I have been thinking a for the past 2 weeks about What My Students Must Learn Before the Year Ends. True, there are still 3 months of school and winter is not yet done with us.
- This shows why facts and personal opinions can seem & sound so similar: in some ways they are! [right column]
- It separates the statements that we CAN debate from those that are undebatable. We waste so much time and effort disputing other people's personal opinions. That will not change somebody's mind!
- I also wanted to separate valid claims from external judgments (which involve some logic but are essentially opinionated).
Readers, what do you think? Am I missing something important? Have I mischaracterized any statements?
(I deliberately left out statements like exaggerations, lies, mistakes, and other inaccuracies. But how would you fit them into the system?)
BTW, I applied my own system to a speech by Donald Trump by highlighting sentences according to the color codes in the chart. Does this seem correct?