Community & Government

Framing Your Argument

Lesson time 06:44 min

In their final conversation, Malala and Lewis discuss the importance of a strong argument and why it’s necessary to have multiple arguments prepared for various audiences you may be addressing.

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Topics include: Have More Than One Argument

Malala Yousafzai

Teaches Creating Change

Nobel Prize–winning activist Malala teaches you how to be an activist in your own community, from research and strategy to action and impact.

Preview

[MUSIC PLAYING] - What do I need to consider when framing an argument? And what makes a strong argument? - You need an argument, or series of arguments, in order to persuade people that they should take this action, which will lead to your goal. I think a good argument is made up of four key parts. A headline, so the argument in a nutshell. A robust explanation as to why this argument actually helps you achieve the goal. I think having an example is also really important as well. And having evidence, having testimonies, having people's stories actually can help build an argument and make it feel very powerful. And the final bit of a good argument is being able to sort of link it back to your overall goal and overall objective once again. The next question though is, what arguments do I run with? On a number of issues, there are multiple different types of arguments that you can deploy. Some are more powerful than others. Here's a particular problem. Here's my goal. Here's an argument. But look at this through the lens of the economy. Another frame might be one which is about tradition and our heritage. You might also have a frame which is simply around moral disgust. And that might be your way of sort of engaging people and using framing to really sort of ask people to focus on an issue. - When I started campaigning for girls' education, initially, moral reasoning was very powerful. But as I started having interactions with business, community, with politicians, with world leaders, I found it quite difficult, because I would notice that they were not actually listening. So I needed to come up with more explanations and more reasoning for why it was important to invest in girls' education. And that's why we looked into the economic side of it. Because when we educate women, this allows us to grow economies. Educating all girls up to secondary level would add up to $30 trillion to the world economy. It helps us to tackle climate change. It helps us reduce poverty, fight against early child marriages, the cultural norms and traditions that are out there that are discriminating women, which has so many advantages. It's not just about helping girls learn to read and write, but it's also about improving the economy that we are living in. It creates more jobs. It brings in more opportunities. It makes girls independent. So it helped me to create convincing economic arguments for education. Malala Fund has also conducted research which shows that, every year, up to four million girls could lose their education, because of the disaster that climate change causes from floods to droughts. It displaces so many girls from their villages. It affects their education. Many of these girls are not able to return to their school. Along with that, my goal is to remind people that these are not separate issues. Because of these disasters that we are facing, more and more girls are at risk of losing their ed...

About the Instructor

When she first took a stand, Malala simply acted on her belief that all Pakistani girls like her had a right to education. Now the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate in history teaches you how to fight injustice in the world and in your everyday life, starting with your own community. Learn Malala’s framework for influencing change: Research issues, build a strategy, take action, and create an impact right where you are.

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Malala Yousafzai

Nobel Prize–winning activist Malala teaches you how to be an activist in your own community, from research and strategy to action and impact.

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