Name: Mrs. Kirk
Development and Arrangement
Composition
Name:___________________________ Personal Argument: Preliminary Work
Type directly into the document.
Part I: The Rhetorical Triangle—the basics of your argument
LOGOS—The argument
1. Purpose: What do you want your audience to do, think, or believe as a result of
your argument?
I want them to fully read the actual books assigned, not shortcuts such as Sparknotes.
2. What is your claim (the arguable statement you want to prove):
Using Sparknotes interferes with your learning, preventing the
development of needed skills.
3. What are the main reasons you will use to support your claim?
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

Reading, interpreting, and analyzing literature is a necessary workout for your brain and
strengthens your thinking skills
You actually have to be able to think on your own and figure things out by yourself, and
inevitably there will come a time when there won’t be a Sparknotes to explain something for
you
Reading the actual literature will improve your writing style and enhance your vocabulary
Reading now will make you more likely to be a reader later. Reading is linked with success and
wealth (include research).
A grade achieved through shortcuts does not really reflect what you know or what you can
do. Phony.
PATHOS- Audience and their emotions:
1. Who is your audience?
 9(1) students
 They are bright, busy, and fun-loving, but sometimes lack foresight or long-term
thinking
2. What do they care about?
 grades and doing well: report cards, SAT’s, NHS, college admission
 their time; they feel very overwhelmed
 written homework that gets checked or graded; science tests
3. How do you want to make them feel?
 Guilty for lying or “faking” to a teacher who cares about them.
 Worried that taking a shortcut is going to hurt their ability to succeed in the
future.
 A sense of pride in being authentic and in working hard
Name: Mrs. Kirk
Development and Arrangement
Composition
Confident that they are capable of doing the work
4. What will be their arguments against your claim?

My audience’s opposing views
· Reading takes too much time and they are already overloaded with written
homework and after-school activities
· Other homework is more important: studying for test or quiz, practicing math
problems
· There are few jobs for which analyzing literature is a prerequisite
· Sparknotes help them understand the book better. They don’t understand the
book without it.
· Reading is boring; they don’t enjoy the books
ETHOS: Writer’s ethics/persona:
1. What is the impression you’d like to make of yourself?
 an expert on literacy: developing required reading and writing skills.
 someone who cares about their success in the class and in life.
 I was once an freshman in honors classes; I want them to know that I had a similar
workload; I want them to know what skills have helped me achieve academic
success
 I want to avoid sounding like a bitter teacher who is scolding them for cheating. I
want to sound understanding and empathetic about their workload.
2. What do you value?
 their long-term success and development as learners and thinkers
 the learning process, not just the number. Grades are not important to me.
___________________________________________________________________
Part II: Patterns of Development—supporting your argument.
Choose five of these methods to develop support ideas for your claim. Most of the
time we stick to simple “Examples.” We are going to try to develop some new
patterns to enhance the quality and variety of our methods.
*Note: Most of these will be based on your observations and knowledge. If you want to
look up any information, properly quote and cite the sources
Name: Mrs. Kirk
Development and Arrangement
Composition
1. narrative:
We were reviewing chapter eight of TKM aloud in class, and had reached the
pivotal moment when Jem decides that he wants to defend Boo Radley
instead of treating him as an object of curiosity and rumor. I read the
paragraph aloud, with the most amount of expression I could muster. I knew
the students understood the gist of the chapter, for they had correctly
answered questions about it on the reading-check quiz. So, I instead asked a
few questions about the words and language in the passage, things they
should have been able to identify if they had read and understood the chapter
previously. “Okay,” I began, “To whom is Jem referring when he says ‘he ain’t
done us no harm’?” No hands were raised. I tried a different
approach. “Who is the person Jem wants to protect?” Still no answer. I
continued to water-down my line of questions. I even asked the students to
write down the answer, thinking maybe they were just shy about sharing with
class. At least half were clueless or totally off base, yet these same students
passed the quiz. If they knew that Jem had changed his mind about Boo
Radley, if they filled in a summary, then how could they NOT know the
reference in the passage? Couldn’t they analyze and interpret the text? The
only possible reason for their lack of understanding is that they hadn’t
actually read THE BOOK.
2. Description: emphasizes senses by describing how something looks,
sounds, tastes, feels, smells; relies on concrete detail; establishes mood or
atmosphere
Imagine the feeling of the soft, worn pages on your fingers. You are sitting in
a quiet space, ignoring your surroundings, the only sound is that of pen
scratching on a post-it note. You feel the slight weight of a book in your
hand, a book that many students before you have read, analyzed, loved or
hated. Colorful tabs jut out of the book, illustrating your moments of
confusion, revelation, and joy. The book itself shows your learning
process. It’s personal.
In contrast, the blinding screen of a computer. The rush of your eyes over the
tiny type. ...
Name: Mrs. Kirk
Development and Arrangement
Composition
3. Process analysis: explanation on how something works, how to do
something, how something was done; clarity of stages, steps or phases is
essential
If you do the following, you can make your time spent reading worthwhile,
enjoyable, and productive
1. Start when you are alert (not tired). It may be nice to read first thing
after getting home from a stressful day at school.
2. Put yourself in a quiet, comfortable atmosphere. Have a snack nearby.
3. Have your supplies at the ready, including notes and pens
4. Read, stopping every five minutes or few pages to jot notes, so you can
write down questions, summaries, interpretations. This way you don’t
just read the words and forget the content.
5. When you’re finished, take a moment to reflect and answer the
question “so what?”
4. Exemplification: providing specific instances (examples) to make a general
point more precise and concrete
· Talk about “Ray” and his essay. Couldn’t cite pages numbers of any
quotes. Called Scout “he”
· Example of SAT passage and the skills required to answer
questions. Same skills developed reading lit.
5. Comparison and Contrast: juxtaposing two things to highlight similarities
and differences
Everyone wants to be fit and attractive; few people want to exercise. Exercise
is physically exhausting. It takes up time we don’t have. It can be
boring. Yet when we exercise, we see benefits: we become faster, stronger,
leaner; we feel a sense of accomplishment; we become healthier and live
better lives. The same applies to the mental exercise of reading. Yes, reading
can be challenging, time consuming or even seem boring; however, the work
it takes to read is worth the effort. It does have results, although they may be
intangible.
Name: Mrs. Kirk
Development and Arrangement
Composition
Everyone wants to be smarter, to earn impressive grades, to boast a high
score on the SAT. Reading is the mental exercise that will help you achieve
these goals.
6. Classification and Division: sorting ideas into major categories; explaining
what goes together and why.
“Authentic intelligence” versus “Fake smart”
· Authentic intelligence comes from challenging yourself, putting yourself
through mentally exhausting activities, stretching your brain. Authentic
intelligence develops and strengthens and can be applied to new challenges
in the future.
· “Fake smart” is achieved through short-term memorization. Sparknoters
can earn decent grades on quizzes and even essays by pilfering ideas thought
of by others. But can they understand, interpret, and analyze what they read
in the real world? Are they developing skills of improved reading
comprehension, processing speed, or variety of syntactical patterns?
7. Definition
In its simplest form, reading is a visual and auditory action: the act of making
sense of letters and sounds as they form into words. We stop “reading” as
soon as we master it; the skill becomes automatic and then we can begin
Reading—the act of making sense of others’ ideas; the act of constructing
understanding of what is and even isn’t being said on the page; the act of
placing oneself in another’s mind and seeing the world from his
perspective. This type of Reading involves thinking, understanding, feeling,
and questioning.
8. Cause and effect: The effect of not reading independently, or of relying on
other means to summarize a text for you in simplest form, even analyzing it
for you, is that when you are required to read something of personal value,
need, or interest, you lack the practice in making meaning of that text. You
can’t follow the editorial in the paper about a candidate’s positions; you
can’t interpret the accounting literature explaining new procedures; you can’t
dissect the passage for the critical reading section of the SAT. In short, when
Name: Mrs. Kirk
Development and Arrangement
Composition
it comes to thinking on your feet, you have little practice or background. You
are at a disadvantage.
Part III: The Classical Model of Arrangement: Outlining your argument
introduction: pique interest, draw attention, challenge your audience; establish ethos; state thesis at
end
narration: why the subject is a problem that needs addressing; usually evokes an emotional response.
confirmation: the proof or development; generally strongest appeal to logos; use at least two
developmental patterns here. Several paragraphs.
Name: Mrs. Kirk
Development and Arrangement
Composition
refutation: counterargument or rebuttal. What is your audience’s best argument against your claim?
Prove it wrong!
conclusion: brings ideas together and answers the question “so what”; usually appeals to pathos and
reminds reader of established ethos. Make sure you establish a sense of urgency!!
: