Anyone who has ever taught high school or middle school students knows that their creativity and excitement can be infectious. When I have a particularly creative group, I like to adjust some of my units to give them more opportunities to play. One way that I enjoy adding some "play" into my units is through acting. My students love creating silly stories and acting out their ideas. They enjoy playing other characters, getting creative with their ideas and scripts, and performing their well-developed ideas for their peers. When I have a group that seems particularly eager to get on their feet and do a little acting, I adapt my activities to give them more opportunities for these types of performances.
Sometimes, as teachers, we shy away from performance-based activities to reduce stress. However, despite the concerns and anxiety that some students have for performing in front of peers, I find that my students are wildly successful with acting presentations, so acting pieces and scripts prove to be excellent forms of assessment (summative or formative). The audience provides accountability that leads to more in-depth discussion and development of the scripts, more focused rehearsal, and I also find that my students are more likely to seek out feedback before presentations (yay!). These are all skills that I value, and I love that these activities inspire so much attention from them.
Performances can be easily implemented into a variety of lessons, and one lesson that I think "logically" appeals to the performer is my Logical Fallacies Script Assessment. The Logical Fallacy Script follows an in-depth unit where I introduce students to a myriad of different fallacies used in the media, by politicians, and in advertisements. My students love to learn about fallacies because they are used so regularly in their lives. Surprise, surprise, my teenagers also take great joy in pointing out the fallacies of others.
In the unit I teach, students learn about fallacies through a collection of videos and images I have curated and embedded into a PowerPoint, along with various examples. I also have a Logical Fallacies Notes Packet, where students can take organized notes on a graphic organizer as they learn about 12 of the most common fallacies. Once basic knowledge is established, we get to move on to the fun part, the script creation.
The Logical Fallacies Script assessment is easy to implement. It acts as a practical formative assessment because students apply the information they have learned in a real-life scenario. Now, just because it is real-life doesn't mean it has to be free of fun or ridiculousness. I always aim to give students the freedom to really play and have fun with this. In the assessment, students work with a partner to develop a traveling salesman pitch. The students get to decide what they are selling, and they use three logical fallacies to try to convince their customers to purchase the product. The partner responds by pointing out the fallacies and explains how the pitch is fallacious. This whole project can be completed on paper, but it can also be adapted for more class interaction. Below I outlined three new adaptations for my Logical Fallacies Script assessment that will increase class interactions and give students more opportunities to perform.
#1: Act the Script
One option for classes who like to perform is to present these pitches as acting pieces. The salespeople develop a character and give the pitches in character; their customers (the other students) write down the fallacies used on their papers, and the teacher calls on students to explain how the fallacies show up in the pitch. At that point, the other students can "grade" their answers. To differentiate for students who don't like to perform or have stage fright, this activity can be volunteer-only, and the teacher can pick and choose which students are called on to point out the fallacies. I always want to set my students up for success, so I like giving students this opportunity to play in a controlled, safe environment.
#2: The Circle of Salesmen
The class will create two circles, an inner ring and an outer ring, with both loops facing each other. The student from the inner circle will present to the "customer" in the outer circle who will identify the fallacies in the salesman’s pitch. After the salesman and customer interaction, the inner circle will move to the right two-three people, and they will present their pitch again to a new customer, who will try to identify the fallacies. The Circle of Salesmen activity is an excellent review game to get students up and moving. The pressure is also less because the students are only interacting with one other person at a time; moreover, they get the opportunity to practice identifying the fallacies, and they get immediate feedback from their peers to help with understanding.
#3 Fallacy Telephone
One student will write a pitch with a fallacy embedded; they will then "call" another student in the class, who will "answer" the call and listen to the pitch. They will turn down the salesman by identifying the fallacy in the pitch. (i.e. I don’t want what you’re selling, Sir, because you used an ad hominem to sell your doll-sized belt when you said I’d be stupid not to buy it.) Then, the customer becomes a salesman. They "call" another student in the class, and they develop a quick pitch that introduces a new fallacy. The new customer "answers" the call and turns the salesman down, before calling a customer of their own. This fallacy telephone game allows all of the students in the class to hear the fallacies being used and identified, and it enables them to play around with the fallacies in an engaging game. To modify this activity, the student can be in groups, and the customers can have a few moments to confer with their groups before responding to the pitch or making their sale.
The Logical Fallacies Script has so much potential to provide formative data no matter how you choose to use it. The Logical Fallacies Script assessment and materials along with my Guide to Logical Fallacies PowerPoint and the Logical Fallacies Notes Packet is available as a stand-alone unit or with other complementary persuasive units in my Rhetorical Analysis Bundle.
What method did you use to approach the Logical Fallacies Script? Do you have any fun ways to implement this assessment? Let me know in the comments! I would love to hear some of the awesome pitches your students developed!
