CCRA.SL.3: Evaluating a Speaker's Point of View, Reasoning, Evidence and Rhetoric

Overview

Lesson Procedure

55-60 minutes of class time across 5 phases.

1. Warm-Up5 minutes
2. Direct Instruction15 minutes
3. Guided Practice15 minutes
4. Independent Practice15-20 minutes
5. Closure5 minutes

1. Warm-Up5 minutes

   Warm-Up Prompt

   "A speaker at a school assembly says: 'Every student who joined the chess club last year raised their math grade. Join the chess club, and your math grade will go up too!' Before you believe this, what would you want to know? Write two questions."

   Take questions. Strong ones ask how many students joined, whether the speaker has the grades or only heard about them, whether students who join chess club were already working harder, and whether the speaker runs the club. Each question tests a different part of the speech: the evidence (how many, and is it accurate?), the reasoning (did chess cause the change?), the point of view (what does the speaker want?) and the rhetoric ("Every student" and the exclamation mark). Those four are CCRA.SL.3.

2. Direct Instruction15 minutes

   Terms for the whole period.

   • Point of view: where a speaker stands on the topic, and what shapes that stance (experience, job, audience, purpose).
   • Claim: a statement the speaker wants the audience to accept. The main claim is the one the others support.
   • Reasoning: the links that connect reasons and evidence to a claim. Reasoning is sound when the claim really follows. A fallacy is a common pattern of faulty reasoning, such as a hasty generalization (a broad rule from one or two cases) or circular reasoning (a claim supported only by itself restated).
   • Evidence: facts, statistics, examples, stories and testimony offered as support. Evidence should be relevant (about the claim), sufficient (enough of it) and accurately presented, not exaggerated or distorted.
   • Rhetoric: the speaker's use of language to persuade: word choice, emphasis, tone, humor, repetition, direct address and questions to the audience.

   How the anchor grows. The table paraphrases what each grade-level standard adds.

   Progression of CCRA.SL.3 in grades 6-12

   Grade-level standard	Band	What this band adds
   SL.6.3	Grade 6	Delineate (trace and lay out) a speaker's argument and specific claims, telling claims supported by reasons and evidence from claims that are not
   SL.7.3	Grade 7	Evaluate the soundness of the reasoning and the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence
   SL.8.3	Grade 8	The grade 7 work, plus noticing when irrelevant evidence is brought in
   SL.9-10.3	Grades 9-10	Evaluate point of view, reasoning, evidence and rhetoric, identifying fallacious reasoning and exaggerated or distorted evidence
   SL.11-12.3	Grades 11-12	Evaluate the same four elements by assessing the stance, premises, links among ideas, word choice, points of emphasis and tone

   The speaker. Russell H. Conwell was a Philadelphia minister and the founder of Temple University. For decades he gave the same lecture, "Acres of Diamonds," in towns and cities across the country. Its title comes from a story about a farmer who sold his land to search for diamonds, when diamonds lay under his own farm. In a note printed before the lecture, Conwell sums up its message: "The idea is that in this country of ours every man has the opportunity to make more of himself than he does in his own environment, with his own skill, with his own energy, and with his own friends." The 1915 printing records the lecture as he gave it in Philadelphia, so "here in Philadelphia" means the listeners' own city. In the excerpt below, from the middle of the lecture, he answers listeners who think a person needs money to start a business. Paragraphs are numbered 1-2.

   1But you will say, “You cannot do anything of the kind. You cannot start without capital.” Young man, let me illustrate for a moment. I must do it. It is my duty to every young man and woman, because we are all going into business very soon on the same plan. Young man, remember if you know what people need you have gotten more knowledge of a fortune than any amount of capital can give you.

   2There was a poor man out of work living in Hingham, Massachusetts. He lounged around the house until one day his wife told him to get out and work, and, as he lived in Massachusetts, he obeyed his wife. He went out and sat down on the shore of the bay, and whittled a soaked shingle into a wooden chain. His children that evening quarreled over it, and he whittled a second one to keep peace. While he was whittling the second one a neighbor came in and said: “Why don’t you whittle toys and sell them? You could make money at that.” “Oh,” he said, “I would not know what to make.” “Why don’t you ask your own children right here in your own house what to make?” “What is the use of trying that?” said the carpenter. “My children are different from other people’s children.” (I used to see people like that when I taught school.) But he acted upon the hint, and the next morning when Mary came down the stairway, he asked, “What do you want for a toy?” She began to tell him she would like a doll’s bed, a doll’s washstand, a doll’s carriage, a little doll’s umbrella, and went on with a list of things that would take him a lifetime to supply. So, consulting his own children, in his own house, he took the firewood, for he had no money to buy lumber, and whittled those strong, unpainted Hingham toys that were for so many years known all over the world. That man began to make those toys for his own children, and then made copies and sold them through the boot-and-shoe store next door. He began to make a little money, and then a little more, and Mr. Lawson, in his Frenzied Finance says that man is the richest man in old Massachusetts, and I think it is the truth. And that man is worth a hundred millions of dollars to-day, and has been only thirty-four years making it on that one principle--that one must judge that what his own children like at home other people’s children would like in their homes, too; to judge the human heart by oneself, by one’s wife or by one’s children. It is the royal road to success in manufacturing. “Oh,” but you say, “didn’t he have any capital?” Yes, a penknife, but I don’t know that he had paid for that.

   • Point of view: what the speaker wants

     Read Conwell's own summary of the lecture, quoted above the excerpt. What is his stance, and how does it shape the story he chooses to tell?

     Result: His stance is that ordinary people can "make more" of themselves where they already live. So he picks a story that starts with a man who is poor and "out of work" and ends with great wealth, made at home with no outside money. A speaker who wants to inspire chooses the most dramatic success story, not a typical one. A careful listener asks what the other toy-makers of Hingham earned.

   • Reasoning: from one story to a rule

     Near the end of paragraph 2, Conwell calls the man's method "the royal road to success in manufacturing." Does one story support a rule for everyone?

     Result: No. This is a hasty generalization: one success, told by the speaker, becomes a rule for every manufacturer. The story shows that the method worked once (if the details are accurate). It cannot show how often it works, or how many people tried it and failed.

   • Evidence: a named source, at second hand

     Conwell says, "Mr. Lawson, in his Frenzied Finance says that man is the richest man in old Massachusetts, and I think it is the truth." What kind of evidence is this, and how strong is it?

     Result: It is testimony from a named book, which is more checkable than a rumor. But it reaches the audience at second hand, Conwell adds only his own belief ("I think it is the truth"), and he never names the toy-maker, so a listener could not look the man up. Naming a source is a start; it is not the same as showing the facts.

   • Rhetoric: answering an imagined listener (grades 9-12)

     Paragraph 2 ends: "'Oh,' but you say, 'didn't he have any capital?' Yes, a penknife, but I don't know that he had paid for that." What does the joke do?

     Result: Conwell voices a listener's objection and answers it with a laugh. The joke is effective with a live audience, because people who laugh are less likely to keep objecting. It also lets the speaker skip the real question: whether most people can start a business with nothing. Humor can carry an audience past a weak point.

3. Guided Practice15 minutes

   A harder excerpt. Later in the lecture, Conwell states his central claim directly. Pairs read the excerpt below; paragraphs are numbered 1-4. One cut in paragraph 2, a few short sentences, is marked [...]: there Conwell quotes "pious brethren" who ask why he, a Christian minister, urges young people to get money, and answers that "to make money honestly is to preach the gospel." That moral reason is part of his support for the duty to get rich. Grades 6-8 pairs complete a claim chart (claim, support given, supported or not); grades 9-12 pairs add a column for reasoning and rhetoric. Work through paragraph 1 together.

   1Now then, I say again that the opportunity to get rich, to attain unto great wealth, is here in Philadelphia now, within the reach of almost every man and woman who hears me speak to-night, and I mean just what I say. I have not come to this platform even under these circumstances to recite something to you. I have come to tell you what in God’s sight I believe to be the truth, and if the years of life have been of any value to me in the attainment of common sense, I know I am right; that the men and women sitting here, who found it difficult perhaps to buy a ticket to this lecture or gathering to-night, have within their reach “acres of diamonds,” opportunities to get largely wealthy. There never was a place on earth more adapted than the city of Philadelphia to-day, and never in the history of the world did a poor man without capital have such an opportunity to get rich quickly and honestly as he has now in our city. I say it is the truth, and I want you to accept it as such; for if you think I have come to simply recite something, then I would better not be here. I have no time to waste in any such talk, but to say the things I believe, and unless some of you get richer for what I am saying to-night my time is wasted.

   2I say that you ought to get rich, and it is your duty to get rich. [...] The men who get rich may be the most honest men you find in the community.

   3“Oh,” but says some young man here to-night, “I have been told all my life that if a person has money he is very dishonest and dishonorable and mean and contemptible.” My friend, that is the reason why you have none, because you have that idea of people. The foundation of your faith is altogether false. Let me say here clearly, and say it briefly, though subject to discussion which I have not time for here, ninety-eight out of one hundred of the rich men of America are honest. That is why they are rich. That is why they are trusted with money. That is why they carry on great enterprises and find plenty of people to work with them. It is because they are honest men.

   4Says another young man, “I hear sometimes of men that get millions of dollars dishonestly.” Yes, of course you do, and so do I. But they are so rare a thing in fact that the newspapers talk about them all the time as a matter of news until you get the idea that all the other rich men got rich dishonestly.

   1. Find the main claim. Ask: "Which sentence in paragraph 1 states what Conwell wants this audience to believe?" Teacher note: the opening sentence, that "the opportunity to get rich, to attain unto great wealth, is here in Philadelphia now, within the reach of almost every man and woman who hears me speak to-night."
   2. Notice the limits. Ask: "Which word in that sentence limits the claim, and why does it matter?" Teacher note: "almost." It protects the speaker from a single counterexample, and a listener should notice that the rest of the paragraph drops it: by the end, he hopes "some of you get richer for what I am saying."
   3. Hear the echo. Ask: "Where does the lecture's title come back in paragraph 1, and why repeat it?" Teacher note: he says his listeners "have within their reach 'acres of diamonds.'" Repeating the title ties this claim to the story the audience heard at the start, so the story seems to prove the claim.
   4. Hold paragraphs 2-4 for the quiz. Pairs finish their charts for paragraphs 2-4 on their own; the quiz asks about them.
4. Independent Practice15-20 minutes

   Write an evaluation. Using their claim charts, students write a paragraph evaluating the second excerpt. Grades 6-8: name the main claim, one claim that is supported by a reason and one that is not supported, and say whether the evidence is enough. Grades 9-12: evaluate all four elements (point of view, reasoning, evidence and rhetoric), name one fallacy or one exaggerated or distorted piece of evidence, and comment on Conwell's tone. Every judgment cites a paragraph number and quotes the words it is about.

   Remind students that the grade is for the evaluation, not for agreeing or disagreeing with Conwell. Pairs then trade paragraphs and check one thing: does each judgment point to specific words?

5. Closure5 minutes

   Exit ticket: Write one question you would ask Conwell after the lecture that would test his evidence, and one that would test his reasoning. Label each.

   Teacher notes on the 1915 text. The excerpts are quoted word for word, including Conwell's punctuation ("to-night" and the double hyphen). They contain jokes and assumptions about men and women that were common in 1915: in the first excerpt, the joke that the jobless man "obeyed his wife," and in the homework excerpt, remarks such as "Men always do that." Discuss them as part of Conwell's rhetoric and his audience, not as facts. The homework excerpt also makes claims about famous inventions. Whatever students conclude about Conwell's support, standard histories credit Joseph Marie Jacquard with the loom that bears his name and Eli Whitney with the cotton gin, Elias Howe received the first U.S. patent for a lockstitch sewing machine in 1846, and Cyrus McCormick patented his reaper in 1834. Catharine Littlefield Greene, the widow of General Nathanael Greene, supported Whitney and hosted him at her Georgia plantation; some later accounts say she suggested part of the design, but no independent record confirms it. Conwell's phrase about the cotton gin, that it "enriched our country so amazingly," leaves out who paid for that wealth: the cotton boom it fueled rested on the forced labor of enslaved Black people, and slavery spread across the Deep South as cotton planting grew. The page evaluates the lecture's arguments and takes no side on its views about wealth.

   For homework: students read the third excerpt below, in which Conwell answers a newspaper's claim about women and invention. Paragraphs are numbered 1-3.

   1I have read in the newspaper that a woman never invented anything. Well, that newspaper ought to begin again. Of course, I do not refer to gossip--I refer to machines--and if I did I might better include the men. That newspaper could never appear if women had not invented something. Friends, think. Ye women, think! You say you cannot make a fortune because you are in some laundry, or running a sewing-machine, it may be, or walking before some loom, and yet you can be a millionaire if you will but follow this almost infallible direction.

   2When you say a woman doesn’t invent anything, I ask, Who invented the Jacquard loom that wove every stitch you wear? Mrs. Jacquard. The printer’s roller, the printing-press, were invented by farmers’ wives. Who invented the cotton-gin of the South that enriched our country so amazingly? Mrs. General Greene invented the cotton-gin and showed the idea to Mr. Whitney, and he, like a man, seized it. Who was it that invented the sewing-machine? If I would go to school to-morrow and ask your children they would say, “Elias Howe.”

   3He was in the Civil War with me, and often in my tent, and I often heard him say that he worked fourteen years to get up that sewing-machine. But his wife made up her mind one day that they would starve to death if there wasn’t something or other invented pretty soon, and so in two hours she invented the sewing-machine. Of course he took out the patent in his name. Men always do that. Who was it that invented the mower and the reaper? According to Mr. McCormick’s confidential communication, so recently published, it was a West Virginia woman, who, after his father and he had failed altogether in making a reaper and gave it up, took a lot of shears and nailed them together on the edge of a board, with one shaft of each pair loose, and then wired them so that when she pulled the wire one way it closed them, and when she pulled the wire the other way it opened them, and there she had the principle of the mowing-machine. If you look at a mowing-machine, you will see it is nothing but a lot of shears. If a woman can invent a mowing-machine, if a woman can invent a Jacquard loom, if a woman can invent a cotton-gin, if a woman can invent a trolley switch--as she did and made the trolleys possible; if a woman can invent, as Mr. Carnegie said, the great iron squeezers that laid the foundation of all the steel millions of the United States, “we men” can invent anything under the stars! I say that for the encouragement of the men.

Differentiation Strategies

Assessment Guidance

1. Question 1 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   What does it mean to evaluate a speaker's reasoning?

   ATo decide whether you personally agree with the conclusion BTo count how many facts and numbers the speaker uses CTo judge whether the reasons really lead to the conclusion DTo describe the speaker's voice, pace and hand gestures

2. Question 2 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Conwell first calls the man in the toy-maker story "a poor man out of work" and later "the carpenter." Why might this matter to a careful listener?

   AIt shows the man already had a trade and a skill with wood, which the story plays down BIt proves that the man was already wealthy before he made the first toy for his own children CIt shows that Conwell met the man and learned about his work from him in person DIt means the second half of the story takes place in a different town from the first

3. Question 3 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Conwell says the toy-maker "is worth a hundred millions of dollars to-day." What support does he give for that figure?

   AHe cites a record of the man's business that anyone in the audience could check BHe quotes the toy-maker himself, whom Conwell says he met and interviewed CHe says the boot-and-shoe store next door reported the man's yearly sales DNone for the figure itself; Lawson's book is cited only for "the richest man"

4. Question 4 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In paragraph 3 of the second excerpt, Conwell says rich men are honest and adds, "That is why they are rich." What is the problem with this reasoning?

   AIt is a quotation from a source that Conwell never names at all BIt assumes honesty causes wealth without showing that it does CIt contradicts what Conwell said earlier in paragraph 1 DIt is about rich men, while his audience was not rich

5. Question 5 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   What support does Conwell give for the statistic "ninety-eight out of one hundred of the rich men of America are honest"?

   ANone; he calls it "subject to discussion which I have not time for here" BA survey of rich men that was published in a Philadelphia newspaper CThe record of the courts, which he says rarely try a rich man DHis own list of all the rich men he has met during his many lecture tours

6. Question 6 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In paragraph 4, Conwell says dishonest fortunes are "so rare a thing in fact that the newspapers talk about them all the time as a matter of news." Which statement best evaluates this argument?

   AIt proves that dishonest fortunes are rare, since news reports only cover rare events BIt is irrelevant, because newspapers have nothing to do with how people become rich CIt is a fair point about news, but it does not show that dishonest fortunes are rare DIt is a personal attack on the young man who raised the question in the audience

7. Question 7 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In paragraph 1 of the second excerpt, Conwell says, "I have come to tell you what in God's sight I believe to be the truth" and "I know I am right." How do these statements try to persuade?

   ABy giving the audience new facts about the businesses of Philadelphia today BBy building trust in his sincerity and certainty instead of offering evidence CBy admitting that his claim has limits that his listeners should keep in mind DBy answering an objection that a listener in the hall has just raised

8. Question 8 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In paragraph 3, a young man says he has been told rich people are dishonest. Conwell answers, "My friend, that is the reason why you have none, because you have that idea of people." How does he treat the objection?

   AHe agrees with it and changes his own claim BHe answers it with a statistic from a named source CHe asks the young man for a real example that they can discuss DHe blames the objector's attitude instead of answering it

9. Question 9 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Why does Conwell keep quoting imagined young men in the audience ("'Oh,' but says some young man here to-night...")?

   ATo show the real questions his listeners asked during the lecture BTo raise objections he can answer, so his case seems to win CTo admit that his audience disagreed with most of his claims DTo introduce other speakers who will take the platform later

10. Question 10 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    In the toy-maker story, Conwell adds, "(I used to see people like that when I taught school.)" What kind of evidence is this?

    APersonal experience mentioned in passing, with no examples given BA statistic about pupils that comes from school records he kept CTestimony from a teacher Conwell names and quotes at length DAn expert's opinion drawn from a published book about teaching

11. Question 11 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    In the second excerpt, whose point of view does Conwell present only through imagined voices that he then answers?

    ARich men who say they earned their money honestly BWriters who report on great fortunes in the newspapers CListeners who distrust people who have made money DBusiness owners who are looking for new workers

12. Question 12 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Conwell describes "those strong, unpainted Hingham toys that were for so many years known all over the world." What do these words do?

    AThey give the exact number of toys that the man sold in each year BThey admit that the toys were not very good or very popular CThey quote what Mr. Lawson wrote about the toys in his book DThey make humble toys sound famous, though no support is given

13. Question 13 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Conwell claims that "never in the history of the world did a poor man without capital have such an opportunity to get rich quickly and honestly as he has now in our city." Which question would best test this claim?

    ADid the audience enjoy the lecture and buy tickets to hear it again? BHow many people without capital started businesses, and how many did well? CIs Conwell a skilled speaker who has given this lecture many times? DDoes Philadelphia have more factories than the other large cities in the state?

14. Question 14 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Which pair of words best describes Conwell's tone in paragraph 1 of the second excerpt?

    AUrgent and certain BDoubtful and hesitant CCalm and detached DBitter and mocking

15. Question 15 of 20 · Short Answer

    Delineate the argument of the second excerpt: state the main claim, then give two specific claims that support it, and for each one say what support Conwell offers (or that he offers none). Cite paragraph numbers.

    Show model answer

16. Question 16 of 20 · Short Answer

    In his opening, Conwell tells the audience that "there are 1,674 young men who have been carried through college by this lecture." How might this fact shape his point of view, and how should a listener weigh it? Use one sentence from the first two excerpts in your answer.

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17. Question 17 of 20 · Short Answer

    Grades 9-12: Choose two rhetorical techniques in the second excerpt, such as word choice, repetition, imagined objectors or statements of certainty. For each, quote an example and evaluate whether it strengthens the argument for a careful listener or carries the audience past a gap.

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18. Question 18 of 20 · Short Answer

    In paragraph 2 of the second excerpt, Conwell follows "it is your duty to get rich" with "The men who get rich may be the most honest men you find in the community." Is this sentence relevant and sufficient support for the duty claim? Explain both parts.

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19. Question 19 of 20 · Short Answer

    Grades 6-8: From the second excerpt, quote one claim that Conwell supports with a reason and one claim that he does not support at all. Explain the difference.

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20. Question 20 of 20 · Short Answer

    Grades 9-12: Write a four- to five-sentence evaluation of paragraphs 3 and 4 of the second excerpt (the two imagined young men and Conwell's answers) that addresses point of view, reasoning, evidence and rhetoric.

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These are the grade-level standards that carry anchor CCRA.SL.3 in grades 6-12, plus closely related anchors.

Standard text: Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy. © Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved.