Structuring argumentation in a social constructivist framework: A pedagogy with computer support

Structuring Argumentation in a Social ConstructivistFramework: A Pedagogy with Computer Support

DAVID KAUFER

Department of EnglishCarnegie Mellon UniversityPittsburgh, PA 15213U.S.A.

and

CHERYL GEISLER

Department of Language, Literature and CommunicationRensselaer Polytechnic InstituteNew York, NY12180U.S.A.

ABSTRACT: What we usually think of as higher order skills in argumentation can beprofitably viewed as systematic structures for organizing and representing information.Standard terms like "line of argument", "synthesis", "analysis" and "draft" can be viewedas ways of constructing, storing, and accessing data in a social context - data structures forsocial communication. What makes argument difficult are the multiple structures thatarguers have to construct and negotiate when reading and composing. In this paper, wedescribe the WARRANT project, a project designed to identify data structures of writtenargument and to design and implement computer tools to aid in the reading and design ofargument.

KEY WORDS: Argument, writing from sources, social constructivism, synthesis, knowl-edge representation, information management.

The study of argument takes many forms. Traditionally, arguments havebeen studied as structures of assertion and support. Beginning withAristotle, philosophers and rhetoricians have been interested in therelationship between argument structures and justified belief. They haveasked "What support must I demand for this assertion in order to justifymy believing it?"

Theoretically, this treatment of argument as structures for justifiedbelief has been both text-centered and context-free. It has focused on theanalysis of single argumentative texts according to putatively universalcriteria for evidence and logic. Within this framework, the teaching ofargument has usually included two goals. First, teachers have tried to

Argumentation 4: 379-396, 1990.© 1990 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

DAVID KAUFER AND CHERYL GEISLER

provide students with the ability to differentiate the internal structure ofan argument: its claims, evidence, warrants, and so forth. Secondly,teachers have tried to give students criteria by which to distinguish goodfrom bad argument - criteria which would allow them to decide whetheror not to "believe" what an author claimed.

When such a pedagogy is put into practice, we have found that it oftenproduces students who are adept consumers of argumentation - they canread an argumentative text with perception and generate multiple criti-cisms. But these students also seem to have several recurring problems:they can not put their criticisms into perspective; they can not produceoriginal arguments of their own; and they can not adapt arguments whenshifting communities.

More recent advances in the theory of argumentation have suggestedthat a text-centered approach to argumentation does not adequatelyaccount for the development of justified belief. Through careful examina-tion of the interrelationship among argumentative texts within specificdiscourse communities, theorists have discovered that the criteria forjustified belief are context-dependent rather than context-free. Argumenta-tive texts are no longer seen as isolated, individual phenomena, but ratheras a system, working together to bring about belief within a community.Justified belief is viewed as socially constructed, and the criteria which acommunity invokes in this construction process can vary significantly fromone community to another.'

We have been interested to translate the implications of this new socialconstructivist view of argument into a viable pedagogy. Our approach hasbeen based on empirical research designed to reveal differences betweenthe ways expert readers and writers use argumentation and the waysstudents usually go about the same tasks. It has also been heavily influ-enced by our goal to design teaching/learning structures that can besupported and developed on computers.

The program we have produced is innovative in two respects. First, itredefines the task of argumentation as a social one and asks students toattend to the characteristics of the community in which they read andwrite. Secondly, it provides the students with strategies for transforminginformation they take from other authors' texts into their own originalposition. We believe that such a pedagogy would serve to overcome manyof the difficulties students often encounter under traditional text-centered,context-free pedagogies.

In this article, we do three things. First, by reference to some of thedata we have gathered, we introduce a more complete characterization ofsocially constructed argument. Second, we describe the pedagogical struc-tures and strategies we have developed for teaching socially-constructedargument to students. And finally, we review our current and planneddesigns for computer software aimed at supporting this kind of pedagogy.

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A PEDAGOGY WITH COMPUTER SUPPORT

CHARACTERISTICS OF SOCIALLY-CONSTRUCTED ARGUMENT

In a social constructivist approach, argumentation is treated as an on-going conversation about issues within a community. Single texts are seennot an autonomous representations of true belief that can be evaluated byuniversal criteria but rather as conversational moves designed by authorsto have an intended effect on a community's belief. Individual textsrespond to previous texts and seek response from future texts.

In this section, we briefly characterize expert argumentation in thissocial constructivist framework, using an excerpt from the final draftproduced by one of the "experts" in our empirical study. Then we describethe similarities and differences between this expert performance and thekind of performance students often engage in. Here we give an exampleusing an excerpt from the final draft produced by one of our "novices."Finally, we draw some conclusions about what we think the major goals ofa pedagogy of argument in a social constructivist framework should be.

Before we characterize expert and novice argumentation, we need tomake a few comments describing the overall design of the research projectfrom which our examples are taken. In the Spring of 1985, we asked fivegraduate-level philosophers and two freshman undergraduates to partici-pate in a research project aimed at understanding how they producedoriginal argument in response to readings. Each participant was given a setof eight articles and was asked to write an original essay on the ethicalissue discussed in them: the definition and justification of paternalisticinterference. We allowed each participant to complete the task in his orher own way within the time span of about 50 hours of work.

We collected data from these experts and novices in three ways. First,we asked them to verbalize their thoughts out loud into a tape-recorderwhenever they worked on the project.2 In such "think-aloud" protocols,participants are encouraged to say whatever is "on their minds" as theywork rather than to "explain" what they are doing retrospectively. Suchvocalizations can only provide the tip of the iceberg for the representa-tions that a writer relies upon; but the tip of the iceberg often producesenough information to allow what lies beneath the surface to be modelled.Second, we collected all of the writing the participants produced. Andthird, we interviewed the participants between working sessions to estab-lish their current conception of the paper. To date, we have completed apreliminary analysis of the protocols, written products and interviews forboth of the novices and two of the experts.

What are the characteristics of argumentation that are socially-con-structed? The information we have collected from our experts has helpedto provide a more specific answer to this question. In the following excerptfrom a final but still "rough" draft of his essay, one of our experts exhibitsmost of the basic characteristics of what we have come to think of as

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competent argumentation in a social framework. We quote here enough toshow the basic structure of a section in which he deals with the definitionof paternalistic interference. He has written this section to follow someintroductory material on the nature of the paternalism issue.3

A SELECTION OF WRITING BY AN EXPERT

(1) Definitions of paternalism are intended to point up a set of charac-teristics of actions so that any paternalistic act necessarily has them andany act that has them is necessarily paternalistic. Such characteristics aresuggested by more or less generally accepted (or acceptable) examples ofcases of paternalism such as ... the following.

Example One: Mister K is pacing back and forth on the roof of his fivestory tenement and several times appears about to jump off. Whenquestioned by the police he sounds confused. When interviewed byDoctor T in the emergency room, Mister K is afraid he might be losing hismind. He speaks of the depression he has been experiencing in the pastseveral months and begins weeping uncontrollably. He claims not to knowthe source of his despair but says he can stand it no longer. He refuseshospitalization but will not say why. Doctor T commits Mister K to thehospital for a six month observation period for his own protection.

(Discusses further examples, which we have omitted)

(2) The prominence of such examples as these in the discussion of themoral status of paternalism suggests to Dworkin ... the following "rough"definition...:

DEFINITION D1. "Paternalism is the interference with a person's libertyof action justified by reasons referring exclusively to the welfare, good,happiness, needs, interests, or values of the person being coerced."

(3) The Definition D1 is faulty in several respects, and is not made anybetter by Dworkin's admission that it is "rough". First ....

(4) Perhaps what Dworkin intends is something more like the following:

DEFINITION D1'. "Paternalism is interference with a person's liberty ofaction of such a sort that if justified at all it is justified exclusively by itspositive bearing on the welfare, good, happiness, needs, interests or valuesof the persons being coerced."

(5) But this will still not work, as can be seen from Example Threeabove ...

(6) There remains, however, the question of interference with liberty ofaction .... Buchanon, too, thinks this feature important, if not universallypresent. He offers ... :

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DEFINITION D2. "Paternalism is the interference with ....(7) But here we can kill two birds with one stone. Suppose ....(8) Paternalism sometimes involves coercion, or at least deprivation of

liberty. But by no means does it always do so. For these reasons, Carter'sdefinition ... is also faulty:

DEFINITION D3. "Paternalistic acts are those in which ...(9) In ordinary life we require justification only for actions that we

have reason to think are wrong. Someone out to justify an action is usuallyout to show that it isn't wrong after all; to rebut a presumption ofwrongness. Perhaps taking a hint from this, or perhaps just displaying abias descended from Mill, or perhaps being overimpressed with cases ofpaternalism that generate controversy, most of our authors seem tosuppose that paternalism requires justification in this way. They supposethat paternalism requires justification because there is always at least somereason to think it wrong. If this is so, then of course all acts of paternalismmust share some defining feature which generates the presence of a reasonto think them wrong. Paternalism must be a suspect class of actions.

(10) Gert and Culver ... take a peculiarly direct approach to ensuringthat a presumptive wrong attaches to paternalism. The definition theyoffer is ... :

DEFINITION D4. "A is acting paternalistically toward S if A's behavior(correctly) indicates that A believes that ....

(11) D4 is objectionable on a number of grounds. First .... Second,.... And third,....

(12) But apart from all this, the immorality clause (Clause (3)) is itselfout of place. Situation 3... should make that clear ....

(13) These counter examples have a broader significance. They areillustrative of whole classes of paternalistic action that are not suspiciouson their faces. They show that there are paternalistic actions for whichthere is not necessarily present any reason to think them wrong. If this isso, then no correct definition of paternalism can attribute to them anyfeature such that any action with that feature is on that account suspect.

(14) I will have more to say of this shortly. For now it is enough topoint out that plausible definitions satisfying this requirement are in thefield. Here, for instance, is Childress' definition:

DEFINITION D5. "Paternalism is nonacquiescence in a person's wishes,choices and actions for that person's own benefit."

(15) The definition is not without flaw (surely he means "or" not "and",and "nonacquiescence" is even fuzzier than "paternalism") but it illustratesthe point.

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This excerpt exhibits the following characteristics which we identify withexpert performance in argumentation:

- The expert summarizes other authors' positions on the issue, givingexamples and clearly distinguishing among them (Paragraphs 1, 2, 6, 8,10, 14).

- The expert synthesizes other authors' positions on the issue andindicates their purpose and relationship to each other (Paragraphs 1, 6,9,10,13,14).

- The expert analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of other authors'positions on the issue by means of criteria (Paragraphs 3, 8, 11),counterexamples (Paragraphs 2, 5, 7, 11), and restatement (Paragraph4).

- The expert proposes his own position on the issue and shows how itgrows out of other authors' positions (Paragraphs 13, 14).

In all of these characteristics, the expert shows himself aware of thecommunity in which he is writing by reporting on previous work on theissue and developing a new response based on that work. Other authorsare cited one at a time in an order which is constructed to lead up to theexpert's own response. The expert also uses meta-language to talk aboutwhat the task of definition requires ("In ordinary life, we .. ."), how otherauthors have interpreted the task ("most of our authors seem to suppose... ") and how he is developing his own position on the task ("I will havemore to say of this shortly.") All of these characteristics indicate that theexpert is consciously aware of his role in helping the community toconstruct belief.

Against this example of expert performance, we can compare anexcerpt from the final draft of one of our novices. As you will see, she isdoing some of the same things that our expert does: she speaks to thesame issue; she uses some of the same sources of information; she uses thesame mixture of abstract definition and concrete examples; and she hasthe same goal of giving her own position. But, despite these similarities,the differences are striking.

A SELECTION OF WRITING BY A NOVICE

(1) Paternalism as defined by Gerald Dworkin is the "interference with aperson's liberty of action justified by reasons referring exclusively to thewelfare, good, happiness, needs, interests, or values of the person beingcoerced."

(2) An example given by Dworkin is the law requiring motorcyclists towear safety helmets when operating their machines. This law has themotorcyclist's safety in mind by its enforcement. Wearing a safety helmet

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can result in fewer damages to the skull if and when a motorcyclist isinvolved in an accident. Some states do not require helmets to be worn,therefore, giving a choice to those who operate motorcycles, to wear ahelmet or not to. Because some states give this choice it makes state lawsthat require helmets paternalistic.

(3) Equally important, is the definition of paternalism given by JamesChildress; "paternalism attempts to meet the needs of another person evenagainst that person's wishes .... The first feature of paternalism isaltruistic beneficence - the aim to benefit another person. The secondfeature is a refusal to accept that person's wishes, choices, and actions insome circumstances." In brief, paternalism may be defined as a refusal toaccept or to acquiesce in another person's wishes, choices, and actions forthat person's own benefit.

(4) To demonstrate his definition of paternalism Childress gives thefollowing example. A member of a religious sect, who is in need of ablood transfusion, is administered to a hospital. Before the patient faintsfrom loss of blood, he informs the doctor that his religion forbids this typeof action. Even after the patient gives this information the doctor performsthe transfusion in order to save the man's life. By doing so the doctordisregarded the patient's wishes, therefore, acting paternalistically ....

(5) In conclusion to the above definitions of paternalism, I feelpaternalism is when a person makes a decision, whereupon affectinganother person in a way he or she did not wish to be affected. An examplemay be when a doctor disregards a patient's requests for certain proce-dures or treatments, such as giving a pregnant woman something to easeher labor pains after she's informed her doctor she is against this. By notfollowing the patient's requests the doctor makes a decision which affectsthe patient in a way he or she does not wish to be affected.

In contrast to the expert's treatment, our novice here shows herselfunaware of her own role in constructing belief in a community. Inparticular:

- The novice summarizes other authors' positions on the issue withoutshowing an awareness of their integrity or distinctiveness. She usesquotation indifferently (Paragraph 3, for example, is all taken fromChildress although she only quotes part of it.).

- The novice does not synthesize other authors' positions. The onlyconnection she establishes between the two authors she summarizes isthat they are "equally important" (Paragraph 3).

- The novice does not analyze the strengths and weaknesses of otherauthors' positions. Instead of using examples to reveal weaknesses, sheuses them merely to illustrate. Furthermore, as illustrations, theexamples are interchangeable, capable of exemplifying any of the

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authors' positions rather than distinguishing one position from another(Paragraphs 2 and 4).

- The novice proposes her own position, but does not show anyawareness of how it relates to other authors' positions (Paragraph 5).

In addition, the novice uses no metalanguage to talk to the reader aboutthe nature of the task, the general characteristics of other authors'approach to the task, or her own approach to the task.

The differences between this expert and novice are, we believe, fairlytypical of the gap that exists between what our students know and can dowhen they enter college and what they must know and be able to do to useargumentation successfully. A great deal of research suggests that ourstudents come to college with little or no experience in addressing realcommunities or having real positions. In a survey of secondary educationin the United States, for example, Arthur Applebee 4 found that moststudents were trained to use writing to fill in short answers for examina-tions rather than to use writing in an exploratory, sustained, and innova-tive way. In an older study in England, Britton and his colleagues foundthat most writing in the schools was done for the transactional purpose ofdisplaying information learned to the teacher in an examiner role.5

Any pedagogy aimed at teaching argumentation must address this gapby seeking to change both students' conception of the task and thestrategies available to them. In the think-aloud protocols and interviewsfrom which we do not have the space to quote, it became clear to us thatnovice writing of the type we have just quoted comes out of a funda-mentally asocial conception of the nature and function of argumentation.Our students did not see themselves as understanding a community'scurrent state of belief or as responding to and manipulating that state ofbelief.

Furthermore, our experience in trying to change this asocial conceptionalso suggests that students lack the strategies necessary to engage insocially-constructed argument. The textual input and output in an argu-mentation task are opaque to them. That is, texts read and texts written donot reveal the kind of thinking that must be done in order to move fromone to the other. Our experts were using strategies for summarizing,synthesizing, analyzing and proposing that represented significant trans-formations on the arguments they had read. Our novices seemed unawareof most of these strategies: They could establish what others had said andthey could state some kind of position of their own; but they could notmake connections between them.

A PEDAGOGY FOR SOCIALLY-CONSTRUCTED ARGUMENT

In order to bridge the conceptual and strategic gap between our students'knowledge and the knowledge they needed for successful argument, we

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have constructed a pedagogy designed to break down the process intoseveral stages, each with its appropriate knowledge representations andappropriate transformations. We have presented this pedagogy in elabo-rated form in a textbook published in 19896 and in a computer environ-ment called WARRANT.7 In this section, we briefly overview thispedagogy and in the following section describe computer programsdesigned to support it.

One of the key concepts in our pedagogy is the notion of workspace.Workspaces represent structured environments in which students developtheir understanding of an issue. As we mentioned above, the constructionof original written argument is a long and difficult task for students. Thedirective to "say something new" is intimidating, more than a challenge justto understand what's been said before. Our workspace notion is designedto break the discovery process down into the easier-to-manage units ofSummarizing, Synthesizing, Analyzing, and Contributing.

Each of these workspaces covers a well-defined territory and no more.Associated with each is an initial knowledge representation, a set ofstrategies designed to transform that representation, and a targetedknowledge representation. Thus, each workspace presumes a certainstarting point and gives students transformations to get to a moreadvanced point.

Each workspace is designed to push the student a "little" fartherthrough the writing process rather than a lot. Each is designed to structurean argumentative writing environment so that students can find themselves"making progress" with less frustration. And while each workspacerepresents an independent "module" of definable progress in constructingarguments from sources, they are ordered modules: The output of theSummarizing workspace is the input to the Synthesizing workspace; theoutput of the Synthesizing workspace is the input to the Analyzingworkspace; the output of the Analyzing workspace is the input to theContributing workspace. Thus each workspace links together to supportthe entire process of argumentation.

In addition, each workspace acts as a "subroutine" in the writingprocess in the sense that it can be "called" many times throughout thatprocess. For example, a student may call the Summarizing workspace on asingle source text and then call it later on another. Or a student maydecide that he or she could produce a better summary of a source than theone he or she now has and so recall the Summarizing workspace on thesame source and redo the summary.

Advancing to a new workspace presupposes a knowledge representa-tion that is a prerequisite for entering that space. For example, before astudent can successfully work in the Synthesizing workspace, he or shemust have successfully worked in the Summarizing workspace. Thisconstraint turns out to be very helpful for diagnosing and troubleshootingstudent progress. If a student enters the Synthesizing workspace without

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good summaries of the sources to be synthesized, for example, he or shewill soon find that Synthesizing won't be all that helpful. Thus a student(and a teacher) can monitor progress through a workspace by seeing howwell students do when unleashed in a workspace that presupposes it.

In the discussion that follows, we will survey the specific knowledgerepresentations used in each for our workspaces for Summarizing, Synthe-sizing, Analyzing, and Contributing.

A Workspacefor Summarizing

Summarizing is a transformation that takes the words of an author andrepresents them as part of a larger structure. What is the nature of thisstructure? We decided it needed to be a structure that is transparentacross reading and writing. That is, in summarizing the arguments of anauthor, a reader should not only get insight into how the text is structured,but how it was planned. The traditional understanding of argument asassertions and support seemed to us to be too atomistic to indicate toreaders the plan underlying an argument.

Instead, we have proposed that readers of argument build a largerstructure of the text as they summarize. We call this larger structure "linesof argument." A line of argument has three well-defined components,which are (1) faulty paths, (2) return paths, and a (3) main path.

A writer's faulty paths represent those assertions which the writerbelieves will only delay the reader's progress in seeing the issue, definingthe problem at the source of the issue, or solving that problem - and thusresolving the issue. Writers rely on strong linguistic signals to indicate toreaders that a path is faulty. In our pedagogy, we train students on thesesignals so that they can discriminate the assertions a writer characterizesas faulty paths.

A writer's return paths represent those assertions which the writer usesto express dissatisfaction with these faulty paths, to encourage readerswho rely on these paths to abandon them and to discourage any readerfrom being further tempted by them. We call these assertions "returnpaths" because writers use them to bring readers back (return them) to the"right course" through the issue. Writers also rely on strong linguisticsignals to indicate their return paths. (Often a writer will make a singleassertion function both as a faulty and a return path.)

A writer's main path represents his or her own "chosen" path throughan issue, from problem to solution. As with faulty and return paths,writers rely on strong linguistic signals to indicate which assertions in atext they assign to their main path through the issue.

To discriminate a writer's faulty, return, and main paths through anissue is to build a classification of the writer's assertions. But an argumen-tative text contains more than assertions. It also contains statements of

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support and statements of development. Statements of support, of course,lend added weight or credibility to assertions and thus added weightor credibility to a line of argument. Statements of development refinean author's assertions and so refine a line of argument. Statements ofdevelopment include amplifications, concessions, qualifications, and dis-claimers.

By the time a student finishes the summary workspace, he or sheshould have discriminated the text as lines of argument which the authorhas both supported and developed.

A Workspace for Synthesizing

The Synthesizing workspace involves a transformation of the main pathsof multiple authors into what we call a "map" of alternative paths. TheSummary workspace, you recall, helps students build a discrimination ofeach author's chosen path through an issue. But what students cannotlearn from composing individual summaries is (1) how the main paths ofdifferent authors might form alternative paths through the issue, and (2)the decision points that had to be made to choose one alternative pathover another.

The purpose of synthesizing arguments in an issue is to construct both arepresentation of alternative paths and a representation of the decisionsthat underlie one choice of alternative over another. One of the hardestproblems students have in synthesizing is visualizing authors in a commonconversation. Beyond making this visualization, students also need to learnhow to break the conversation down into focused points of disagreementor "alternative paths" through the issue.

Our Synthesizing workspace is designed to help students, step-by-step,build explicit representations of a common conversation, focused dis-agreements, and alternative paths among authors. These representationsseem to be the ones required to compose an effective written synthesis ofauthors writing on an issue.

A WorkspaceforAnalyzing

The Analyzing workspace involves a the transformation that takes arepresentation of "alternative paths" in an issue, and tests these paths witha goal of discovering new or uncharted paths. The Synthesizing workspace"delivers" alternative paths to the Analyzing workspace. The Analyzingworkspace then teaches students what alternative paths to focus on andwhat preparations to make in order to test among these paths.

Students are encouraged to focus on alternative problem paths throughthe issue. These are the paths that writers use to define the problem which,they believe, goes to the bottom of the issue. Writers disagree about how

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to resolve issues, in part, because they often disagree about the problemthat lies at its core.

Deciding on the problem at the heart of the issue is every writer's pointof entry into it. Writers can't claim to really "know" an issue if they haven'tsearched for the problem underlying it. So in gaining their own point ofentry into an issue, students are encouraged to begin by testing thealternative paths of authors who disagree about the problem underlyingthe issue.

How can students test different problem paths through an issue? Tounderstand the testing process, they need to understand that an author'sdefinition of the problem at the heart of the issue functions as ageneralization of the bothersome situations associated with the issue.Bothersome situations constitute the "raw data" associated with an issue.Experienced readers understand an author's problem definition as anattempt to build a "theory" from this data, as a way of generalizing acrossit.

Even as they summarized, our experienced writers paid close attentionto the bothersome situations that authors associate with an issue. When wewatched them read on the issue of paternalism, for example, they paidclose attention to whether an author was concerned about the paternalismin seat belt laws, medical practices, or Japanese business.

In the Summarizing workspace, therefore, students are directed toorganize from their reading and their personal experience their owndatabase of bothersome situations associated with the issue. In theAnalyzing workspace, they are then guided to test alternative problempaths by testing how well each path functions as a generalization of what'sin their database of bothersome situations.

The result of testing a particular problem path is to sort one's databaseof bothersome situations into four situation types:

1. Confirming situations. These are bothersome situations that seem toconfirm an author's problem definition. They confirm it by "falling within"the generalization represented by the problem definition.

2. Disconfirming situations. These are bothersome situations that seem todisconfirm an author's problem definition. They disconfirm it by failing to"fall within" the problem generalization.

3. Unaccounted-for situations. These are bothersome situations that seemto disconfirm not just one problem path, but every alternative problempath through the issue.

4. Residual situations. These are bothersome situations that aren't easy toclassify in any of the above categories.

Sorting bothersome situations into these classes gives students specificprocedures for building their own problem path through the issue. The

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result of these procedures is to give students an entry point into the issueby having them build their own line of argument (faulty paths, return path,main path) for defining the problem. Once they have their line ofargument for defining the problem, they are guided to fill in lines ofargument (faulty paths, return paths, main path) for seeing the issue aswell as solving the problem.

When all these lines of argument are filled in, students are left with acomplete writing plan. A complete writing plan is a representation of theknowledge that students need to write a complete draft that cuts a pathfrom problem to solution through an issue.

A Workspace for Contributing

Contributing is a transformation that turns a complete writing plan (theoutput of Analyzing) into a polished draft. A complete writing plan willcontain the major assertions needed to cut a path from A to B through theissue. But to install that plan on paper, students will need to implement thestrategies of support and development they learned about in the Summa-rizing workspace. They will need to provide support for their assertionswhen they imagine readers requiring it. They will also need to amplify,qualify, concede, and disclaim aspects of their plan as appropriate. Suchtransformations give their writing plan the "textuality" it was lackingbefore it was committed to paper.

In addition to guidance on drafting, the Contributing workspace guidesstudents through "revision" transformations for readers. Typically, theresult of a first draft is a path the writer can follow more easily thanreaders. So a revision transformation guides writers to each line ofargument they have constructed in order to adjust their ideas and languageto readers. Beyond revising for readers, the Contributing Workspace alsoincludes instruction on editing strategies. If revising helps writers givereaders the information they most need, editing helps them present thatinformation in ways most sensitive to the needs of readers as informationprocessors.

SUPPORTING SOCIALLY-CONSTRUCTED ARGUMENT ON THE COMPUTER

While people's first thoughts on the usefulness of computers for educationmay turn to artificial intelligence, it will be a long time before computerscan read and comment on text and converse with a student like a humanteacher. But computers do bring telling advantages to the problems ofknowledge representation in written argument. Because computers canstructure information explicitly and because an explicit model of thetranslation between the ideas of others and one's own ideas seems to bewhat students lack, the computer can be used to structure environmentsthat make this transition process more manageable for students.

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Despite the best efforts of teachers of written argument, skills ofsummary, synthesis, and building an original writing plan are not skills thatcan easily be taught in words. These skills represent ways of organizingknowledge. Computers, moreover, are at their best in teaching representa-tions for organizing knowledge. It thus seemed to us that computers couldprovide a natural framework for implementing a pedagogy for construct-ing written argument from textual sources.

So far the pedagogical environment we have outlined can work onpaper as well as machine. Now we shall outline some of the major piecesof software we are developing and plan to develop for each workspace.

Computer Support for Summarizing

1. A Reading Discrimination Program. This program gives studentstraining in isolating the major lines of argument in an essay. The programgives students a series of argumentative essays and asks them to select onregions of text associated with different lines of argument. Students can gettraining on this program until they reach some criterion of success.

2. A Notecarding Program. Once students have the perceptual skill torecognize different lines of argument in a text, they can use a notecardingprogram to classify this information in notes. We have fully implementedan electronic notecarding system 8 that allows students to store, retrieve,sort, and search electronic notes. Students can write summaries byorganizing their notes of individual authors.

Computer Support for Synthesizing

3. A Synthesizing Program. The Notes program maintains a list of sourceswhom the student has summarized. By making a selection from this listand invoking the synthesizing program, the student will be able to create amatrix with all the selected sources forming the rows.

For example, if a student selects authors Smith, Jones, and Brown, andinvokes the program, the program will automatically draw a matrix asfollows:

Smith[

Jones

Brown

The matrix is dynamic in the sense that, at any time, the student can selectmore sources from the notecard program and this selection will createmore rows of the matrix.

In this diagram, Smith is what we call the "anchor" source. The anchor

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source is a source (or sources) whose perspective a writer acknowledges atthe "center" of an issue.

We have found that essay writers often build their synthesis by begin-ning with sources whom they nominate as anchors. They use their anchorsto isolate the main points of interest or contention that run throughout theissue. Thus, for example, assuming our writer has nominated Smith as theanchor, our student would isolate in Smith points of contention that runthroughout the issue.

In the computer system, the writer is prompted for these points ofinterest or contention one at a time. So, for example, let us suppose thatour writer is writing about the future of higher education. Since Smith isthe anchor, our writer will look to Smith for defining points of contentionin that issue.

Our writer sees that Smith has made a recommendation for the futureof higher education that doesn't square with other sources. So the writerdefines "Future Recommendations" as a point of contention and types thisat a prompt sign. The system will now generate the following matrix:

Future Recommendations

Smith iI Smith's response I

IJonesJones I

I

Jones' response1

I Brown's responseBrown I

The student will now be prompted to fill in the cells with Smith, Jones,and Brown's different recommendations for the future of higher education.

When the writer feels he or she has isolated enough points of conten-tion, the writer will be prompted to select any point of contention forfurther exploration. Suppose, now, our writer wants to explore futurerecommendations in more detail. The writer (with a mouse) selects on thispoint and the program generates the following tree structure:

Future Recommendations

Teach Values Trade Schools More Practical Curriculum

This is a flat tree structure. Now the real creative effort in synthesizingcomes into play. For the creative synthesizer will want to turn this flatstructure into one like the following:

393


This missionis no longerrespected/ \

This isa bad thing

//

We canturnthingsaroundbyteachingvalues

I

Smith:Teach Values

The historical mission of highereducation was to teach values

/ \

This is agood thing

/

Students havemore time forpractical skills

//

/

Jones:Go to Trade Sch

But it isharder tomaintain intoday's world

/

We can onlymaintain it

if we acknowledgethe vocationalaspirations of

studentsool /

/

This mission is still respected

7 \

N

It is notharder tomaintain intoday's world

Brown: Make the Curriculum MorePractical

This synthesis program guides students to build such trees. Notice thatthe branches of such trees form alternative paths through the issue. Thebranches at the top form alternative problem paths. The branches at thebottom form alternative solution paths.

Computer Support for Analyzing

The software for Analyzing will help students structure their environmentfor testing alternative problem paths. A schema of this environment isillustrated below:

Alternative Problem Paths

"mission of teachingvalues is still respected"

Database of Bothersome SituationsAssociated with Higher Education

I students don't read as much

I costs of education rising"mission of teachingincreasing values isno longer respected"

F

.

394

_l


In the Analyzing workspace, students will receive instruction on how tobuild operational definitions for the alternative paths they have synthe-sized. They will also get guidance on how to organize a database ofbothersome situations to test their alternative paths against. The computerwill also help them maintain records as they test paths. For example, it willhelp them store, for each path, the path's confirming, disconfirming andresidual situations. It will also help them keep track of unaccounted forsituations. Finally, it will help them keep records of the lines of argumentthey have built and the lines of argument they have yet to build.

Computer Support for Contributing

For this workspace, we envision a hierarchical outlining program thatmakes students aware of opportunities to qualify, disclaim, and concede,as well as amplify their writing plan into a draft. Much of the designspecifications of this software remain to be worked out.

CONCLUSION

We have overviewed a theory of some key concepts and strategiesinvolved in argumentation in a social constructivist framework. We haveindicated how students seem to lack many of these concepts and strate-gies. We have also offered a pedagogy that, we believe, can help studentsmaster them. Finally, we have described software, some of it implemented,to support this pedagogy. It will take some years before the instructionaltheory is fully operationalized on machine. And it will take some yearsbeyond that before we have a good understanding of whether thepedagogy, or its computer support, really works as well as we now hope.

NOTES

' See, for example, Donald N. McCloskey, The Rhetoric of Economics, Madison, Wis-consin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1985.2 This technique was pioneered by A. Newell and H. Simon at Carnegie Mellon Univer-sity, Human Problem Solving, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1972, and has beenused by researchers in cognitive science to study, among other things, writing (L. Flowerand J. R. Hayes, "Plans that Guide the Composing Process," in C. H. Frederiksen and J. F.Dominic (eds.), Writing The Nature, Development, and Teaching of Written Communica-tion, Hillsdale, NJ.: Erlbaum, 1981, pp. 39-58), physics (J. Larkin, J. McDermott, D.Simon, and H. Simon, "Expert and Novice Performance in Solving Physics Problems,"Science, Vol. 208, June 20, 1980, pp. 1335-1342), and chess-playing (H. Simon and W.Chase, "The Mind's Eye in Chess," in H. Simon (ed.), Models of Thought, New Haven,Yale University Press, 1979, pp. 404-427).3 Paragraphing in this excerpt and the following excerpt have been modified to highlightmajor characteristics.

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396 DAVID KAUFER AND CHERYL GEISLER

4 Writing in the Secondary School, Urbana, Illinois National Council of Teachers ofEnglish, 1981.5 J. Britton, T. Burgess, N. Martin, A. McLeod, and H. Rosen, The Development ofWritingAbilities (11-18), London, Macmillan Education, 1975.6 Arguing from Sources: Exploring Issues Through Reading and Writing, San Diego,Harcourt Brace Javonovich, 1989.7 The name WARRANT was chosen partly in honor of Stephen Toulmin and partly forthe acronym Writing And Reasoned Reading About Nominative Texts.I The NOTES Program, Christine Neuwirth, Center for Educational Computing inEnglish, Carnegie-Mellon University.

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Structuring argumentation in a social constructivist framework: A pedagogy with computer support