Again, the single most helpful aspect about Rationale is how much it makes it easy (especially for visual learners) to critically think through the structure of their papers, speeches, debate positions, and other communication projects. This is THE major step in the writing process that my students tend to gloss over–despite all my attempts to use other visual aids, outlining strategies, etc. There’s something about the dynamic interface, the color-coding and argument evaluation tools, and the ease of the Essay Planning tool that both speeds up and sharpens the thinking process involved in the creative process.
..Both Dr. Sager and I saw a huge gain in our Ethics Bowl participants’ ability to prepare positions on these UW Ethics Bowl queries; and I saw similar clarity provided by Rationale with my freshmen in our Holt-McDougal Argumentation & Persuasion Unit culminating debates (see final attachment).’