Today my students sat their English Literature GCSE exam. Our in-class focus on understanding reasons, variables and our insistence on continually planning different responses meant more confident students. Whilst we fed them the usual diet of understanding academic phrases and literary artefacts, their fundamental understanding of our the texts (their A01) was refreshingly empowering. As Daisy Christodoulou has researched repeatedly, understanding specific content allows students to develop generic and transferable analytical skills.
My current focus sees me working hard on developing our Sixth Form Literature curriculum with the help of experienced and able colleagues. My current focus is improving how we teach the NEA (the coursework). Greater understanding of how a build an argument for myself will make for better teaching of argumentation to students.
It is with that aim that today I read a raft of academic essay books. By far the best one was Turabian’s Manual for Writers of Research. The most useful chapter so far outlined the methods for developing an academic argument in terms that seemed doable. It essentially defined an academic argument as consisting of:
Claims
Reasons
Evidence
Warrants
Let’s examine these a little further:
Claim
That students need a thesis sentence, in the form of a claim, to establish an argument is reasonably intuitive. The more specific (i.e the narrower) the claim, the more effective it is. If we are to take a literary argument in response to the statement: ”In literature, social class is arguably the most significant factor between lovers”, then one specific claim (as stated by one of my students before a recent exam) could be: ”Literature presents social class as creating a mindset in lovers that affects all they do”. I also term, uniquely in my way (sorry!), claims as ‘variables’ inasmuch that generic themes and claims in literature can be repurposed into different essays. One such literary variable is conflict between the generations. This is a key variable that can form a claim in many essays on An Inspector Calls: Priestley foregrounds the tension between the devout capitalists Mr and Mrs Birling and their more inquiring children, Eric and Sheila. However, this variable is also useful in essays on, say, Romeo and Juliet: the differing treatment of parents to Romeo and Juliet demonstrate how a patriarchy does not always hold dubious male behaviour to account.
Reasons
Reasons are really the understated glue in a literary essay. In the PEE(EEEE x10 + L) paragraph level formula, evidence is provided immediately after a claim (the point). So taking a question such as ”How does Priestley present social class in An Inspector Calls?”, one claim might be: ”Priestley uses Birling to present how the British upper-class in 1912 seem to have embraced capitalist ethics.” The evidence could then immediately be to weave: ”One of his rambling speeches that opens the play builds towards a self-congratulatory gusto as he calls for ”higher prices and lower costs!”. (sic).
Far better, or at least more academic, is to develop some reasons:
”Priestley uses Birling to present how the British upper-class seem to have embraced capitalist ethics. His language is of money and greed.”
Note how you could introduce the conjunctive ”because” between these two sentences to certify that this is a reason. More reasons could be introduced to make the conceptual jump between ideas clearer. So:
”Priestley uses Birling to present how the British upper-class seem to have embraced capitalist ethics. Rather than celebrating the marriage of his daughter with sentiment and love, his language is instead of money and greed.”
In this case, you can appreciate the bridge between claiming:
a) That Birling represents a kind of prototype neoliberalist ideology +
b) the language he uses
by outlining the expectation that an engagement party should employ the more human discourse of love and sentiment. This is the reason, or detail, that connects the argument more precisely.
Evidence
Evidence in an academic essay, and especially a literary essay, is key. So many student literary essays are written on the basis of language analysis. You could effectively teach students to simply select a quotation, and then to analyse the dislocated connotations of that quotation. No claim really needs to be made. Students can certainly achieve mediocre passes with this method.
Evidence in the case of an academic argument, or at least a literary essay, should therefore be:
a) Ideally the best choice of evidence to demonstrate the validity of the claim/reason.
b) Ideally from a sufficient range of the text to demonstrate the significance of the claim/reason.
Following the case above:
”Priestley uses Birling to present how the British upper-class seem to have embraced capitalist ethics. Rather than celebrating the marriage of his daughter with sentiment and love, his language is instead of money and greed. One of his rambling speeches that opens the play builds towards a self-congratulatory gusto as he calls for ”higher prices and lower costs!” (could analyse here some stagecraft and audience interaction as the other characters implicitly cheer together in contrast to the solo speech of Birling). His capitalist ethics remain to the end of the play as he responds to the Inspector’s legal threats that he will ”give anything” in order to escape the consequences of his actions towards Eva Smith, the sole representative of the working class in the play. (could analyse here how he is a consequentialist and that as soon as he thinks he has escaped judgement, he has no desire to drop his capitalist creed and welcome sympathy for the working classes into his moral framework.)
Usually, stating a claim, offering reasons for detail and bridging points, and then giving evidence is given the best faith in an academic argument. Evidence is powerful. However, a key point needs to be made: does Birling using language relating to money mean that he has capitalist ethics? Does he not refer to love elsewhere in the play? Does he not need to impress Gerald with such language? Maybe in a different scene he behaves differently? And why should an Edwardian father use the language of sentiment and love in an engagement party? Should not the British be reserved in such things? This leads us to the need to use warrants in our arguments.
Warrants
Warrant essentially provide the ”so what?” of our academic arguments and are often missed out. Indeed, in the very many books on academic writing I have read, only the Chicago Manual of style defines and specifies the importance of warrants (buy it!).
So a warrant tests the relevance of a reason to a claim: it is the bridge between them. A warrant can usually present a general condition that can then lead to a general consequence. The reason then becomes the specific condition of the warrant while the claim then is the specific consequence of the warrant.
Let us take the social class statement above and relate it to Ian McEwan’s Atonement:
”In literature, social class is arguably the most significant factor between lovers”,
”Literature presents social class as creating a mindset in lovers that affects all they do. Such a mindset is often restrictive to the point of being crippling and is rarely overcome. It is therefore significant that Robbie and Cecilia are able to indirectly confront their class differences through their conflicted misunderstanding in the fountain scene. Robbie’s subsequent rationalisation of their new love is a powerful message that authentic love depends on opposing the mindset that class differences might cause in lovers.”
While this is a wordy example, and isn’t really operating directly, let’s see how it tries to work…
”Literature presents social class as creating a mindset in lovers that affects all they do [claim]. Such a mindset is often restrictive to the point of being crippling and is rarely overcome [reason]. It is therefore significant that Robbie and Cecilia are able to indirectly confront their class differences through their conflicted misunderstanding in the fountain scene. [warrant, specific condition of the reason opposing it]. Robbie’s subsequent rationalisation of their new and romantic love is a powerful message that authentic love depends on opposing the mindset that class differences might cause in lovers. [new claim, specific consequence of the warrant opposing it].”
Let’s break this down a little more:
”Literature presents social class as creating a mindset in lovers that affects all they do [claim]. So regardless of the truth of this claim, it is a claim that makes sense and offers an argument. It is also sufficiently narrow and specific.
Such a mindset is often restrictive to the point of being crippling and is rarely overcome [reason]. The question of ”how does a mindset affect all they do?” is somewhat addressed here inasmuch as such a mindset (not yet defined) is framed as ”rarely overcome”.
It is therefore significant that Robbie and Cecilia are able to indirectly confront their class differences through their conflicted misunderstanding in the fountain scene. [warrant, specific condition of the reason opposing it]. This is the presence of the warrant: taking the wider claim and its reason and making it specific to the text. In this case, we are looking at how Atonement opposes the notion that lovers cannot overcome class. In the AS level essay for this question, we could then analyse how Gatsby and Daisy are unable to overcome their perceived class differences.
Robbie’s subsequent rationalisation of their new and romantic love is a powerful message that authentic love depends on opposing the mindset that class differences might cause in lovers. [new claim, specific consequence of the warrant opposing it].” The warrant here is extended to redefine the claim ”social class creates a mindset in lovers that affects all they do” to ”the authentic love presented in Atonement overcomes the crippling mindset created by social class differences”. This restatement of the claim specifically in regards to the text is key for an academic argument.
Note that in a literary essay, at least at A-Level, we do not need to give a balanced argument: making claims and backing up those claims with specific warrants and good choices of evidence is enough to achieve the highest grades.
