Critical Questions and Argument Stratagems: A Framework for Enhancing and Analyzing Students' Reasoning Practices

This article explores the concepts of critical questions (from D. N. Walton, 1996 Walton, D. N. 1996. Argument schemes for presumptive reasoning, Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Google Scholar) and integrative and refutational argument stratagems as an approach for teaching argumentation and critical thinking. A study was conducted for 6 months in 3 sections of a 7th-grade social studies classroom in which 30 students discussed and wrote about current events. One section served as a comparison group. Over time the experimental group made more arguments that integrated both sides of each issue. Collectively, the experimental group also successfully constructed salient critical questions, particularly in regard to weighing values and designing practical creative solutions. In-depth analysis of 1 student showed how conceptual structures and argument practices improved incrementally over time and how the appropriation of stratagems may have been facilitated by the dialectical nature of the intervention (e.g., using critical questions and stratagems successfully in discourse). The theoretical and practical importance of Walton's dialogue theory, and the critical question approach to argumentation, are discussed.