A Brief History of the Little Red Schoolhouse (LRS)

The Little Red Schoolhouse began at the University of Chicago in 1980, as a lecture series offered to the university community at large. The Schoolhouse is now the basis of a variety of university writing programs. In 1991 the Schoolhouse curriculum reshaped the academic and professional writing program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

LRS Basics

The Five Parts of Argument

Claims
• debatable (someone should be able to disagree with it)
• supportable (provable with reasons and evidence)

Reasoning
• explain why readers should believe the claim
• can be supported with evidence
• represent judgments that readers may not share with the writer

Evidence
• supports a reason
• represents facts or conclusions that most readers won’t question

Acknowledgment & Response
• refers to alternative claims, reasons, or evidence
• shows readers that their concerns have not been ignored
• accepts or rejects alternative claims, reasons, or evidence
• explains the complications or limits of the argument

Warrants
• articulate general principles which either connect reason to claim or else connect evidence to reason
• help readers understand the logic behind an argument
• rarely get written down in argumentative essays

Overview of Building an Argument

Academic and professional writing must make an argument. Teachers and colleagues expect you to make a claim that you believe, then explain why you believe it and why they should too. In order to be successful in these environments, you must be able to form rational arguments and explain them by giving others good reason to believe that your views deserve respect.

Arguments define academic and professional communities. For an exchange to be an argument, it has to meet two criteria. First, it must offer a claim and support it with at least one reason. Second, it must anticipate the audience’s needs and expectations. In order to make an argument, you must also believe the readers will accept your claim only if you give them good reason to do so.

By asking and answering the five questions below, you can create the substance of a sound written argument:

1. What are you claiming that I should do or believe?

2. Why do you think that? Why should I agree? What reasons can you offer to support your claim?

3. How do you know? On what facts do you base those reasons? What evidence do you have to back them up?

4. What’s your logic? What principle makes your reasons relevant to your claim? We’ll call that principle a warrant.

5. But have you considered the alternatives? What would you say to someone who said/ objected/ argued/ claimed something else? Do you acknowledge this alternative to your position, and how would you respond?

SAMPLE LRS EXERCISES

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