Herb,
I use an assignment year after year as the first assignment for our
prefreshmen students in our opportunity program. I call it "belief or
Value." Students are asked to explain/describe a belief or value and
describe its experiential roots. They are not allowed to argue or
persuade; they simply present a belief or value (we talk about what
that entails) and describe the experiential reasons (in effect, the
history) behind it. There are a number of clear benefits from the
assignment; but the first might be that it is almost always highly
engaging. They are also the experts, so my job as writing teacher is
mainly to be curious.
I will use I Say/ They Say for the second time this fall as part of a
paired class: non-credit writing paired with a three credit writing
class (ALPS model). I like the approach.
I think perspective is much more interesting than argument. So many
public issues can't be solved by one person or one perspective, and we
need people to weigh in from what they know and what they have
experienced. Taking a position or writing an argument tends to
oversimplify and tends to shut down conversation. It also doesn't help
students adjust to the professional disciplines, which require a
collegiality and a healthy self skepticism.
I think there are lots of questions I can ask my students that respect
who they are and where they have come from. For example, many of my
students can write thoughtfully and well about what's it like to grow
up as the child of immigrant parents. Many can write very thoughtfully
about what it takes to survive the kind of neighborhood where very few
students finish high school. They have thoughtful contributions to
make about public issues that are woefully underdiscussed.
One mantra for me: Let the reader know how you know what you know,
both the source and the limits of your authority.
One reason we have problems teaching writing at the college level is
that students come out of high school programs where almost all
attention is on literature: poetry, fiction, drama. My students quite
literally can't tell me the difference between a story and an essay.
I agree. It's an interesting thread.
Grammar, by the way, can be deeply engaging.
Craig >
Thanks to all of you for one of the most interesting and thoughtfully
> argued threads we've had in a while.
>
> I have a question that may be tangential to this topic, or at least a
> narrower focus. I should say first that while I have taught both ESL
> writing and Freshman writing, I am not a writing teacher, and threads like
> this always leave me with a lot of respect for those who perform these
> tasks and perform them well.
>
> When I've taught writing, I've often been encouraged to avoid topics like
> abortion and creationism vs. evolution because it's so difficult for
> student writers to separate themselves from the issues and from the social
> consequences of taking a position. As an example of this, I had dinner
> with my oldest son last night, and we got to talking about a good friend
> of his at work. She is well educated, well read, and has thoughtful views
> on a lot of topics. Evolution came up recently in one of their
> conversations, and her response was, "Oh, I don't believe in evolution.
> The evidence for it is not very strong." My son was surprised at her
> reaction. She comes from a Southern Baptist background but is no longer
> connected to that or any other denomination, so her reasons for rejecting
> evolution, and she confirms this, are not religious. I suggested to him
> that perhaps the reason for her position was a matter of social identity.
> Her family and the community she grew up in are devout and accept the
> biblical creation story literally. Rejecting evolution is a matter of
> family identity. She can become a backslid Baptist, and that's
> lamentable, but for her to accept evolution would be to reject her family.
>
> In a case like this, a position on evolution or creation or abortion is
> not an intellectual stance; it's a matter of cultural and social identity,
> and that makes it very hard to think critically about it. I've found in
> UG classes where we deal with dialectology the notion "social class"
> sometimes gets rejected out of hand as Marxist, and no amount of
> discussion will shake that position. This is also one of those defining
> stances.
>
> Is a writing class the place to get students to question such elements of
> their identity and look at themselves more critically? How does one go
> about this?
>
> Herb
>
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Geoffrey Layton
> Sent: Monday, August 08, 2011 1:14 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Holding their interest
>
> Seth -
>
> Thanks for the reference. This thread fits with a project on academic
> discourse that I'm trying to develop. Perhaps one characteristic that
> Graff proposes that might be different from the Rogerian model is his
> insistence that - after all the listening and understanding -
> writers/academics must finally take a position that differs from that of
> their interlocutors/respondents. For example, in his book "Clueless in
> Academe," he offers significant criticism of Deborah Tannen and the views
> she expresses in her book, "The Argument Culture: Moving from Debate to
> Dialogue." As he puts it, "Perhaps the most telling refutation of Tannen's
> thesis is the confrontational quality of the book itself. . . Tannen
> enacts the behavior she objects to" (89). Similarly in "They Say," Graff
> advances a method that will enhance the ability of students to argue, not
> diminish it. His "listening and understanding" component, as I understand
> it, is presented not as a way to be non-confrontational but rather as a
> means to make sure that the resulting argument is telling and effective,
> much the same way that he demonstrates his understanding of Tannen's
> position in order to methodically destroy it.
>
> To return to the theme of the thread - "Holding their interest" - perhaps
> this discussion will help hold student interest by showing them that in
> order to develop a powerful argument for their position, they must first
> thoroughly understand the point of view of the person with whom they
> disagree - and, more interestingly, in order to have something interesting
> to say, they must find an area where they do disagree.
>
> Geoff Layton
>
>> Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2011 11:41:33 -0500
>> From: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>> Subject: Re: Holding their interest
>> To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>>
>> Geoff--
>>
>> What you describe here sounds a lot like a Rogerian argument, in which
>> the author (A) first explains the position he or she is opposed to (B),
>> without criticism of any sort; the author (A) simply shows that they
>> understand position (B). Then the author (A) offers non-pejorative
>> critique of position (B): 'I see a problem/weakness/issue in position
>> (B) that you (person who holds position [B]) have not addressed.' Then
>> the author (A) offers elements of their own position on the issue that
>> (A) thinks will help strengthen the opposing position (B). Based on the
>> work of psychologist Carl Rogers, this type of argument is a mainstay of
>> mediation: it shows that you are actually listening to the 'other,'
>> treating their point of view as valid and thoughtful; and it presents
>> your own argument not as antagonistic, but as potentially useful in
>> helping the opposition achieve a more effective result (and one that
>> both sides can possible agree to as a fair compromise). The only
>> argumentative writing textbook I know of that has a whole Rogerian
>> assignment is Nancy Wood's Essentials of Argument.
>>
>> I have a copy of They Say/I Say on my shelf--now I'll have to look at
>> it! Thanks!
>>
>> Seth
>>
>> Dr. Seth Katz
>> Assistant Professor
>> Department of English
>> Bradley University
>>
>> ________________________________
>>
>> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Geoffrey
>> Layton
>> Sent: Sun 8/7/2011 10:13 PM
>> To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>> Subject: Re: Holding their interest
>>
>>
>> Paul,
>>
>> I think the most valuable part of the T/I Say is the "They say" portion
>> because students must be able to identify what they're responding to -
>> and why. In other words, they have to ask (and answer) the question what
>> is it about the text that makes it interesting. I've had a lot of luck
>> teaching "commonplaces" in the context of the following template, "Most
>> (many, the author, my parents, etc) seem to think X (the "commonplace"),
>> but a closer look reveals Y. It's important to recognize that Y is (just
>> as important, preferable, superior to, different from, etc) X because .
>> . ."
>>
>> Geoff Layton
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>>
>> Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2011 16:46:38 -0700
>> From: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>> Subject: Re: Holding To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit
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