Argument
How goes it for those of you who are just finishing your first week in the argument phase of the schedule? Any testimony from the trenches? Ballenger has some good lead material on this early in Chapter 8, but it's definitely worthwhile spending time discussing the connotations of "argument" with the class. Many students have the preconception that it's about pro & con, winning & losing, contentious verbal dispute, beating your audience into submission rhetorically, etc; all of this is not surprising given how this sensibility is hardwired into our culture: you know, the talking heads shouting at each other on TV, the soundbite mentality, shows with titles like "Hardball" and "Crossfire." Last year, in fact, to introduce the subject of argument, some of our TAs ended up using the transcript from the delightfully edgy confrontation between Jon Stewart and Tucker Carlson/Paul Begalia on "Crossfire." Stewart essentially accused the show of contributing to the coarsening of public/political discourse. It was a very issue-laden tirade, and one that would work nicely to get your students talking about argument.
Teaching argument also presents a nice opportunity to talk about the undoing of the 5-paragraph essay. Conducting an argument is all about using the best, the most persuasive means at hand to convince an audience that may not be inclined to agree with you, and the shape of the essay should respond to the demands of executing that argument (4 paragraphs? 9 paragraphs? 13 paragraphs? who knows). Ultimately, we not only have to teach students how to write a solid, arguable thesis statement (the first question I always ask my students at this point is "Is this thesis arguable? Could you expect that a fair number of your classmates in the room would disagree with your central claim?" If not, why write the paper?), but also how to support, how to imagine the appropriate interlocutors, how to sense and address potential counter-arguments, how to marshal other sources, etc.
Frank Cioffi wrote a nice book on argument recently called The Imaginative Argument: A Practical Manifesto for Writers. He writes that "the best argumentative writing expands and transforms the ideas of the writer.... It doesn't offer an easy answer or position.... One student told me writing in the argumentative mode was 'scary.' It's just not something they've been taught to do -- yet its being tantamount to an transgressive act can make it much more attractive." When Louis Menand, in a short New Yorker article from 2000, argues that the academic essay is "one of those skills in life that people are obliged to master in order to be excused from ever practicing them again," Cioffi responds with these thoughts: "But that's OK. I argue that the academic argument...forms the central and most important kind of nonfiction writing that you should master, even if you don't get a chance to use it after graduating from college. It's important not only because it draws on elements of all the other forms of nonfiction writing and hence will allow you to move to any of those forms relatively easily. It also replicates the method by which ideas are created. It teaches you to think."
Teaching argument also presents a nice opportunity to talk about the undoing of the 5-paragraph essay. Conducting an argument is all about using the best, the most persuasive means at hand to convince an audience that may not be inclined to agree with you, and the shape of the essay should respond to the demands of executing that argument (4 paragraphs? 9 paragraphs? 13 paragraphs? who knows). Ultimately, we not only have to teach students how to write a solid, arguable thesis statement (the first question I always ask my students at this point is "Is this thesis arguable? Could you expect that a fair number of your classmates in the room would disagree with your central claim?" If not, why write the paper?), but also how to support, how to imagine the appropriate interlocutors, how to sense and address potential counter-arguments, how to marshal other sources, etc.
Frank Cioffi wrote a nice book on argument recently called The Imaginative Argument: A Practical Manifesto for Writers. He writes that "the best argumentative writing expands and transforms the ideas of the writer.... It doesn't offer an easy answer or position.... One student told me writing in the argumentative mode was 'scary.' It's just not something they've been taught to do -- yet its being tantamount to an transgressive act can make it much more attractive." When Louis Menand, in a short New Yorker article from 2000, argues that the academic essay is "one of those skills in life that people are obliged to master in order to be excused from ever practicing them again," Cioffi responds with these thoughts: "But that's OK. I argue that the academic argument...forms the central and most important kind of nonfiction writing that you should master, even if you don't get a chance to use it after graduating from college. It's important not only because it draws on elements of all the other forms of nonfiction writing and hence will allow you to move to any of those forms relatively easily. It also replicates the method by which ideas are created. It teaches you to think."
posted by Eric at 3:10 PM
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