RWS 100 @ San Diego State

Argument is at the center of SDSU’s GE program and
lower division writing program.

Why? Because argumentation is central to academic
literacy, critical thinking, and civic life
- Lasch: “argument is the essence of education… [and]
central to democratic culture”;
- Norgaard: “Universities are houses of argument.”
- Graff: “Argument literacy” is key to higher education.
RWS100: MAIN ASSIGNMENTS
1.
Unit 1: Analysis of a Single Argument: Describe and analyze
an author’s project, argument, claims, support and rhetorical
strategies.
2.
Unit 2: “Sources” Assignment: Construct an account of an
author’s argument; research outside texts and analyze how they
extend, complicate, challenge, illustrate, or qualify the
argument.
3.
Unit 3: Strategies Assignment: Construct an account of one
or more authors’ arguments and explain rhetorical strategies
that these authors—and by extension other writers—use to
engage readers in thinking about their arguments.
4.
Unit 4: Optional 4th assignment – “lens assignment,” portfolio,
or reflection.
The units build on each other, but all
begin with
1. The rhetorical situation
2. “PACES”
Project
Argument
Main Claims
Evidence
Strategies
Helping students understand new
terms and read rhetorically…

To help students understand this new way of
approaching texts, we often begin with a series of
short, simple texts that are “reflexive,” that foreground
their own rhetoric, reflect on their rhetorical situation,
reveal their persuasive strategies.

Then we ask students to compose short texts and
perform a similar task – reflect on the rhetorical
situation, the moves they make, the claims they
advance, and the strategies they use.
Using a YouTube Animation to
introduce rhetorical concepts
Situation: The syllabus says that the
instructor does not accept late work and
that if you miss class you will be penalized.
Nevertheless, you miss three classes (out
of 15 total) and try to hand in the second
major assignment a week late. If the
instructor doesn’t accept your work you will
fail the class.
Assignment: Please write the instructor a
brief email explaining your situation. You
do not want to fail the class.
Unit 1: Common Activities
1.
Pre-reading and “pre-discussion” work
Examining Titles Carefully: Chua’s article “A World on the Edge” is
part of her book World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market
Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability
Section Headings you can find out a lot by going through the
section and chapter headings. Eg Pinker’s “The Moral Instinct”
1. The Moralization Switch
2. Reasoning & Rationalizing
3. A Universal Morality?
4. The Varieties of Moral Experience
5. The Genealogy of Morals
6. Juggling the Spheres
7. Is Nothing Sacred?
8. Is Morality a Figment ?
9. Doing Better by Knowing Ourselves
Unit 1: Common Activities cont.
2.
Modeling close reading strategies –
annotating, posing questions, reading
actively and critically.
Unit 1: Common Activities cont.
3.
Charting – what is the text doing (what,
how, why moves are made).
Students chart their own and their peers’ writing
Showing that
this claim really
is in the text,
and why E.
makes it.
An important part of Ehrenreich’s
argument is that the poor are invisible
to affluent people. She suggests that
the affluent “are less and less likely
to share public spaces and services with
the poor,” that political parties are
unwilling to “acknowledge that low-wage
work doesn’t lift people out of poverty”
(217) and that media attention focuses
more on “occasional success stories”
than on the rising numbers of poor and
hungry people (218). The fact that the
poor are invisible contributes to the
lack of attention that the problem of
low wages is getting.
Writer telling reader
one piece of E.’s
argument, one
claim.
Explaining why the
“invisibility claim”
is significant
Unit 1: Common Activities cont.
4.
PACES (project, argument, claims, evidence,
strategies)
Identifying claims – a good rule of thumb is to look for the following
cues:
- question/answer pattern
- problem/solution pattern
- self-identification (“my point here is that…”)
- emphasis/repetition (“it must be stressed that…”)
- approval (“Olson makes some important and long overdue
amendments to work on …”)
- metalanguage that explicitly uses the language of argument
(“My argument consists of three main claims. First, that…”)
Identifying and sorting claims
Unit 1: Common Activities cont.
Drafting: models, outlines, templates,
rhetorical precis; metadiscourse, quotations
6. Drafting: peer review, workshops, review
plans, student “read-alouds,” conferencing
7. Assessment and response
8. Reflection and reflective practice (applying
concepts to students own writing – e.g.
charting, analyzing students’ moves and
strategies, etc.)
5.
They Say/I Say Templates – verbs for talking about
arguments
Templates:
The Graff & B Template
One of our templates
We show students how to be apprentices to the kinds of
writing they’re reading in the class.
SDSU Student Tyler Stevens:
In this paper I will assess O’Brien’s
story and Kaldor’s speech, and show how
war inevitably affects many more people
besides the soldiers that are fighting in it.
I will also point out each author’s
rhetorical strategies, hoping to distinguish
which author is more effective in their
argument, and what moral uncertainties
are dislodged in their writings. (1)
RWS Learning Outcome: Use metadiscourse to signal the project
of a paper and guide a reader from one idea to the next.
We give students opportunities to reflect on their growth in
writing and reading in relation to our learning outcomes.
Review and reflect on the four papers
you wrote this semester.
What are two ways you feel your writing
has strengthened? Give specific examples
from your papers to illustrate this. How do
these strengths add to the overall success
of your writing?
Discuss how these strengths increased
your ability to accomplish one of our chief
course outcomes: Construct an account of
an argument; translate that argument into
your own words.
-RWS 100 Final In-Class Writing
“The ability to reflect on what is being
written seems to be the essence of the
difference between able and not so able
writers from their initial writing
experience onward’
(Pianko, quoted in Yancey, Reflection in the Writing Classroom, p.4)