House Assignment

1. House Assignment

2. What you will need • A blank piece of paper • A writing instrument • Some coloring tools • A good attitude • The ability to generalize • An understanding of claim, warrant, and evidence • The ability to follow instructions

3. What you will be able to do • Define analysis, claim, evidence, and warrant • Explain why warrants are important to an argument • Begin with evidence to generalize a claim

4. Academic Vocabulary Definitions Claim– An arguable statement on a topic. This is the opinion that you are offering. Evidence– Proof offered to support your claim. Examples, facts, observations, data, statistics, and quotations are all forms of evidence. Warrant– This shows how your evidence is related to your claim. Data Set– A collection of information. Some parts of this will become evidence. Generalization– The act of taking facts and making a broader statement. If all the trees you know have trunks, you might assume that all trees have trunks. Analysis– The method of studying something by looking at its parts and their relation to each other. Crudly, it is the act of breaking something down to understand it better.

5. Where to start • Acquire a blank piece of paper– do not write your name on this • On one side, draw a picture of your home. I am intentionally leaving this vague to see what you will draw. • Do not show what you are drawing to the other students in the class. I expect that you will create something of quality.

6. Next • Place your drawing face down on the table at the front of the room. • Wait for further instruction.

7. Now, You should have someone else’s paper with that person’s image. You are going to make a generalization about that person based on the drawing of their house. We are going to do what Sherlock does. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bCS4icTrH0

8. Generalizing This house is what we call data. Which means it is information that we can use for many purposes. For this assignment, we are going to try to make a claim about the person who drew the picture. Remember that a claim is an arguable statement. We are going to analyze the image for any evidence that might help us come up with an interesting claim– remember in argumentation evidence should come before the claim. When we are doing this be respectful of the person who drew the picture.

9. Let’s try this together Imagine that this is the picture sitting in front of you. Let’s list some things that jump out at us.

10. Let’s try this together Once we have evidence we can start to generalize. What does the evidence say about this person? Sometimes you can determine what a person values by what they have chosen to include. Remember that when you make a claim you have to support it with evidence and often a warrant.

11. Let’s try again List things you notice. You will probably notice them because these things are unusual. What could we say about this person?

12. Let’s try again Look at the example statement. Is it good? Does it have a claim, evidence, and a warrant? This individual is a creative individual. While most of the students in the class drew pictures of the exterior of their houses, like most people would expect, this person drew a floor plan. It takes creativity to problem solve like this.

13. Let’s try again Look at the example statement. Is it good? Does it have a claim, evidence, and a warrant? The artist is a person who values structure. Not only has this person drawn an outline of their home with straight lines and mechanical details, but they have chosen to label the parts of their home. In addition, the lines are fairly straight and clean.

14. Here is an example of why a warrant is important One can tell that this person values their privacy because they have a fence. One can tell that this person values their yard because they have a fence. Often you cage in a possession that you want to control and keep safe. The fence functions in many ways like a cage. The fence is featured in the drawing; it is at the foreground, and it is carefully detailed. In addition, little is shown of the house. The artist has given us a few details, but the house is obscured by a locked gate. That suggests that the person is not open. The evidence suggests that this person values their privacy.

15. Analysis • Remember that you start with evidence. On the back page of the drawing, at the top list things that you notice. Again, what stands out? • Next, look at the evidence. Are there things that can be combined to support a strong claim? • Write the claim. • Support with evidence. • Apply warrants. Remember, the only wrong answer is the answer that is not supported with strong evidence. I expect that your work will be neat and complete.