Once a student has established reasons and warrants, there is often a need for additional reasons to apply the warrant to the situation. This is called the backing. Backing is essentially an additional set of reasons that justify why a particular warrant should be applied in the context the writer is trying to apply it (Lunsford et al., 2013, p. 138). The more specific a student can get, the better. The warrant should be written last, once the rest of the argument has already been established. Backing should be added to fill in holes in logic and to tie the rest of the argument together.
Activity #1: Observations Source: My Brain This activity should be done after the warrant activity. Have students journal about things they observe on the way to school. Teachers can first have students write down what they remember from that morning, then ask them to pay attention and record the next day, to demonstrate how much more evidence that students can find if they really spend time looking. Then have the teacher give students a list of warrants and/or claims, and have the students use their observations to prove or disprove them. For example, a warrant could be that it is safer to drive in the morning than in the afternoon. The students could prove this by counting the number of road hazards they find in the morning and in the afternoon, and either assert that the assumption is true or false for their school based on their observations.
Essentially, the observations are their backing to answer the question, "Why?" for claims and warrants. To make it more complicated, the teacher could have students observe different places in the school and see if certain warrants hold up in some places, but not others. For example, an assumption could be that when students stand in line, they are going to get food. This might be true in the cafeteria because students will observe that all students who stand in line for food will come away with food. However, students who stand in line in the library are not going to come away from the line with food, so the assumption about students standing in line for food does not hold true.
Activity #2: Toddlers Source: My Brain Another way to help students with backing is to have them act like toddlers. Most everyone knows that a toddler’s favorite question is one word: “why?” Sometimes they force us to make an argument for something mundane that the adults know is true or automatically accepts with just a few words. Students can be paired up, and assigned a few claims to choose from, either very general or relating to the text being read in class. One student plays the arguer, the other plays the toddler. The arguer will state the claim, and the toddler will ask, “Why?” The arguer then needs to explain to the “toddler” why their claim is true. The toddler again responds, “Why?” Continue this process until the toddler has asked the question at least four or five times.
Afterwards, have students reflect on the process. Depending on the students, one or two of the responses to the “why” question may be somewhat off-topic or not relevant, but generally the progression of the conversation between each pair will follow the parts of an argument. The goal is to start with the claim, then on the next response get to the reasons, then the warrant, and finally the backing essentially subconsciously just by making the student defend themselves. After reflecting, have the students switch roles and perform the activity once more. Encourage students to have a little fun with it. They will probably giggle a little anyway, which is fine as long as they still finish the activity and produce answers that really do answer the question. As a final reflection, have the students write down each other's responses and try to identify which parts of the argument they created without even thinking about it.