PACES and Analysis Practice

PACES and Analysis Practice

Sample argument: Students should not have homework. Homework is hurting our kids and stifling their growth. As shown in Sara Bennet and Nancy Kalish’s “The Case Against Homework: How Homework Is Hurting Our Children and What We Can Do About It,” homework “robs children of the sleep, play, and exercise time they need” (para. 5). Do we really want our children to be emotionally and physically stunted because they spent all of their nights completing pointless busy work when they could be out in the world learning and thriving?

What are the PACES to this argument?

· Project _______________________________

· Argument _____________________________

· Claims _______________________________

· _____________________________________

· _____________________________________

· Evidence _____________________________

· _____________________________________

· _____________________________________

· Rhetorical Strategies ____________________

· _____________________________________

· _____________________________________

Is the argument rhetorically effective? These four questions can begin that conversation:

· Do the Claims and Evidence logically support (or lead to) the Argument? How and why? If the reader believes the claims and evidence, would he or she then have to believe the argument?

· Does the author lose the reader’s trust at any point? Why or why not? Does the author keep the reader’s trust? Why or why not? What would the reader feel because of this lost or gained trust?

· What emotion is the author trying to make the reader feel? Does the author make you feel the emotion he or she is trying to convey? Why or why not? How does this effective or ineffective appeal to emotion make the reader more or less likely to listen to the argument?

· Is there a counterargument? If so, how well is it argued? If not, how bad for the argument is the fact that it is missing a counter argument?

These questions can be answered on the back of the page. When all of the questions have been answered, write a one-paragraph analysis of one aspect (either a Claim, Evidence, or Rhetorical Strategy) of the argument. First state your own claim (that the Claim, Evidence, or Rhetorical Strategy either supports the argument or makes it worse), then add your quote. Then, argue why your chosen aspect makes the total argument either effective or ineffective. Finally, in one sentence, summarize what you have said in the rest of the paragraph, making sure to emphasize what you said in the first sentence.