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NameDateEnglish Language Arts, Arguing Your Case Unit 1, Lesson 5 Worksheet: They Say/I Say III; Templates for Introducing an Ongoing Debate. An argument, as Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 2009) points out, is “a discourse intended to persuade” and “a coherent series of statements leading from a premise to a conclusion.” Merriam-Webster’s explains that something is coherent when it is “logically or aesthetically ordered,” has “clarity or intelligibility,” and has “the quality of holding together or cohering.” So, how do writers of argumentative papers achieve coherence? One way is by using rhetoric. What is rhetoric? Rhetoric is an idea about language that goes all the way back to the ancient world. Merriam-Webster’s, once again, defines rhetoric at some length: “the art of speaking or writing effectively: as the study of principles and rules of composition formulated by critics of ancient times; the study of writing or speaking as a means of communication or persuasion.”In our last lesson you learned that the noun discourse means, for the purposes of the work we are doing on argumentation, both formal and orderly and usually extended expression of thought on a subject as well as a mode of organizing knowledge, ideas, or experience that is rooted in language and its concrete contexts.The purpose of today’s lesson is to provide you with some basic rhetorical figures used in argumentation along with some short discourses with which to try them out. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s begin with today’s work, which are some verbal templates that allow you to enter a scholarly discourse—which is of course what you are engaged in anytime you set out to write a paper—by summarizing the current state of that discourse.So, we’ll start with three rhetorical templates from the book that informs the work in this unit and its lessons, Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein’s The Say/ISay: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing (2nd ed. New York: Norton, 2010). These templates employ rhetorical strategies used when entering a relatively complex debate, and introduces the terms of that debate. In so doing, these templates (and, indeed, the first template concludes with a clause for presenting your own view) provide you with a setup to articulate your own view, and even postulate a thesis.Introducing an Ongoing Debate: Use these templates, with the texts in section II, to introduce the terms of an ongoing debate.In discussions of X, one controversial issue has been __________________. On the one hand, ________________ argues _________________. On the other hand, ____________ contends __________________. Others even maintain ________________________. My own view is _______________________.When it comes to the topic of __________________________, most of us will readily agree that _______________________. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of _______________________. Whereas some are convinced that _________________________, others maintain that _________________________.In conclusion, then, as I suggested earlier, defenders of _______________________ can’t have it both ways. Their assertion that _________________________ is contradicted by their claim that ___________________________.The Texts: using these texts, excerpted from a leading scholarly journal as well as from the book we are using to inform this course, in to inform your use of the rhetorical templates in section I.“Theories of how the mind/brain works have been dominated for centuries by two opposing views. One, rationalism, sees the human mind as coming into this world more or less fully formed—preprogrammed, in modern terms. The other, empiricism, sees the mind of a newborn as largely unstructured, a blank slate.”Mark Aronoff, “Washington Sleeped Here”“That we are a nation divided is an almost universal lament of this bitter election year. However, the exact property that divides us—elemental thought it is said to be—remains a matter of some controversy.”Thomas Frank, “American Psyche.”“India, the world’s largest democracy, also happens to be the world’s most hierarchical society; its most powerful and wealthy citizens, who are overwhelmingly upper-caste, are very far from checking their privileges or understanding the cruel disadvantages of birth among the low castes. Dalits remain largely invisible in popular cinema, sitcoms, television commercials, and soap operas. No major museums commemorate their long suffering. Unlike racism in the United States, which provokes general condemnation, there are no social taboos—as distinct from legal provisions—against hatred or loathing of low-caste Hindus. Many Dalits are still treated as “untouchables,” despite the equal rights granted to them by India’s democratic constitution.”Mishra, Pankaj. “God’s Oppressed Children.” The New York Review of Books LXIV.20 (2017): 42. Print.“In his slashing attack on Prussian culture, Where Blood Is Their Argument, published at the height of the Great War, Ford Madox Ford mocks the cult of “Goethe as Superman.” Yet there still persists a notion of Goethe’s life as exemplary, a phenomenon above and beyond his works. This tradition lingers on in the subtitle of Rudiger Safranski’s new biography, Goethe: Life as a Work of Art. Goethe is not the only artist to have seen his life like this. Oscar Wilde famously said to Andre Gide, “I have put all my genius into my life; I have put only my talent into my works”; Marcel Duchamp had the same fancy. But only Goethe, I think, has succeeded so well in persuading posterity to the same view.”Mount, Ferdinand. “Super Goethe.” The New York Review of Books LXIV.20 (2017): 12. Print.“For decades, Claremont acolytes have insisted that Washington return the country to its founding principles. In their view these principles have been debased by over a century of big government and loose constitutional interpretation, beginning with Woodrow Wilson. Since then, progressive thought and policies have steadily eviscerated the moral and legal foundations of America, creating a dangerous class of shiftless idlers and illegal immigrants sponging off the federal government. A muscular foreign policy, a crackdown on immigration, a rollback of the welfare state, an end to political correctness, and, above all, an appreciation of the titans who wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are essential to a fresh era of national greatness.”Heilbrunn, Jacob. “Donald Trump’s Brains.” The New York Review of Books LXIV.20 (2017): 34. Print. ................
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