Student Learning Plan
English Education
Designer: Samuel Lee
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Teaching Date: 3/7/12
Topic: Ethical and Logical Fallacies of Argument
Grade Level:
11th
Time Frame:
90 minutes
Description of Students:
12 Advanced Placement Students: 12
European-American. No students have
IEPs or 504 Plans
Lesson Objectives:
 The students will demonstrate understanding of fallacies of emotional argument by
turning in their newspaper analysis assignments and discussing them.

The students will learn about fallacies of ethical and logical argument and demonstrate
their knowledge by analyzing several related videos which contain examples of these
fallacies.

The students will demonstrate knowledge by analyzing a transcript of a 2008 presidential
debate and writing an outline of each instance of a fallacy of ethical argument or
emotional argument.

VSOL 11.2: The student will analyze and evaluate informative and persuasive
presentations.
Assessment: Formative and Summative
Formative
 Whole-class discussion
Summative
 Newspaper Analysis outline
 Outline of Fallacies from the 2008 Presidential
Debate.
Resources:
 Everything’s an Argument Text

Commercials and political
advertisements from
http://www.youtube.com

Transcript of a 2008 Presidential
Debate taken from The New
York Times

Promethean Board
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Lesson Content:
 Everything’s an Argument text (Pages 523-529)

Fallacies of Ethical Argument

Fallacies of Emotional Argument

Media Studies
Instructional Strategies and Timing:
1. The teacher will begin the class by reviewing the previous day’s fallacies of argument:
“scare tactics,” “either-or,” “slippery slope,” “sentimental appeals,” and “bandwagon
appeals.” (5 Minutes)
2. The students will volunteer to share information from their papers which demonstrates
examples of fallacies, and the class will discuss and compare the students’ findings. (15
Minutes)
3. The teacher will lead the class in a discussion about ethical fallacies of argument from the
textbook, focusing on “appeals to false authority,” “dogmatism,” “ad hominem,” “hasty
generalization,” and “faulty causality.” Students will watch examples of each argument
from YouTube.com and discuss the elements of each example. (40 Minutes)
4. The students will be given a copy of a partial transcript from a televised presidential
debate from 2008, and each student will individually analyze the document and write up
an outline of fallacies that they come across in the text. (25 Minutes)
5. The teacher will give the students an assignment in which they are to write an organized,
two-page paper which incorporates each of the ten fallacies that they have looked at so
far.
Multi-disciplinary:
Adaptations:
No adaptations are necessary for this class. If they
were, students who are allowed typed class notes
 Media Studies
will receive notes on the class discussion.
Differentiation Strategies:
Students who wish to begin writing their essays in
class after organizing their thoughts should be
encouraged to do so.
Student Learning Plan
English Education
SOE Student Teaching Competencies:
7. Selects appropriate instructional strategies/activities aligned to instructional goals and
responsive to diverse student needs.
• Differentiates instructional strategies/activities for diverse student populations (e.g.
language proficiencies, special needs, gifted, cultural groups, gender)
• Identifies appropriate flexible grouping strategies based on instructional goals
• Identifies and selects activities/strategies that engage students
• Plans effective homework and extension activities that reinforce or enhance student
learning and the home-school collaboration
• Selects or creates appropriate assessment methods or tools that align with planned
objectives
• Applies knowledge of diverse ways of knowing and prior experiences to design
culturally responsive practices
12. Engages students actively in learning.
• Generates enthusiasm and/or appreciation for the lesson
• Helps students understand the relevance of the lesson to them
• Paces the lesson to maintain interest
• Uses learner-centered activities and assignments that give students multiple
opportunities to respond
• Uses strategies that reflect culturally responsive pedagogy 15
• Creates lessons within students’ instructional range (e.g., zone of proximal
development)
13. Uses a variety of effective teaching strategies.
• Helps students link new information with prior knowledge
• Uses cues and advanced organizers
• Uses questioning strategies effectively
• Helps students generate and test hypotheses
• Uses cooperative learning strategies effectively
• Includes nonlinguistic representations
• Uses technology appropriately to facilitate learning
• Uses strategies that reflect culturally responsive pedagogy
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