Reviving a Medieval Structure to Scaffold or Substitute Argumentative Essay Writing

The argumentative essay is a common form of assessment in higher education. Yet, most students start university lacking properly honed skills in argument development. The adaptable learning strategy we present works as a scaffolding activity for developing argumentative skills. It can function as a pre-writing methodology for an essay or as an assessment alternative. The strategy aims to help students understand the underlying dialectical logic of strong arguments through the medieval literary form of the quaestio. We provide systematized instructions, implementation strategies, and assessment rubrics for this assignment.