Logical Fallacies Lesson Plan with a Logical Fallacies Quiz (Kind of)

Here’s a logical fallacies quiz based on a real life experience.

Below is a one-sided conversation I had with a student the other day. Identify the logical fallacy exemplified in each statement.

  1. “Hey Mr., You’re my favorite teacher. Will you change my grade?” (1)
  2. “Hey Mr., I’m about to cry. My poor puppy just died. Will you change my grade?” (2)
  3. “Hey Mr., All my other teachers changed my grade. Will you change my grade?” (3)
  4. “Hey Mr., Taylor Swift says all students should receive passing grades. Will you change my grade?” (4)
  5. “Hey Mr., Changing my grade would put you in a special category of awesome teachers. Will you change my grade?” (5)
  6. “Hey Mr., You should change my grade because my grade should be changed by you. Will you change my grade?” (6)
  7. “Hey Mr., The last time my grade wasn’t changed, there was an earthquake in the Dominican Republic. Will you change my grade?” (7)
  8. “Hey Mr., Either change my grade or there’ll be no way I’ll ever graduate. Will you change my grade?” (8)
  9. “Hey I asked two people in the state and they think you should change my grade. Will you change my grade?” (9)
  10. “Hey Mr., Change my grade, you stupid idiot. Will you change my grade?” (10)

My Response to All 10 Questions: “NO!”

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“Then what do I have to do Mr. to get my grade changed.”

“Well, I just happened to write down this conversation. All you need to do is identify every logical fallacy you used and I’ll give you an ‘A’ on the logical fallacies quiz you failed last week. Then I will change your grade.”


Before I get to the assignment, download and print the rubric. It’s teacher ready and student ready. It even has the common core standards in the category columns written in very light numbers and letters: Logical Fallacies Poster Rubric

(Don’t worry. I haven’t forgotten about that narrative logical fallacies quiz I put at the top of this brilliant post. The answers will appear at the end, which means you’re gonna have to read this whole post to get the answers, or, I guess, you could just scroll down.)

Logical PinterestPreparation

  • You’ll need an assortment of poster-sized paper and some colorful writing instruments.
  • You’ll need a list of logical fallacies to choose from. You can either give the definitions or make students look them up on their mobile device with Internet capabilities. Or I suppose they could use a…err..err…book.
  • You can check out this page for a few fallacies and some other lesson ideas. The list is not exhaustive. There are websites entirely dedicated to logical fallacies that provide a much more extensive list. They don’t have awesome logical fallacy lesson plans with rubrics and a narrative logical fallacies quiz that could be used as a bell-ringer review like I do. And some of them get way carried away with information overload and religious attacks and political attacks. But I digress.

Procedures

  1. Arrange students in groups of 3-5. You can also forego the groups and give every student a slice of printer paper to complete the assignment individually. Actually, you can do whatever the heck you want. It’s your classroom, after all. I prefer the groups of 3-5 with medium-sized slabs of butcher paper.
  2. Assign each group a fallacy. This will most likely be between 8-10 fallacies.
  3. Each group should create a poster with the following: (1) The Fallacy; (2) Its definition; (3) Written Example(s); (4) Visual Example(s). The downloadable rubric above has all this information in it.
  4. Have students present their posters. This can be done creatively with an acting out of the fallacy or not so creatively by having them review what’s on the poster.

Quiz Answers

(1) Appeal to Flattery; (2) Appeal to Pity; (3) Bandwagon; (4) Testimonial; (5) Snob Appeal; (6) Begging the Question or Circular Reason; (7) False Cause and Effect; (8) False Dilemma, Either/Or; (9) Hasty Generalization; (10) Name Calling/Ad Hominem/Personal Attack

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Comments

  1. Your examples are great! But your link to the poster isn’t working for me.

  2. Trenton Lorcher says

    It’s a word document. It will download when you click on it. Thanks for the kind words.