The Counterclaim & Rebuttal Arrive

Now that you have had the opportunity to write an argument regarding the teacher and employee of the year (remember, the deadline to turn in your essay is Friday), we will not focus on the elements of the argument that are not conducive to your previous essay: the counterclaim and the rebuttal.

The counterclaim is a second position for the given topic; it is logical, it has evidence, it is researchable, which means that you are not creating a straw man counterclaim.

The rebuttal is the reaffirmation of the original claim's position and how it is the stronger option in comparison the counterclaim. The rebuttal is not there to trash the counterclaim. When writing the rebuttal, you should include new evidence to help support your claim even more and leave your reader with a strong reminder of your argument's focus.

We practiced this on the board today by utilizing claim evidence (remember to group like evidence together so that you have plenty of examples for each paragraph), constructing warrants for 2 of the evidence groupings, exemplifying a counterclaim and choosing 3 examples of support, and writing a rebuttal statement that includes our last evidence grouping.

Pictures of first and third hour work...

After this practice of argumentation, we returned our gaze to Lucy. First, we discussed her sister Suellen's essay regarding the "hijacking" of grief by Ann Patchett. Then, we watched, or rather listened to, an interview of Lucy, which you may find here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpYgEYhAd1c&t=561s. Last, you worked in a group to brainstorm a list of claims regarding Lucy Grealy.

Back to solo time, you received your Lucy logs and the last essay assignment of the semester: the argument determining Who is the Real Lucy Grealy? If absent, you can stop by tomorrow for a hard copy, or you can e-mail and I will send you a digital one. As I am encouraging you to work ahead on this assignment, you are more than welcome to write the essay in advance of our Friday's class work day. The bare minimum required for Friday would be your claim, the list of your evidence, and the grouping of your evidence.