{"id":61,"date":"2019-04-05T17:28:20","date_gmt":"2019-04-05T17:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/provincialenglish\/chapter\/the-argument-essay\/"},"modified":"2023-12-06T21:11:07","modified_gmt":"2023-12-06T21:11:07","slug":"the-argument-essay","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/provincialenglish\/chapter\/the-argument-essay\/","title":{"raw":"The Argument Essay","rendered":"The Argument Essay"},"content":{"raw":"The argumentative or persuasive essay attempts to convince readers that the writer\u2019s position, views, and opinions on a controversial topic are valid, logical, and supported by research. The writer might simply present his or her evidence in support of the thesis (an argument essay) or more assertively urge readers to adopt his or her position, as well (a persuasive essay).\r\n\r\nThe template for an argument essay is less straightforward than it might at first appear. It is basic insofar as the writer presents his or her thesis in the opening paragraph, and then presents a series of body paragraphs that are well-developed with examples and details and supported by sources to back up, support, and augment the thesis.\r\n\r\nBut a sound argument includes one more feature: it acknowledges the opposing point of view and refutes or rebuts it. This is an important strategy in developing a sound argument because it indicates that the writer knows the topic well and is treating the other side fairly. Moreover, the argument weakens if the reader realizes there is a counter-argument the writer has not addressed.\r\n\r\nIf, for example, you were arguing that students who attend public schools should wear uniforms, you might cite evidence of higher academic achievement, decrease in the amount of bullying, and greater sense of community in schools whose students wear uniforms. But you would want to acknowledge the opposing points\u2014uniforms stifle individual expression and identity; they are too expensive for some families to afford; they lack comfort and style\u2014and explain why the opposing points are dubious or illogical.\r\n\r\nAn essay\u2019s conclusion typically reaffirms its thesis and establishes a sense of closure; the former is especially important in an argument essay.\r\n\r\nRead carefully this essay about residential schools.\r\n

Example: Why Our Kids Need to Learn About Residential Schools by Bonnie Schiedel<\/h1>\r\n
Published May 18, 2018 by Today's Parent<\/div>\r\nHow would you feel, if this happened in your kid\u2019s class? Last fall, a grade 6 social studies class outside of Edmonton was learning about residential schools. A student put up her hand and said, \u201cI don\u2019t have anything against Indigenous people, but my grandpa told me we had to put the Indians in residential schools because they were killing each other and we had to civilize them.\u201d\r\n\r\nHer words hung in the air for a moment. And then her teacher responded, \u201cWell, I don\u2019t have anything against your grandpa, but people who are your grandpa\u2019s age and your parents\u2019 age and even my age didn\u2019t have the opportunity to learn the truth. So, we\u00a0have a responsibility, because we\u2019re learning the truth now.\u201d\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_59\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"500\"]\"\" Roberto Caruso, Beadwork: Catherine Blackburn; The General Synod Archives, Anglican Church Of Canada.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nFor generations, the full history of Canada\u2019s residential schools, which existed for more than a century and housed 150,000 First Nations, M\u00e9tis and Inuit kids with the flat-out mission of assimilation into white society, was suppressed and ignored. If you\u2019re non-Indigenous, you may have had some hazy idea of \u201cIndian schools,\u201d but the kind of nightmarish abuse, bullying, deprivation and death that went on? It was rarely acknowledged and never discussed. I can remember first hearing about the schools only about 10 years ago in one of those free-ranging discussions that go on at noisy book club meetings, and thinking, \u201cI have a history degree\u2026how is it even possible I\u2019ve never heard of residential schools?\u201d\r\n\r\nToday, however, Canadians\u2014kids, adults, everybody\u2014have that opportunity to learn that really difficult truth. And we have a responsibility to acknowledge the truth and fight untruths, just like that teacher told her class.\r\n\r\nTwo years ago, the\u00a0Truth and Reconciliation Commission\u00a0<\/strong>(TRC) issued 94 calls to action to address the legacy of residential schools and move toward reconciliation. I still can\u2019t quite figure out what reconciliation could or should look like in everyday life; it\u2019s one of those slippery words that can mean a thousand different things to a thousand different people. Maybe, then, we should pay attention to the truth part first. As Pamala Agawa, a curriculum coordinator for First Nation, M\u00e9tis and Inuit education (FNMI) at York Region District School Board in Ontario, told me, we need to figure out the truth for ourselves: \u201cWhat biases do we carry; what learning do we need to do to better understand the true history of the country?\u201d\r\n\r\nChances are, your own kids are learning about residential schools in class this year. In the TRC\u2019s calls to action, points 62 and 63 specifically call on schools to deliver age-appropriate curriculum about residential schools, as well as Indigenous culture and treaty education, to students in kindergarten to grade 12. It\u2019s not a quick and easy item on a to-do list. How do we talk about Canada\u2019s cultural genocide with our kids? How do we tell them about what our country did to families? Our world still has racist grandpas and internet trolls and prejudices\u00a0that have built up over decades. We owe it to our kids to learn more and do better.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_60\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"440\"]\"\" Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.[\/caption]\r\n

Growing up with the truth<\/h2>\r\nAs parents, we worry about our kids learning scary information. Sexual and physical abuse went on at some residential schools\u2014what age should kids learn about that? We may ask, is my kid going to feel guilty now? Or, how could our church have been involved in that? I know I stuttered out a garbled explanation when my seven-year-old asked why kids had to go away to school when it made them and their families so sad. Still, I\u2019m glad she asked me, even if I didn\u2019t have a polished answer. Talking honestly about hard things in a way kids can understand helps open a door to the empathy that\u2019s part of being a decent human being.\r\n\r\nFor some Indigenous parents, there may be added\u00a0worry about classroom lessons. Will their child feel singled out? Will they be anxious they\u2019ll be taken away, too? For others, the lessons are welcome. Julie Mallon of Port Dover, Ont., who is Anishinaabe and the daughter of a residential school survivor, says she didn\u2019t have any concerns. \u201cI absolutely think it\u2019s important for kids to learn it in school. It\u2019s been a hidden part of our history,\u201d she says. \u201cFor this to be taught is just another layer of becoming more emotionally aware and learning how to deal with their feelings.\u201d While Mallon\u2019s mom rarely talked about her experiences when Mallon was a kid, she didn\u2019t want it to be a taboo subject with her own kids.\r\n\r\nCharlene Bearhead, the former education lead for the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, has thought about those parent-kid conversations a lot. \u201cOur children are going to grow up with this truth, whether we\u2019re ready or not,\u201d she says. \u201cThe best thing we can do as parents is find the courage, and know that it\u2019s not going to be easy and it\u2019s not going to be things that we want to hear. But it\u2019s things that we need to hear, and\u00a0we can learn with our children.\u201d\r\n\r\nOur kids are going to be paying attention to how we talk about this, too. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing in the calls to action that calls on parents, and yet parents are among the most important people in a child\u2019s life. They are their children\u2019s first teachers,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen a child goes home from school and talks to a parent, their response is really going to have a major influence on how that child moves forward with what they\u2019ve learned.\u201d\r\n

Teaching the teachers<\/h2>\r\nThat can feel daunting as parents, but we\u2019re all in this learning curve together\u2014teachers, board trustees and superintendents are learning this along with the kids. \u201cEducators have to relearn what they think they know about Canada,\u201d says Melissa Wilson, coordinator of Indigenous education at the Peel District School Board in Ontario. \u201cFor instance, we talk about what it means to be Canadian: We\u2019re multicultural, everyone is welcome to this country, we believe in spreading human rights around the world. It\u2019s not that that story is incorrect; the problem is that story is very incomplete. It doesn\u2019t speak to the story of how Indigenous peoples have been treated in Canada.\u201d At the Peel board, Wilson and her colleagues offer teachers two years of Indigenous education training. They learn from Indigenous educators, elders and knowledge keepers, tour a former residential school and meet with school survivors. Teachers then pass on what they\u2019ve learned to teachers and students in their own schools.\r\n\r\nThere\u2019s no national standard for curriculum, and quality and content vary a great deal. It\u2019s vital that Indigenous educators take a lead role in both developing curriculum and visiting schools. One Indigenous educator who\u2019s deeply involved in creating curriculum is Rachel Mishenene, who is Ojibway from Eabametoong First Nation, and works as an executive at the Elementary Teachers\u2019 Federation of Ontario. She\u2019s excited about the possibilities of expanding FNMI curriculum. \u201cI want to make sure we highlight the positive and innovative contributions Indigenous peoples have made or continue to make in arts, music, sports, science, anthropology, media, and as storytellers,\u201d she says. \u201cResidential schools made their mark, and teaching that history is important. We also need to share stories of strength, resilience and excellence.\u201d Parents can play a key role here, too\u2014Bearhead encourages parents to talk to teachers and principals about the curriculum and what else can be added.\r\n

Helping kids get it<\/h2>\r\nTalking about resilience is really powerful\u2014and it\u2019s something that kids can identify with. Janet Porter, a reconciliation education consultant in the Nova Scotia department of education, which works with the education group Mi\u2019kmaw Kina\u2019matnewey, says Mi\u2019kmaw community members were very clear they wanted any representation of residential schools to be combined with\u00a0the idea of resilience. In one of the school programs, for example, kids make their own dolls after learning how\u00a0Magit Poulette, now an elder,\u00a0secretly created a doll with rags and sticks after her baby doll was taken from her when she arrived at Shubenacadie Residential School as a four-year-old.\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s essential, too, to deal with the tough stuff in age-appropriate ways. \u201cIf a child\u2019s primary reaction to a book or video or illustration is one of upset or fear, then those emotions may become a barrier to learning,\u201d explains Porter. To that end, in the younger grades, teachers introduce the topic through books and stories, and then ask kids about something special to them and how they\u2019d feel if it was taken from them, using phrases that kids can understand, like \u201cnot right\u201d and \u201cnot fair.\u201d (In older grades, students talk more in depth about the devastating ripple effect that the abuse and loss of culture has on Indigenous communities.)\r\n\r\nBy making stories about residential schools relatable, kids can understand in their hearts, as well as their brains. \u201cIt\u2019s overwhelming when you hear that 150,000 kids were taken from their families, so it was really important to us to connect the students with one child,\u201d says Gail Stromquist, assistant director of Aboriginal education at the British Columbia Teachers\u2019 Federation. Along with her sister, Janet Stromquist, who\u2019s also a teacher, Gail created the e-book and teaching module\u00a0Gladys We Never Knew,<\/em>\u00a0about the life of their aunt Gladys Chapman, who fell ill with tuberculosis while at residential school and died in 1931 at the age of 12. Jean Moir, a grade 4\/5 teacher in Langley, BC, who helped develop the lessons and piloted the project with her class two years ago, says that learning about a child who lived fairly close by made Gladys real to her students. \u201cThey cared\u00a0what happened to her\u00a0and absolutely \u2018got\u2019 how horribly she and so many others were treated.\u201d\r\n\r\nOn a cool fall day, her grade 4\/5 class got on a school bus and went on a field trip to Spuzzum, B.C. to visit the territory of the Nlaka\u2019pamux Nation, where Gladys grew up and was buried. Danny Ferguson went with his son Joe on the field trip and saw how the kids reacted after they decorated the mossy headstone with handmade hearts and flowers. \u201cIt\u2019s not just about the information; there\u2019s definitely a teaching to the heart there,\u201d he says. \u201cEven today, Joe really connects with Gladys\u2019 story. He still talks about it and gets a bit emotional. Gladys is basically a hero to those kids.\r\n\r\nAnother personal story that resonates with kids is about Phyllis Webstad\u2014and it sparked the national movement of Orange Shirt Day, held annually on September 30. In 1973, six-year-old Phyllis was excited about going away to school and she picked out a new orange shirt. When she arrived at school, all her clothes, including her orange shirt, were taken from her. \u201cThe colour orange has always reminded me of that and how my feelings didn\u2019t matter, how no one cared and how\u00a0I felt like I was worth nothing,\u201d explains Webstad. Orange Shirt Day\u2019s message is that every child matters.\r\n\r\nMy daughter Jane, who\u2019s in grade 2, is fully on board with theme days of any sort and picked out orange hair elastics to go with her shirt when the note about Orange Shirt Day at her school here in Thunder Bay, Ont., came home in her backpack this past fall. I don\u2019t remember her telling us about her day at dinner\u2014I\u2019m pretty sure she was in a hurry to go trampolining at the neighbours. But more than two months later, we were at her school for an event and I spotted the mini-essays she and her classmates had written on Orange Shirt Day, still taped up in the foyer. As we walked over to the display, she matter-of-factly told me all about it. \u201cWe learned about those really mean schools they used to have, mom,\u201d she said. \u00a0\u201cIt was real, you know, not just in a book. And there was this girl who had an orange shirt she really liked and they took it away and she never got it back, so that\u2019s why we wear orange shirts, to remember those kids who had to go away to school.\u201d\r\n\r\nWhen Bearhead told me about that grade 6 student repeating her grandpa\u2019s comment, I flinched, thinking my daughter could hear something that casually cruel in her classroom, too. The legacy of residential schools\u2014those strained and broken threads of relationships and culture and identity\u2014is like a widening tear in a piece of fabric. If we have any hope of patching it, we\u2019ve got to listen, really listen, to Indigenous stories and experiences, and then talk to our kids. \u201cThe biggest measure of success for me is about how families are talking about reconciliation at the dinner table, when no one else is listening,\u201d says Bearhead. \u201cWhen we see that shift happening there, that\u2019s when I believe we\u2019ll be on the road to reconciliation as a country.\u201d\r\n

Activities<\/h1>\r\n
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Why Our Kids Need to Learn About Residential Schools<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/header>\r\n

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Study Questions<\/h2>\r\n
\r\n\r\nRespond to these questions in writing, in small group discussion, or both.\r\n
    \r\n \t
  1. The thesis for this essay is in the essay\u2019s title. What are the key arguments the author makes in support of her thesis?<\/li>\r\n \t
  2. What is the counter-argument that the author refutes in this essay, and how does the author rebut these counter-arguments? Are there counter-arguments the writer fails to address?<\/li>\r\n \t
  3. Is this essay well-researched? What are the main sources of the author\u2019s research?<\/li>\r\n \t
  4. How do the photographs support (or undermine) the author\u2019s thesis?<\/li>\r\n \t
  5. What rhetorical modes, other than argument, are present in this essay?<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n

    Written Assignment<\/h2>\r\n
    \r\n\r\nSelect a social or political issue you feel strongly about\u2014climate change, an endangered species, lowering the voting age, vegetarian diet, social media, concussions in sports, violence in video games, Canada and the monarchy, cloning, online dating, lyrics in modern music\u2014and write an argument essay of approximately 750 words on that topic. You can also select a topic your teacher assigns.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

    Text Attributions<\/h3>\r\n