Art of Argument Group Ideas?

[Megan Preedy 2]

Hi! I'm teaching a class using the Art of Argument this year. I'd love to hear of any projects or group activities you have done to make the study more group-friendly and fun!

Thanks!
 

[Chris Perrin 15]

One project I have done--have the students create their own "fake commercial fallacies" that show forth an embedded fallacy (or fallacies). Then each group (of say two or three--but it could be even one student) presents a skit of a fake commercial that they have created. The rest of the students then try to detect the fallacy represented. A shorter version of the same exercise would have students simply write out various "commercial fallacies" and read them before the class. A more elaborate version would have the students record their fallacies (commercial style) and present them to the class.

[Chris Perrin 15]

Another activity: download the texts of various political speeches (they are often posted on government sites) and have the students highlight and identify any fallacies they find--and there will be a lot! During the election cycles you can find many of these. 

[Austin 0]

I have had students design posters of various fallacies over the course of the year so that we can display and be reminded of them. Students are encouraged to bring in magazine/advertisement clippings as examples. Students seem to love creating fallacies any way they can, so it can be quite easy to review with them. 

[3scholarz 1]

These are great ideas, thank you.

[Cheryl Floyd 20]

They could use social media - if they already have accounts - and find either posts or memes that exemplify fallacies. 

They could also get a magazine like Time and see if any of the articles have fallacies. Then they could see if they could figure out how to make the point without the fallacy - sort of reverse engineer it?