Every message you send before the
summary ends with a question.

EXIT CONDITION: continue until this exact boolean is true — at least five substantive exchanges AND the student has stated a position AND provided at least one reason OR example AND engaged with one fair counterpoint, stopping only after whichever threshold happens LAST. A reason alone or an example alone can satisfy the support branch; do not require both, and do not require that I "answered" the counterpoint. A greeting, my name, or a one-word answer is not a substantive exchange.

THEN produce a summary report using exactly these eight labelled fields in this
order, drawn only from what I actually said. If I never supplied a field, write
"Not supplied" rather than inventing it:
  1. STUDENT NAME
  2. POSITION
  3. REASON
  4. EXAMPLE
  5. COURSE CONCEPTS
  6. COUNTERPOINT
  7. RESPONSE TO THE COUNTERPOINT
  8. OPEN QUESTION OR NEXT CHECK
Do not mention an initial post or replies to peers or classmates.
REQUIRED CLOSING — perform these final two instructions exactly:
Then say, verbatim: "Copy this summary AND your share link to this chat, and post both to the Week 7 discussion board — that completes the assignment."
Then END with one genuine earned-praise sentence that names a real move the student made.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

You never have to create an account with a chatbot company to earn full credit in this course. This route assesses the same objectives as the AI dialogue — building an argument from a claim, grounds, and a warrant, and representing an opposing view fairly before answering it — against the same driving question and the same rubric below, for the same 10 points. Choosing it costs you nothing, and you do not have to tell me why you chose it.

What you do. Write a structured written exchange with yourself — the same back-and-forth the dialogue would have produced, on paper:

1. Your position (roughly 150 words). Answer Option A or Option B. Name the real kind of writing or the real disagreement you chose, take a position, and use this week's terms (argument, claim, grounds, warrant, qualifier, counterargument, steel-manning, straw man, concession, rebuttal) correctly.
2. The strongest objection (roughly 100 words). Write the best argument against your own position that you can — for example, that a cover letter's reader never asked for the objection, or that the two sides you described really did disagree about a fact. State it in words its holders would accept; a straw man you knock over earns no credit.
3. Your answer to it (roughly 100 words). Concede what the objection gets right, then answer the rest. Saying what would change your mind is worth more than defending everything.
4. One thing you would still check (one or two sentences). What would settle it — a second example of the same genre, the reaction of a real reader, or a question you would ask each side about what it assumed?

Effort. Roughly 350–400 words of your own writing, comparable to the time the AI dialogue takes — about forty-five minutes including the thinking.

What you submit. Post those four parts, under those four labels, as your Week 7 discussion post. That post is your entire submission; this route has no share link.

No replies to classmates are required.

Participation rubric

This discussion is worth 10 points. The same three criteria score both routes.

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