Rationale for English 1: Perspectives on Argument
Fall 2001
The ability to manipulate language is crucial to making a good argument, no
matter what kind of argument. It is also useful for other types of writing, such as
narrative, etc. One pedagogical framework that teaches the kinds of tools which we
believe to be the most effective and useful for students to learn to manipulate
language well, is rhetoric. Through the readings and exercises given, we hope to
give the students strategies upon which they can draw throughout their college
careers (and beyond?), no matter what type of essays they find themselves required
to write. Fittingly, the textbook we chose is Nancy Woods' Perspectives on
Argument, third edition, published by Prentice Hall in 2000. Perspectives on
Argument was a natural choice for us as its focus is on argument construction and
the tools of language manipulation. We have also chosen The Bedford Handbook,
using some sections from this to supplement Perspectives, our primary text.
Together with our emphasis on the importance of the tools rhetoric provides
for effective writing, we also believe that writing is a process and that, even with
these tools upon which a student may draw, clear and strong essays are a result of
various steps which may be accomplished in different ways. Our syllabus includes
many opportunities for students to share their ideas and write. We have scheduled
workshops to give students the benefit of feedback from their peers as well as from
the instructors.
It seems clear that effective reading is crucial to effective writing.
Perspectives includes exercises for individual and group work that illustrate the
strategies for effective reading and writing and offer the students opportunities for
applying these strategies. The book also includes many essays in "The Reader," a
section in the back of the book, which can be approached from many directions and
linked with each other according to different foci.
The first part of the book, and the bulk of its contents, include sections that
teach the tools and writing exercises that, again, help the students apply these skills
and help them form arguments, use evidence, etc. One feature of Perspectives that is
attractive to us is the idea that "argument is not always polarized" and that "not all
argument results in the declaration of winners. The development of common ground
and either consensus or compromise are sometimes as acceptable as declaring
winners" (preface, xxv).
To supplement Perspectives we will use Diana Hacker's Bedford Handbook.
The handbook offers certain sections that offer useful information and exercises for
things such as paragraph or thesis construction, concise and precise sentence
construction, and citations. The selections we have chosen out of this book are
minimal as they are meant to supplement only. As we will be using the Handbook
for very specific elements, we will not be moving in it in a linear fashion. Rather, the
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students’ assignments will move around in it, to go along with what will be
highlighted that day from Perspectives and the work we will do in class.
We believe that it is more effective to begin with the global issues and move
to the local. Hence, our assignments (which will be discussed in the second part of
this rationale), move from the macro to the micro elements of essay writing. Yet
before we get into serious writing mode, we will discuss reading. Our syllabus
begins with teaching tools for critical readings, and assignments designed to foster
and apply these skills are interspersed throughout the course. Perspectives includes
a chapter on "Reading Argument" which we have assigned for the second day of the
course. On this day we have also scheduled two assignments designed to make the
students aware of the tools for critical reading and to apply these skills.
When students first arrive at U.C. Davis, they are, all too often, intimidated by
academic writing, just as they are unprepared for critical reading. The stronger
writers generally are not sure why their writing is strong, and the weaker writers are
usually just struggling to keep their heads above the waterline. Recognizing this, we
have designed our course around two fundamental objectives: to demystify the
writing process and to provide students with writing strategies and skills that will be
transferable to most, if not all, university classes. There are, of course, a number of
other objectives implied in these two larger objectives, and these will become clear
during the course of this rationale.
Our first major objective involves making writing (which is frequently
imagined to be a solitary, inspired activity in the minds of students—the legacy of
Wordsworth and Romanticism, I would argue) something understandable and
manageable for students. The best way of doing this is, of course, to discuss writing
as a process. We begin doing this from the first day. The proposed diagnostic essay
is Gale Godwin’s “The Watcher at the Gates,” a brief essay in which Godwin
discusses how her “watcher” often forces her to “reject too soon and discriminate too
severely.” Though students are only asked to respond to Godwin’s suggestions for
“outsmarting” the watcher during this first class, the essay itself will not only get
students thinking about what goes into producing a piece of writing but will also
provide them with a discourse in which to discuss writing. Then, when we reach
chapter four of Perspectives on Argument, we can refer to Godwin’s essay as we
discuss the prewriting and revising strategies that Nancy Woods outlines in this clear
and helpful chapter. The goal of linking the two readings is more than just to
reinforce the ideas, but also to reveal the writing process of professional writers to
students, to show them that there is no “magic” that goes into writing.
This emphasis on demystifying the writing process is reinforced in other ways
within our course as well. The four major essays are sequenced (as we will discuss
later on), but within the larger sequence, there are a number of smaller sequences
that not only reinforce the “process” of writing but also make that process more
manageable for students. For example, the first essay asks students to write about
their high school experience. Each day in class will begin with a short writing
assignment (around ten minutes) that asks them to think about their most
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noteworthy class, teacher, experience from high school. The potential benefits of
these assignments are at least twofold: They will get students thinking about the
topic in concrete terms, and they will also allow students to gather potential evidence
to support their assertions about high school. In addition, the design of the syllabus
itself, as noted above, imitates the writing process. Both move from global to local
issues; they start with developing and revising ideas and move toward editing
sentences.
Our second major goal—to provide students with writing strategies that they
can use in different writing situations—is clearly connected to the first. Providing
students with strategies is like providing them with the tools they will need to do
their jobs. Foremost among these strategies is the ability to write an effective thesis
(by “effective,” we mean a clear, focused and arguable thesis). Diana Hacker’s brief
section on writing theses provides a good start, and chapter six of Perspectives on
Argument, in which Woods outlines claims of fact, definition, cause, value, and
policy will augment Hacker. There are a number of writing strategies that our course
endeavors to reveal to students—writing refutations, identifying and developing
warrants, integrating quotations, etc.—far too many to go into here. But one skill
that does deserve some attention, largely because of its significance within our
course, is the ability to evaluate and implement types of support. Woods’s textbook,
with its chapters on the Toulmin Model and types of “proofs” (logos, ethos, and
pathos) provides a solid framework for what we want to teach students. These two
chapters, and the exercises within them, will introduce students to different
strategies for supporting their arguments, with chapter seven clearly building upon
chapter five. Moreover, the emphasis on evidence, as it is presented in Woods’s text,
draws the writer’s attention to audience (as does the Toulmin model in general),
which reminds students that they are always writing within a context: with a reader
beyond the teacher. The underlying goal is always to provide students with
strategies and skills for approaching future writing assignments.
As for our own writing assignments, the overall sequence will look like this:
Paper 1: Argument from Personal Experience
Paper 2: Argument Incorporating Source(s)
Paper 3: Argument Synthesizing Sources
Paper 4: Argument from Multiple Sources
The assignments themselves are sequences so that each assignment asks students to
build upon previously developed skills. For example, the first essay emphasizes the
fundamental argumentative skills necessary for the entire course: writing a clear and
focused thesis and developing and defending that thesis primarily through the use of
personal experience. Then, each successive assignment builds upon the previous. In
paper 2, students will move from using personal experience as evidence to using that
experience to negotiate an arguable position with an outside source (here too,
students will put to use the critical reading strategies emphasized early in the term).
In paper 3, then, students will take on an even more challenging task by negotiating
an arguable position by synthesizing two works. And finally, paper 4 will involve
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incorporating a number of sources, hopefully unifying the many skills and strategies
introduced during the quarter.
In addition to building new skills, each assignment after paper 1 is designed to
force students to reevaluate the skills used in the previous essay. For example,
students will begin writing effective theses based solely upon their own experiences,
but when they begin to incorporate outside sources, they will have to reassess what
makes a good thesis. The same would be true for papers 3 and 4. And clearly, the
thesis would not be the only thing reevaluated: the use of evidence, the type of
organization, etc.—all of these would have to be reevaluated as students continue to
write within our sequence.
If pressed for an overall objective for our course, we might say that we want to
empower students, to give them the skills/strategies they will need to read critically,
think analytically, and write effectively. We see ourselves as facilitators in what
Paulo Freire describes as “problem-posing” pedagogy, an approach that puts
students’ interests and efforts at the forefront of the classroom.