Professional Book Overview

The professional book that I read for this class was Teaching Arguments by Jennifer Fletcher. This was a great book for not only teaching me argumentative writing (since my background is not in writing) but also giving great ideas for how to teach the content to students.

I thought the author was both realistic about schools and what students can accomplish and an overwhelming sense of optimism about student potential. She explained complex rhetorical ideas in ways that students can easily understand.

The last chapter was easily my favorite, and could have been a book of its own. The chapter, titled "Aristotle's Guide to Becoming a Good Student" took a hard turn from the strategies and methods discussed in the former chapters, and jumped into the motivations and struggles of students as writers and life-long learners. After the author spent 6 chapters explaining argumentative writing and how to teach it, she then discusses how getting struggling students into "academic flow" is critical for improving students' writing. It focused on students' self-perception and confidence, as well as general teaching techniques such as modeling, mentoring, and imitation.

My favorite aspect that was apparent throughout the entirety of the book was the personal experience the author included. She used her years of teaching and researching to not only keep the book readable and personable, but demonstrate the methods as realistic and attainable.

This book would be invaluable to language arts teachers, and--at the very least, chapter seven--could be beneficial to teachers in any subject area. Not being a reading or writing major, I personally enjoyed reading it more than I thought I would. There was plenty that I saw could be applicable in a mathematics class, or any other subject area for that matter. I am quite happy to add this book to my small but slowly growing personal collection of nonfiction books.