A. Students should be aware of the nonargumentative uses of language and be able to distinguish these from arguments. To this end, students should be able to . . .
1. identify when the purpose of a passage is simply to report or convey information about a subject;
a. distinguish a report of an argument from an argument;
2. distinguish an unsupported statement of belief or opinion from the conclusion of an argument;
3. distinguish conditional statements from arguments;
a. identify the antecedents and consequents of conditional statements;
4. identify when a passage is intended to simply illustrate or provide examples of a claim and distinguish these cases from attempts to support a conclusion in an argument;
5. distinguish explanations from arguments;
a. understand that explanations are attempts to show why some statement is true, where arguments are attempts to show that some statement is true;
b. identify the explanans and the explanadum of an explanation.
B. Students should also become familiar with and understand the importance of the Principle of Charity when coming to terms with the views of others. Students should lean to apply the following standards: