The Art of Argument was designed to teach the argumentative adolescent how to reason with clarity, relevance and purpose at a time when he has a penchant for the "why" and "how". It is designed to equip and sharpen young minds as they live, play, and grow in this highly commercial culture. This course teaches students to recognize and identify twenty-eight informal fallacies, and the eye-catching text includes over sixty slick and clever, “phony advertisements” for items from blue jeans to pick-up trucks, which apply the fallacies to a myriad of real life situations.
Targeted towards the Junior high aged student, I also found that The Art of Argument, from Classical Academic Press, works with High school students as well. My 17 year old son, Pheonix has always loved taking these type of classes at our co-op. After eights years at our homeschool co-op we decided to take a year or more off. I knew one of the things my kids would miss would be the classes and subjects that mom doesn't usually teach at home, like The Art of Argument. This is where reviewing for TOS has been such a blessing to our family.
The book is divided into three units, six chapters, and twenty-eight fallacies. Unit one is about relevance, unit two is about presumption, and unit three is about clarity. At the start of each unit there is a page of definitions and fallacies. There is a glossary at the end of the book that can help your student if he comes across a word that is difficult. It was helpful that my kids love and take Latin lessons weekly because throughout the book there are many Latin terms used and explained. Example - It's explained in the first unit what the Latin mind would think with the phrase "fight fair". Explaining that an argument was not necessarily an emotional disagreement, rather it was an attempt to reveal what was true on the basis of evidence and reason.
I love that is goes over using integrity rather than trickery when making recommendations to others about what to do or what you believe. Arguing like a gentleman or lady is "fighting fair" and learning to be like a philosopher. It's the right thing to do.
The dialogues in the book are a great way for my kids to act out a situation and "argue" their thoughts. There are ads in the book and my kids and I even thought up some of our own to discuss.
Things we like about The Art of Argument -
~ A play they read in the book called - Bill and Ted's Excellent Election.
~ A place to draw you own ad with your favorite fallacy.
~ The Latin terms
~ Reviewing exercises (ok I liked this part more then my kids did)
~ Snob appeal aka emotional appeal (my girls related to this section)
~ The teacher's edition that goes with the student book (again, more me)
This is a great book to be used with a group setting like a homeschool co-op.
The DVD is a nice addition to the program, but not necessary. The teacher does a good job of leading discussions about the fallacy and that abled us to talk about the discussion and elaborate on things the students and teacher brought up.
You can purchase the student edition for Art of Argument for $21.95. The teachers edition is $24.95, and the DVD set is $54.95 . You can also buy the bundle which includes the student edition, teachers edition and DVD for $88.95.
Classical Academic Press also offers 2 additional logic books to help students study logic: The Discovery of Deduction: An Introduction to Formal Logic and The Argument Builder.
To read other TOS Crew reviews of this product click here.
I received The Art of Argument bundle in exchange for my thoughts and honest review.
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