From Straw to Star: Teaching the Next Generation to Argue with Compassion

Star-manning is ultimately the ability to see ideological opponents as people, disagreements as opportunities, and common ground as something worth finding.

[robert | Adobe Stock]

If you’ve had the pleasure of reading Jefferson Shupe’s YA novel The Bathwater Brigade, you may remember the scene with a group of college students who set up a table on their campus to celebrate how far America has come on race—a timeline from slavery through emancipation, civil rights, and the election of a Black president, with an arrow pointing to the words “More progress to be made!” Red, white, and blue cupcakes complete the display. Next to the table, two students start arguing about a local police shooting of an unarmed Black man. One insists the officer had no choice. The other can’t believe anyone would defend it. They trade statistics, grievances, and accusations—neither asking a genuine question nor acknowledging the other might have a legitimate concern. It ends with the table tipped over, cupcakes destroyed, and no common ground found.

It’s a scene that plays out daily across American campuses—and increasingly in high schools, on social media, and at family dinner tables. By the time students reach college, habits of adversarial argument are deeply entrenched. What if we could equip young people with better tools earlier?

This question drove Fair for All to develop the American Experience Curriculum—an ethnic studies course that prepares high school students for constructive engagement in America’s pluralistic democracy. Students develop deep civic knowledge and sophisticated civil discourse skills by exploring diverse American experiences—centering historically marginalized voices and the unique challenges various groups have faced alongside the contributions each has made—while also studying the constitutional principles and democratic processes that form our shared civic foundations. The curriculum recognizes that successful democracy requires both honoring diverse experiences and building shared commitments; these foundations create a stable framework for productive disagreement about how to apply principles and address ongoing barriers to participation. Central to this approach is a progression: from the destructive (straw- manning) to the respectful (steel-manning) to the transformative (star-manning).

The Spectrum of Argumentation

Straw-manning is what many of us default to—reducing someone’s argument to its weakest form to make it easier to attack. “So you think cops should just shoot Black people?” It feels satisfying, but you haven’t engaged with their real position. You’ve created an enemy instead of finding understanding.

Steel-manning is the opposite—presenting the strongest possible version of someone’s position before responding. “You believe the officer faced a split-second decision with incomplete information, and we shouldn’t judge without understanding that fear and uncertainty.” The goal: articulate their argument so well that they say, “Yup, that’s right!” This demonstrates respect and opens the door to genuine dialogue.

But there’s still something missing. Steel-manning addresses the argument—but what about the person making it?

Enter star-manning, a concept created by Angel Eduardo, Chair of Fair for All’s Board of Directors. Eduardo coined the term in 2021, inspired by David Bowie’s “Starman.” Star-manning goes beyond engaging with the strongest version of an argument to engaging with the most charitable version of the person, acknowledging their good intentions and shared desires despite your disagreements.

Returning to our debate: a steel man might say, “You believe this shooting reflects a broader pattern where Black Americans face disproportionate use of force, and that better training could save lives.” A star man goes further: “I can see you care deeply about human lives and want encounters between police and citizens to end without harm or loss of life.”

As Eduardo explains:

“The vast majority of us want the same things; our disagreement is always in the details. To star-man is to use this bedrock of commonality as a place from which to build good faith. We can now argue in truly good faith because we recognize not only our opponent’s arguments, but their humanity.”

The progression from straw to steel to star represents a journey from contempt to respect to compassion.

Teaching These Skills Through Ethnic Studies and American History

The American Experience Curriculum doesn’t teach civil discourse as a standalone unit. Rather, it is integrated throughout. The decision to make civil discourse central to this curriculum was inspired by Shupe’s novel. As lead curriculum developer, I integrated Shupe’s civil discourse contributions and Angel Eduardo’s star manning concept, along with a variety of other proven civil discourse methods, progressively across all nine units, ensuring students build skills from low-stakes practice to complex application.

Students begin with accessible scenarios—debates about phones in class and school start times—then apply the same skills to increasingly challenging historical and contemporary issues. Basic skills are introduced in Unit 1, establishing the foundation: active listening, distinguishing civility from politeness, steel-manning, and star-manning opposing viewpoints. Units 2-3 develop intermediate skills, such as identifying logical fallacies, applying the competing goods framework, and practicing historical empathy rather than presentism.

As students advance through Units 4-7, they master advanced skills: using Shupe’s SLEW Framework to genuinely understand different viewpoints; applying his “swap variables” technique to test whether their positions are principled; visualizing through the “Plinko Effect” how people with shared values can reach different conclusions based on small differences in how they weight those values; and finding “hidden third options” beyond binary thinking. Unit wrap-ups develop synthesis skills—strategic complementarity, coalition building, and learning to ask “when are both sides right?” rather than “which side is right?” Finally, the capstone project challenges students to apply all of these skills to digital communication through platforms and projects.

Here are a few examples to show how it works:

In Unit 3, students engage in a mock Constitutional Convention, arguing positions they may personally oppose. Through this exercise, students practice perspective-taking and role-playing across differences by representing different constituencies—including those excluded from the actual Convention. They develop collaborative problem-solving skills as they grapple with the same tensions the founders faced: balancing competing interests and forming unions across deep differences. The simulation also introduces ethical reasoning about compromise, challenging students to consider whether compromise on fundamental questions of human dignity can ever be justified.

In Unit 4, students explore the abolition movement’s strategic debates. Through steel-manning exercises and star-manning exercises, they discover that Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison shared the same goal: ending slavery. Yet they reached different conclusions about whether the Constitution could deliver freedom. By practicing these skills, students learn to distinguish between disagreements over methods and disagreements over values, recognizing that even people who agree on goals can disagree profoundly on how to achieve them.

In Unit 6, students synthesize their learning through the “Plinko Effect.” After examining how diverse groups—European immigrants, African Americans, women suffragists, Japanese Americans, and Mexican Americans—each pursued full citizenship between 1914 and 1945, students visualize how “small differences at the top create big differences at the bottom.” This lesson reinforces suspending judgment, recognizing shared values beneath surface disagreements, and applying charitable interpretation.

In Unit 7, students examine competing civil rights strategies. Using the “When Are Both Sides Right?” framework—a structured approach for identifying legitimate concerns across perspectives—they discover that Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and other leaders shared fundamental American ideals. Students practice charitable interpretation, learning to see strategic differences as reasonable responses to shared challenges rather than evidence of opposing values.

In Unit 8, students tackle contemporary debates about affirmative action, immigration, and criminal justice. A DACA stakeholder simulation places students in roles representing Dreamers, business coalitions, legal immigrants, and rule-of-law advocates—each with legitimate concerns. Through this exercise, students practice perspective-taking by representing positions they may not personally hold, steel and star-manning to understand competing stakeholders, and collaborative problem-solving through structured negotiation to find common ground.

An Inoculant Against Unproductive Discourse

Angel Eduardo calls star manning “an inoculant against our venomous discourse.” His six words of advice capture the spirit of what we’re trying to build: “Be kind; we’re all first drafts.”

We don’t have to wait for the next generation to discover better ways to disagree. The American Experience Curriculum is designed to teach students that understanding someone doesn’t mean agreeing with them, but that democracy requires genuinely grappling with opposing perspectives rather than dismissing them.

When I read Shupe’s novel about students bridging divides, I imagined what could be possible. My hope is that students who participate in this curriculum won’t only learn about the diverse experiences of all Americans and our shared history but will also build the habits of mind our democracy desperately needs: the ability to see ideological opponents as people, disagreements as opportunities, and common ground as something worth finding.

Learn More

Explore the American Experience Curriculum at fairforall.org

Rated “high quality” by the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy;

We’re seeking educators and administrators interested in equipping students with the discourse skills our democracy desperately needs. Contact Monica Harris, Executive Director, about piloting the curriculum Fall 2026: monica@fairforall.org
Read Angel Eduardo’s original article: “How to Star-Man: Arguing from Compassion” at centerforinquiry.org

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