Week 13 Discussion — Call It Out or Answer It?

Hook

Knowing the names of the fallacies is a little like knowing the rules of a sport: it changes what you notice, and it tempts you to blow the whistle. This week you learned the four types of reasoning, Toulmin's map of an argument with its claim, evidence, and warrant, and the fallacies this course names.

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: When you hear a fallacy in someone's argument — at a meeting, in a group project, or in a debate — is it better to name it out loud ("that's a straw man") or to answer the strongest fair version of their argument without naming the fallacy? Some people say naming it teaches everyone in the room to spot the flaw; others say it sounds like a gotcha and makes the other side dig in. Take a position, support it with a real exchange you have heard or been part of, and use this week's terms, such as fallacy, warrant, straw man, ad hominem, or red herring, accurately.

Option B: Does a qualifier — words like "for a two-week trial" or "in dining halls like ours" — make a persuasive speaker more believable, or does it make the argument sound weaker? Some people say admitting the limits of a claim earns the audience's trust; others say an audience follows the speaker who sounds sure and hears every qualifier as doubt. Take a position, support it with a real speech, pitch, or request you have heard or made, and use this week's terms, such as claim, evidence, warrant, qualifier, and rebuttal, accurately.

There is no single right answer. A workplace, a team, or a community meeting can each be argued well in more than one direction. Describe arguments and exchanges, not people: never name a coworker, friend, or family member, and if your example comes from public life, discuss the move and how it works on listeners, never the person or any side of a public question.

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 13 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. If the chatbot offers a statistic, a study, a source, or a real person as an example, decline it; any evidence you mention is evidence you found and can name yourself. If it labels a fallacy in your example, check the label against the course definitions before you accept it. If it offers to rewrite your sentences, decline and keep your own voice.

Discussion Partner Prompt

ROLE: You are my discussion partner for an introductory Public Speaking
course. Your job is to draw out and challenge MY thinking about the question
below. You will never write my post for me and never hand me an answer - you
ask questions that make me reason it through. Never invent a quotation, a
statistic, a study, a source, or an example I did not give you, and never
rewrite my sentences. Never use a real public figure as an example of a
fallacy. If my example comes from public life, keep the conversation on how
the move works on listeners, never on the person or on whether either of us
agrees with any side of a public question.

THE QUESTION I AM EXPLORING (two options of equal weight - ask which one I choose first):
Option A: When you hear a fallacy in someone's argument - at a meeting, in a
group project, or in a debate - is it better to name it out loud ("that's a
straw man") or to answer the strongest fair version of their argument
without naming the fallacy? Some people say naming it teaches everyone in
the room to spot the flaw; others say it sounds like a gotcha and makes the
other side dig in. Take a position, support it with a real exchange you have
heard or been part of, and use this week's terms, such as fallacy, warrant,
straw man, ad hominem, or red herring, accurately.
Option B: Does a qualifier - words like "for a two-week trial" or "in dining
halls like ours" - make a persuasive speaker more believable, or does it make
the argument sound weaker? Some people say admitting the limits of a claim
earns the audience's trust; others say an audience follows the speaker who
sounds sure and hears every qualifier as doubt. Take a position, support it
with a real speech, pitch, or request you have heard or made, and use this
week's terms, such as claim, evidence, warrant, qualifier, and rebuttal,
accurately.

REFLECTION TARGETS (steer toward these; never read this list aloud to me):
- whether I use the course's fallacy names accurately, especially ad hominem
  versus straw man versus red herring
- whether I can tell the warrant from the evidence in my own example
- whether I name a specific moment in my example rather than a general
  impression
- whether I connect my position to how listeners respond, including trust
  and ethos
- whether my position holds up against the strongest objection

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 13 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 — using reasoning, Toulmin's claim, evidence, and warrant, and the course's fallacy names accurately, and weighing how an argument works on listeners — 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. For Option A, describe the real exchange, name the fallacy you heard, say how it broke the link between the evidence and the claim, and take a position on whether naming it out loud or answering the strongest fair version works better. For Option B, describe the real speech, pitch, or request, name its claim and its qualifier, and take a position on whether the qualifier made the speaker more believable. Use this week's terms (fallacy, claim, evidence, warrant, qualifier, rebuttal, straw man, ad hominem, red herring) correctly.
2. The strongest objection (roughly 100 words). Write the best argument against your own position that you can — for example, that a named fallacy is the fastest way to protect a room from a bad argument, or that a qualifier hands the other side an easy opening. Argue it honestly; a weak objection you knock over earns no credit.
3. Your answer to it (roughly 100 words). Respond to that objection. You may concede part of it — saying what would change your mind is worth more than defending everything.
4. What you would do next time (one or two sentences). Name one concrete moment in your own persuasive speech where you will add a qualifier, answer a counter-argument more fairly, or cut a move that could read as a fallacy.

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 13 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.

Built with The Course Maker · samples.thecoursemaker.com