ENG 111
Iliana Miller
Kyle Harper
Comparative Rhetorical Analysis
There are many different troubles that we as students face growing up and going
through high school and college as well. Two of these that will be focused on in this article is
not getting involved with and simply not liking books. Another problem that we face is the lack
of getting together as students, with other students and teachers. Both of these can pose
problems and affect your learning and not being interested in school. As time goes on and
you’re in school most high school and college kids begin to start disliking and not getting
involved more and more each year. If you are unable to find yourself an interest in the classes
and books or to get together and collaborate with other people, there may be a fair chance you
might not get through all of the classes required to graduate or get your major.
“Disliking Books at A Young Age” written by Gerald Graff focuses on exactly what the
title says. Many people can relate to this exact problem including Graff himself at a younger
age. Graff claims, “Literature and History had no apparent application to my experience.” As
humans in this society we are all different in our own unique ways and some of us are more
hands on learning people and some are more visual learners. To go along with that, we also can
be more mathematically and scientifically inclined or more inclined in liberal arts. Graff’s
writing is focused on an audience doesn’t see books as interesting or a hobby for people. Some
people enjoy reading books for pleasure and can directly relate there selves to the book and
find it interesting to go into the journey that the book takes you. He is trying to reach out to
students to explain his reasoning of being able to come out through not knowing how to get
ENG 111
Iliana Miller
Kyle Harper
involved with the book to being able to enjoy reading them, find out the meaning of them and
not being miserable while doing so. Graff says, “What first made literature, history, and other
intellectual pursuits seem attractive to me was exposure to critical debates.” This can directly
relate to Kenneth Bruffee’s article on “The art of Collaborative learning” by getting involved
with others to collaborate and debate the similarities, differences, and reasoning or tone
behind the text.
Graff has clear evidence of how this is a problem and how there are ways to overcome
the issue as well. First and foremost, he was one of the students that didn’t have any interest in
books as a younger student. Being stuck on buckling down and having to choose his major, the
only think that he could find appealing at the time was indeed Liberal Arts. In choosing this
major he would come in direct contact of Literature and history which was the types of classes
that he didn’t enjoy as a student when he was younger. There has been evidence to me
personally that I’ve seen a lot more debates that teacher try to get the students involved with
one another to see different views on the topics which in turn gets me more involved as well,
directly relating me to the same experience of Mr. Gerald Graff. Everyone must find there
medium or interest that sticks out at them even if you are not interested in the class itself and it
is very possible if you are determined to become a good learner.
There is one direct reason that leads me to believe the reasoning behind the article of
“disliking books at a young age” and that is to find what interest you within a certain subject
even if you are not directly appealed to the subject. He directly relates with students that has
ENG 111
Iliana Miller
Kyle Harper
had the struggle and shares his stories and theories behind his reasoning of enjoying the
subject that he once believed was not suitable for him in any way. While he was starting to
realize the secret that his teachers have been trying to get to him, he progressed in relating,
and realizing why the author wrote the book and the moral of it as well. “I went back to the
novel again and found myself rereading it with an excitement I had never felt before with a
serious book” Graff claims. This is another statement in which he is trying to explain his
reasoning on his sudden excitement within the courses.
Kenneth Bruffee has a very interesting article on collaborating and “Making the Most of
Knowledgeable Peers”. He puts his main focus on the simple facts on how he believes that
collaborating with other students, peers, and teachers may be very effective in the learning
process. This differs from Graff’s article because Graff uses personal experiences throughout
the whole article to try to get his point across. With Bruffee’s article he has a combination of
personal experiences and evidence or testable facts to back up his outlook on collaborative
learning. Mr. Bruffee starts his article out with a very strong quote that may have people really
starting to think more about working together if they don’t already. “Professional collaboration
and collaborative learning works because knowledge itself is the result of our ongoing work
with each other.” This meaning, knowledge has been constantly being manipulated and
changed by us getting together and realizing what may be wrong and right.
There is a specific set of reasons that lies behind the text of Bruffee’s article all relating
to how learning with peers will help throughout school. Bruffee states, “Students learn better
ENG 111
Iliana Miller
Kyle Harper
through noncompetitive collaborative group work than in classrooms that are highly
individualized and competitive.” What he is trying to say with this statement is instead of
always putting students against each other to debate to find a common outlook; we should
focus on getting them to work together in a positive way to have them come up with a common
decision on whatever they are discussing. With this happening within the classroom it will
affectively get students to learn how to work together with one another. This can be extremely
effective throughout your whole life if you learn to do this. “It is motivated also by the
observation that the rest of the world now works collaboratively almost as a universal
principle.” Graff says this to back up his claim on how effective this idea really can be.
The evidence is very clear all throughout the article that supports his claims. One that
was brought to my attention and stuck out to me was a research project from a woman named
Abercrombie. Her research included a group of med students at a university hospital. The
research concluded with a book she wrote called The Anatomy of Judgment; this book claimed
that, “the medical students learning the key element in successful medical practice, diagnosisthat is, medical judgment-more quickly and accurately when they worked collaboratively in
small groups than when they worked individually.” Bruffee also goes on to relate this study
directly to classroom collaboration stating, “In classroom collaborative learning, typically,
students organized by the teacher into small groups discuss a topic proposed by the teacher
with the purpose of arriving at consensus much as Abercrombie’s medical students. His article
is very dependent and keeps going back to the results or the book that Abercrombie wrote.
ENG 111
Iliana Miller
Kyle Harper
Between the two of these articles they both have a similar tone when you compare
them to using their past experiences to get a certain point across or to even relate with the
audience that they are trying to speak out to. They both provide personal facts of them
learning how to effectively use these methods to their advantage and to try to get other
students to use these methods as well. They differ in the fact that Bruffee uses more facts or
research methods to back up his reasoning while Graff uses more of his personal approach.
Overall they both have good reasoning to get there point across.