Developing argumentative skills in fourth grade: a case study

Abstract

To live as a society, is really important to have in mind different skills as: formulate, to reason, to argue, and to demonstrate different points of view so we can develop our thoughts critically, so this will let us face all the challenges in our daily living. The aim of this investigation is to enhance all these argumentative skills of the students that are on their last year of their first cycle of basic education. To achieve this, argumentation will be taken as a tool of the own speech, which purpose will change depending on the context in which the individuals are place at that moment, combining two types of arguments, one that is rational and the others that are persuasive. This investigation is based in a particular subsidized school in Independencia which is placed in the north part of Santiago. Specifically in a 4th grade that has 32 female students with an average of 9 years old, who demonstrate to have lower argumentative skills in oral and written ways. This article was executed through a sociocritic paradigm which intended to create a change that leads emancipation of the difficulties. All this was based on a study of case where they made interventions that promoted this skills. The instrument to measure this argumentative skill of the students consisted an oral test that was made before and after the interventions. This was evaluated through an analytic rubric which measure both types of arguments.