Writing an Argument of Substance…

It is becoming more and more important to produce digital citizens and for teachers
to teach valuable digital arguments. Debating is a long tradition of human nature, 
and today with all the “fake news” and sensitivity to opinion on social media, our 
students need to learn to be productive citizens and to use the opportunities 
available with digital writing for the greater good (Troy, 2013). 

“Posting a selfie or retweeting someone else’s post is one thing. Creating one’s own 
valuable piece of writing that offers an argument of substance is quite another. We 
want students to create content, not just redistribute it. More than ever before, 
students need intelligent, compassionate conversational partners, because 
conversations—some of which are truly interactive and dialogic, and others that are 
didactic and one-sided—are happening all around them, all the time. Teaching our 
students to craft digital arguments is, again, more than a skill for college or career. 
It is a skill for life.” (Turner & Hicks, 2017, p. 14).

Check out this #sschat Tweet about creating listening spaces for credible sources in productive classroom debate.

According to the online Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the term fake news means 
the “printing and dissemination of spurious news.” Sometimes stories are shared 
that are several years old, from sitaric websites and not credible sources, or just 
one-sided opinions. Also, we have moved passed the respective ‘there are two 
sides to every story’ and jumped right into ‘I do not agree with you and therefore 
we cannot be civil.’ Students are in need of a ‘think before you share’ workshop 
where there are steps utilized to promote healthy research based arguments. 

Here is a TEDTalk video on how fake news does real harm...

Remi Kalir and Antero Garcia‘s forthcoming manuscript, Annotation, in that they 
request that commentary adhere to the following: 

• Civil. We can disagree. And when we do so, 

  let’s also respect one another.

• Constructive. Share what you know. And build 

  upon ideas that are relevant and informative.

• Curious. Ask honest questions and listen openly 

  to responses.

• Creative. Model generative dialogue. Have fun. 

  Contribute to and learn from the process.

In conclusion, healthy argumentative dialogue is paramount for digital literacy. 
We as teachers should practice debate in our classroom where students see 
both sides with research based facts. This skill is important for our students 
to not only identify factual information, but to share that information on social 
media and be able to defend that information with research based evidence. 

References

Busari, S. (2017). How fake news does real harm [Video file]. Retrieved from 
https://www.ted.com/talks/stephanie_busari_how_fake_news_does_real_harm

How Is 'Fake News' Defined, and When Will It Be Added to the Dictionary? (n.d.). 
Retrieved from 
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/the-real-story-of-fake-news

Kalir, R. (2019, June 22). An Annotation Annotation Invitation. Retrieved from http://www.theamericancrawl.com/?p=1745

Troy, H. (2013). Crafting digital writing: composing texts across media and 
genres. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Turner, K. H., & Hicks, T. (2017). Argument in the real world: teaching adolescents 
to read and write digital texts. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.