TOK Essay = Argumentative Essay

The Theory of Knowledge Essay can seem like a slippery and intimidating task.  But in reality, once its terms and structure are clarified, it is not difficult to brainstorm, outline, and write a TOK Essay.   Let's look at the IBO's instructions, then define some terms and present suggestions for structure.  Lastly, we'll review the IBO assessment criteria.

IBO Instructions

These are the instructions for the TOK Essay:

Your theory of knowledge essay for examination must be submitted to your teacher for authentication. It must be written on one of the six titles (questions) provided below. You may choose any title, but are recommended to consult with your teacher. Your essay will be marked according to the assessment criteria published in the Theory of Knowledge guide. Remember to centre your essay on knowledge issues and, where appropriate, refer to other parts of your IB programme and to your experiences as a knower. Always justify your statements and provide relevant examples to illustrate your arguments. Pay attention to the implications of your arguments, and remember to consider what can be said against them. If you use external sources, cite them according to a recognized convention.
Note that statements in quotations in these titles are not necessarily authentic: they present a real point of view but may not have been spoken or written by an actual person. It is appropriate to analyse them but it is unnecessary, even unwise, to spend time on researching a context for them.
Examiners mark essays against the title as set. Respond to the title exactly as given; do not alter it in any way.
Your essay must be between 1200 and 1600 words in length.

Comment:  The instructions are clear in stipulating that the student must address one of the assigned titles and write a paper whose personal point of view is well-reasoned and justified with evidence and examples.  There should also be consideration of the implications of your position and what can be said against it.  All of these stipulations are characteristics of the argumentative essay.  Let's look at three basic terms, how they apply in the TOK context, and then proceed with an overview of the structure of an argumentative essay.

Basic Terms

There are three basic terms to understand: claim, issue, and argument.

1. A claim is a statement expressing an opinion or belief that is true or false:  Paris is the most beautiful city in the world.
2. An issue phrases the claim as a question to be examined:  Is Paris the most beautiful city in the world?
3. An argument will examine the issue taking into account evidence and counterarguments.
1. Is Paris is most beautiful city in the world?  I define beauty as.... and I think Paris is the most beautiful because....(evidence:  examples, statistics, personal experience)
2. On the other hand, one can argue that Paris has significant flaws...for example.......(evidence: examples, statistics, personal experience)   
3. Nonetheless, the municipal government is seeking to address these shortcomings and so....  

TOK Essay: Examines a Knowledge Issue

As the IBO instructions make clear, the TOK Essay is an argumentative essay examining a knowledge issue suggested by the six titles published by the IBO. A knowledge issue is a question about the nature of knowledge.   Some examples of knowledge issues:

1. Does one learn more about human behavior from literature or from psychology?
2. Does intuition have a role to play in making ethical decisions?
3. Can one speak of beauty in mathematics?
4. Does art have an ethical dimension?

What you must first do, then, is read the TOK titles, which will be published later in the year, and then brainstorm for knowledge issues and how you can treat one in a personal manner.  We will explore in class different ways of brainstorming, such as concept mapping.  Once you have reflected on the knowedge issue, referring to your TOK notes as necessary, you should write an outline of your paper.  This brings us to structure.

Basic Structure

Let's look at the basic structure of the argumentative essay.  The argumentative essay will present an issue, select a thesis (a point of view) and then argue its validity and truth, taking into account  significant objections.   Like most academic essays, the TOK Essay will have an introduction, body, and conclusion:

• Introduction:  Here present your knowledge issue without simply restating the title given by the IBO.  You can phrase this as an open question.  State your thesis (point of view).  At times, depending on your issue, you may have to define terms.  In any case, the introduction should not be lengthy.   Avoid sweeping statements, solemn appeals to eternal verities, etc. 
• Body:  Here make your argument.  The structure of the argument can vary according to your issue and thesis.  I will outline three possible forms, but there are more.  Also, keep in mind that your issue, the number of premises you have, and personal treatment will determine the number of paragraphs. 
• Form 1: 
• Paragraph 1:  Main Argument (Premise supported by evidence: examples, statistics, personal experience). 
• Paragraph 2: Strongest Objection (Premise supported by evidence: examples, statistics, personal experience).
• Paragraph 3:  Reply to Strongest Objection (Premise supported evidence: [examples, statistics, personal experience).
• Form 2 (compare and contrast in block method)
• Paragraph 1:  Likenesses (Compare, using evidence: examples, statistics, personal experience)
• Paragraph 2:  Differences (Contrast, using evidence: examples, statistics, personal experience)
• Paragraph 3:  Summarize
• Form 3 (compare and contrast in point by point method)
• Paragraph 1:  Point 1 compare/contrast, using evidence: examples, statistics, personal experience
• Paragraph 2:  Point 2 compare/contrast, using evidence: examples, statistics, personal experience
• Paragraph 3:  Point 3 compare/contrast, using evidence: examples, statistics, personal experience
• Conclusion:  Conclusions bring your findings together.  You can summarize cogently, but a good conclusion will have more pizzazz than a dry point by point summary.  Make it interesting and make it clear to the reader why your issue is important.

Nota Bene

The TOK Essay is not difficult to brainstorm, outline, and write.  Keep in mind the IBO titles are divergent questions, which means that there is not one correct answer.  This does not mean that anything goes, but that you must make a well-reasoned and informed argument for your thesis. 

IB Assessment Criteria

During class I will distribute the criteria for assessment and we will examine and discuss them in detail.  The essay is marked out of 40 points.  There are four criteria:

1. Understanding knowledge issues (10 points)
2. Knower's perspective (10 points)
3. Quality of analysis of knowledge issues (10 points)
4. Organization (10 points)

The final TOK grade consists of the externally assessed essay (40 points) and the internally assessed presentation (20 points).  This gives a score out of 60 points, which is then placed within grade boundaries determined by the IBO and a letter grade is assigned. 

The TOK letter grade is then linked in a matrix to the letter grade assessed for the Extended Essay.  A number of points is then attributed (0-3 possible points). 

TOK Presentation Groups

These are the presentation groups.   Presentations begin on February 27.  The Planning document must be given next week.  The next classes will be devoted entirely to planning the Presentation. 

Single Presentations (10 students)

1.       Alessandro

2.       Alessia

3.       Alessio

4.       Chrystel

5.       David

6.       Flavia

7.       Kim

8.       Leopoldo (?)

9.   Mattia

10.   Ryota

Two-Person Presentations (14 students)

1.       Aisling, Chloe

2.       Audrey, Gopika

3.       Benedetta, Flaminia B.

4.       Ginevra D., Ivan

5.       Giulia, Laura

6.       Nikki, Vittorio

7.       Tove, Wendy

Three or More Person Presentations (22 students)

1.       Brando, Chiara, Flaminia A.

2.       Camilla, Flemina, Lucrezia

3.       Caroline, Lexanne, Marija


4.     Chiara V., Ginevra B., Vittoria

5.       Federica, Isabella, Rylie

6.       Friedrich, Francesco, Natnael, Tengiz

7.       Ginevra P., Greta, Virginia

TOTAL STUDENTS: 46

2/6/2012

TOK Presentations

As we have said in class, we will begin the TOK Presentations on February 27.  The planning document for the presentation is due by February 16.

We have gone over the guidelines for the presentation.  Students may work alone or in groups.  Please post the first names and last initial of each member of the group in a comment below!  Thank you!!

Due:  25 January

Of Ethics, the Workplace, the IB Mission Statement

For a few weeks now we have been dwelling upon Ethics.   Perhaps more than any other unit of TOK, Ethics is taught from the inside out.  To avoid a purely academic exercise, one devoid of personal import, one treating ethical systems as if they were maps of purely abstract concepts, we must first become aware of our personal convictions and  instinctive reactions, whatever these may be, however contradictory they may be.   Once aware of these personal convictions, we can begin to examine them in the light of different ethical doctrines.

We have investigated the implications of using religion as a basis for Ethics, and we have had several conversations upon issues raised by specific ethical dilemmas in which we must make a  judgment,  select a course of action, and articulate a justification for our judgment and action.   In discussing the cases we have looked at Egoist (self-interested), Utilitarian, Christian, and Kantian codes of Ethics.      

Is it not interesting that there is no Authoritarian School of Ethics?   In Ethics one must be actively thinking, not following.  Obedience for the purposes of economic survival perhaps can be treated under Egoism.  Recently it has caught the interest of experts concerned with ethics in the workplace.  Improper business practice, always for the cause of greater profit, can have a forceful negative impact on society, leading to great economic duress or a terrible poisoning of the environment.  In the wake of numerous recent scandals many are now demanding the study of business ethics at university.  There is a desire that people be more conscious of their larger ethical responsibilities.  The workplace can take on a factory-like ethos: do your work, don't speak up, don't contradict, don't think: you are an indian, not a chief.  What is the right thing to do (besides read Dilbert)?

In examining the dilemmas our classroom discussion actually became quite heated at times, providing an opportunity to learn that meaningful human discussion requires restraint, a blast of emotion will usually and unsurprisingly summon an opposing blast.  Rather than circumventing discussion, we have learned to exercise more self-restraint  in order to share passionate ideas and feelings.  All the conversations, I think, have been memorable learning experiences.

Most student responses to the dilemmas (and I hasten to say the responses were a little varied, but speaking generally) would probably find echoes from most adults placed in analogous situations.   In fact the continuity with the world of adults made it clear that  conventional ethical norms have been well observed and assimilated.   At times there was generosity towards a friend, perplexity and inertia at the dilemma of a stranger, indifference at an action that was unethical but had no personal impact.   Comparing and contrasting our responses, and looking at them in the light of different ethical codes, is one genuine way for learning to take place, although complex and urgent experience is the better teacher.  Our best learning is life.

Besides conventional ethical dilemmas, we have looked at new issues in Bioethics as well, stimulated by a remarkable and memorable talk given by Paul Root Wolpe to an audience at TED.  We have also watched an instructive session at TED with Michael Sandel, the most popular teacher at Harvard.   Sandel teaches by the case method, first telling a brief story presenting an ethical dilemma and then asking students for their responses.  He guides a soft collision of opinions by asking students to respond to each other and to give the reasons for their judgements, and then he seeks to clarify the ethical principles that underlie the collision of judgements.   One can see his entire course on the internet (two students in our class have watched all the episodes!).

How do we arrive at our values?  How do we justify them?  The IB Mission Statement is marked by carefully selected values:

The International Baccalaureate aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.

To this end the organization works with schools, governments and international organizations to develop challenging programmes of international education and rigorous assessment.

These programmes encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.

Let's look at that last paragraph again:  it says other people can be right and not other people are right.  What distinction is being made?  Is the door open to an ethical relativism?  If it were, would this be fine?  If the door is closed, should it be opened?

Due: January 10, 2012

Choices, Choices: Ethics

We have begun Ethics, the area of knowledge concerned with understanding the principles of right and wrong.  How do we really know what is right and wrong?   Is the ethical what we feel is right?  Is it following what everyone does?   Is Ethics the same as religion?   Is there an innate understanding of Ethics?  Do we learn a cultural code that is specific to our society?  If we just follow the law, are we being ethical?   Is authority always right?  Is there a universal system that all acknowledge and respect?  If not, how do we resolve conflicts between analyses of right and wrong?  What ethical issues will we confront in our daily life?

We will confront ethical issues daily.  For example, is it right for animals to suffer to improve human life?  Is capital punishment right?  What should we do if our government goes to war and we do not agree with the justification of the action?  Can a society justify the torture of individuals for the greater good?  What do we do if coworkers are maligning and mobbing a colleague? 

Our first section concerns Christian ethics and we have isolated issues that arise in using a religion as the basis of ethics.  Let us reflect on our own experience.  How has our religion taught us right and wrong?  Has it been effective on a daily basis?  Has it avoided issues that you confront in your life? Do you believe that religious people behave more ethically?  Can religion, in some issues, become a barrier to ethical behavior? 

If we are not religious or do not wish to be so confessional, what do we think about religion and ethics?

Address the questions to your own level of comfort!

Due: November 14 

Learning from which past?

For some students history is fascinating and enthralling, an essential key to the mystery of the present; for others it a dull subject filled with a confusing flurry of names, dates, battles, treaties. It's a tempest in a library.  Yet history is a hotly contested topic in many countries. All agree that history is a vitally important story for the identity of a nation--but whose point of view should be told? Which version should be communicated to the younger generations?

Early this year, for example, a group of conservative Italian parliamentarians loudly attacked the selection of history textbooks commonly used in Italy. They demanded scholastic texts that are impartial and objective in vision. They questioned whether public money should be spent on textbooks that are partisan and, in their view, are indoctrinating the young in leftist ideology. Among the passages reproached as biased are laudatory descriptions of Palmiro Togliatti, Enrico Berlinguer, and Alcide De Gasperi, each an undeniably important statesman in postwar Italy.  The members of parliament branded the textbooks as communist and requested the opening of a formal enquiry.

In the United States, similarly, history can be contested territory. The late Howard Zinn, a professor of political science at Boston University, wrote A People’s History of the United States to give an alternative version to the narrative found in most  American textbooks (you can find the entire work here). He viewed the story as dominated by the economic interests of the wealthy and wrote with consistent sympathy for those who suffered unjustly, the Native Americans, the African slaves, the impoverished immigrants, people in foreign countries (e.g., the Vietnamese), women, and laborers. For the political left, this is the unvarnished and unattractive truth of American history; for the political right, it is only a simple ideological fable pitting the rich against the poor. Who is right? Do you have to decide? Can you ignore the debate?

For one more example, let's look at the UK.  In recent years the United Kingdom has watched with concern a decline in the number of students taking the history GCSE exam.  The curriculum has been revamped, yet critics still think and feel the course is not challenging students and telling the right story.  Nial Ferguson, for instance, wants the narrative to focus on why Europe gains ascendancy after 1500.   The president of the Royal Society termed Ferguson's suggestions ideological; some liberal commentators more bluntly said they were rightwing.

Let's consider some questions.  Can a textbook treating national history avoid charges of patriotic propaganda?  Can history step out of politics and become objective? Can history remove itself from value judgements? If not, whose values should be promoted?  Is there a neutral language and manner for writing history? Are you conscious of your own political ideas? Do you think that you don't have any political ideas? Is it desirable for a student to be wholly apolitical? Have your history classes at Marymount clarified your own sense of cultural and political identity? 

Select a question or two, or formulate a related one of your own, and make a comment. Due: 4 November (coincidentally an important date in Italian history!) 

Education as a Human Science: Sir Ken Robinson

In TOK we are drawing near the end of our Human Science unit.  We have touched upon the Human Science that arguably influences us everyday most powerfully: Education.   How do we learn?  What are different theories of learning?  What are learning styles?  Are we really divided, for instance, into visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners?  Are these innate predispositions or acquired preferences?  What are other kinds of intelligence?  What is the best way to teach?  How do we best measure learning?  Is standardized testing useful or is it a reductive tool to channel students into narrow categories?  Is there a business of standardized testing seeking to objectify a process that is much more dynamic and multidirectional?  Can we, for example, really measure the fluid process of learning to read in tiny graduated steps?  Is homework necessary after seven hours of school?  Should staring into the pictures in a plastic box increasingly occupy the center of the educational process?  Is an authoritarian model of learning most effective?  Do we study too many subjects?  Should we emphasize competition or cooperation? Is religious formation effective in building character and values?

The questions go on and on and on.  Education is a complex human science, a crossroads of developmental psychology, sociology, economics, politics, and more.  Debates on these issues quickly become heated.  The brief RSA video of Sir Ken Robinson raised significant questions.   Urbane and charming, erudite without becoming pedantic, Sir Ken is an educational activist, a man who advocates diversity, creativity, and practicality.   In his talk, which we saw in an abbreviated format (see the entire talk here), he explains how the educational system we use is a child of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution.   It was made for a former age, and the stimulating 21^st Century requires a different model that engages contemporary children and, instead of seeking to instill obedience and passivity, even through the use of drugs, prepares them for an ever shifting and dynamic present.

How does one do this?  How would you do this?  What would you change in the process of learning?  Do you know your own learning style or preference?  What would be your ideal learning experience?  More freedom?  More structure?  Fewer subjects?  Less homework?  More work in groups?  More individual work? More variety in assessment to measure learning?  Oral examinations?  More work connected with the world beyond the walls of school? Please do not be facetious in making a comment below.