Argument to Advance a Thesis

Argument to Advance a Thesis

Here’s an ingenious argument that Stefan Casso, a student in a college writing class, took on as a deliberate challenge: Could he defend a thesis that — to many of his colleagues — seemed indefensible? Aristotle defined rhetoric as the art of discovering all the available means of persuasion in a given case. That’s exactly what Casso has to do here. You can decide — or maybe argue — how well he did his job.

Reading the Genre

As you read Casso’s essay, try to identify those places where you are most aware of being moved by the author to consider claims that you hadn’t considered before or had perhaps already rejected. Can you think of other arguments that Casso might have used to defend Lance Armstrong?

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