A friend of mine clued me into a new program called Gitbook, which is sort of like a blog, but more of a private journal/documentation site. I signed up for one, but not sure if I am going to use it. It might be a great place to keep notes on the classes I’m currently teaching.

When there’s not a global pandemic, I document everything about my courses. I audio record each one, and I also keep a notebook, usually a diary where I can write down things that worked or didn’t work for each day’s course. When things start to get busy what I normally document is just the weekly feel of the course, what’s working and what’s not. Might use it for that.

Something I thought might be good in there are course descriptions, however once I had a look at one I was working on for the upcoming course flyer for the undergraduates, I thought of this blog first. I prefer public-facing sort of stuff I suppose, or maybe GitNotes is too new for me to imagine how it will work in with what I’m doing here and in other places. Maybe GitNotes is a journal for me, and this is my social media replacement site. I think that works best for the way I’m thinking about things (kind of tired of looking at social media to be honest).

Anyway, here’s my revised course description for Argumentation:

What does it mean to argue? Have you ever been in an argument? How did you know? How did you know when the argument was over? What makes an argument happen? Is argument good or bad? 

These are the sort of questions we address in Argumentation. The concept of argumentation, even after thousands of years of people arguing about it, remains open. Nobody is sure what an argument is, how it works, or what the function of it really should or can be. The conversation about argumentation is international, involving experts from philosophy, law, history, sociology, languages, and rhetoricians. The only thing missing is you.

In argumentation we will read and examine the opinions of scholars, thinkers, and practitioners of argumentation. We’ll determine if they have a good grasp on what argument is. Then, after discussing, writing, and speaking about these ideas, it will be our turn. At the end of the course you’ll be able to advance your own understanding of what a good argument is, how to know, or even if you think that there’s such a thing as a good argument at all out there. 

This class is for anyone interested in the role of argument in society, be it political, social, or personal. This is a class for people who love to read and share their thoughts on the questions of why people act they way they do and say what they say. Argumentation is a difficult concept to grasp, but easy to do when we find ourselves in one. Come add your perspective to one of the oldest questions out there: Are we having an argument?

First, it’s a bit too long. Secondly, it doesn’t really communicate exactly what we do in the class. I think perhaps I should talk more about conversation or oral assessment in the course, but I really just want people who are interested in thinking about the role and nature of argument.

Maybe next week I’ll post a revised one, or perhaps this is the kind of thing that should go into the GitNotes? I think I sort of prefer working it out with you, whoever you fine people are. Having an audience in mind is far superior than just journaling to me. I already know what I’m going to say. But you are kind of a mystery. Who knows what you are thinking.