In the Numbers: Quantitative Reasoning in the Writing-Centered Classroom

Abstract

In the Numbers:Quantitative Reasoning in the Writing-Centered Classroom Jason Corner (bio) I begin with some typical claims from student papers: Suicide is the second leading cause of death for teenagers in the United States. The global temperature peaked in 1998. The majority—55.5%—of all prisoners executed are white. Legalizing marijuana would save the U.S. government $200 billion; everyone could go to college for free. These claims all have four things in common: first, they are all claims that serve as evidence for some argument (marijuana should be legal, climate change is a fraud, and so forth); second, they are all claims that are “true” in some sense; third, they are all misleading or oversimplified; and, fourth, they all consist of numerical data. However, for students to understand the third feature—that none of these pieces of data really does the necessary work to support their claims—they need to know a bit more about their fourth feature, the kind of numerical data they are. For example, it is true that 55.5%—the majority—of all prisoners executed are white, and students might use this fact to argue that the death penalty is clearly not administered in a racially discriminatory way. However, whites are also the majority of the population: according to the most recent census, non-Hispanic whites constituted 61.6% of the United States population (“United States”), so whites are represented less among those executed than in the population as a whole—that is, they are disproportionately underrepresented. Therefore, to understand how the piece of data supports or does not support a particular argument, one has to engage in critical thinking about the numerical data and to engage in what is often described as quantitative reasoning.1 Here, I argue, first, that quantitative reasoning (QR) is an important part of teaching rhetoric and argument in any writing-centered classroom and, second, that approaches to teaching QR should take into account developments in the theory of learning. By QR, I mean something that can be summarized in shorthand as “knowing how to think about data,” though there are more rigorous definitions. In their essay, “What’s in a Name? A Critical Review of Definitions of Quantitative Literacy, Numeracy, and Quantitative Reasoning,” the authors review multiple definitions of QR, numeracy, numerical literacy, [End Page 301] and related terms. They state that “there is indeed a common thread, that of a competence in interacting with myriad mathematical and statistical representations of the real world, in the contexts of daily life, work situations, and the civic life” (25). Even given a particular definition, the scope of QR—the particular categories of “mathematical and statistical representations of the real world” under discussion—might vary from class to class. A very broad set of competencies was outlined by Deborah Hughes-Hallett in a 2008 talk at Carleton College. She includes the following: * Arithmetic, including percentages, graphs * Estimation * Elementary probability and statistics * Basic geometry of measurement (volume, area, perimeter) * Elementary growth patterns: linear (constant quantity per unit time) and exponential (constant percentage change per unit time) (qtd. in Grawe and Rutz 2) This list is an ambitious one, and my own focus in my writing-centered classroom is narrower, restricting itself to the kinds of statistical data routinely used in arguments. By a writing-centered classroom, I mean not just classes that are situated in English departments as “freshman composition” but also any class where writing instruction is a key component. My own appointment is in a program called Focused Inquiry, a two-semester sequence required of most first-year students Virginia Commonwealth University, built around core academic skills of critical thinking, writing, oral communication, information fluency, ethical reasoning, and quantitative reasoning. Nevertheless, I argue that even a traditional composition course should make a place for QR as a vital tool for doing research and making persuasive arguments on—as we have seen—the kinds of topics students frequently write about. Writing teachers who have come up through the humanities will feel more confident about incorporating QR in their classes if they remember that QR is not math. QR as described above, is about being competent in thinking about numbers...