Reader Response #3

           In her article "Helping Students Use Textual Sources Persuasively",  Margaret Kantz attempts to figure out why there is such a difference between the way students write their term papers in High School, compared with the struggles they have writing the sort of papers for College. She argues that the problem lies within the mentally of writing a term paper in school, where one draft has to be turned in within a specific time and the expectation is simply copying down and facts and put them all in an order that pleases the teacher, because writing "writer-based prose" (Writing About Writing, 73) is all the student knows to structure a research paper.
          This article relates to Michael Kleine's “What Is It We Do When We Write Articles Like This One – and How Can We Get Students to Join Us?” in that both of them are written by lovers of writing who know that there is a richer way of writing a term paper, and while both of them approaches that idea in different ways--Kantz thinks the problem can be solved by approaching the writing in a more rhetoric style, while Kleine takes a more observational path with people-- they both reach the same conclusion: previous notions of writing is insufficient to what students should be thinking about with their writing.

                                                       Getting Ready To Read

          Fact: Objective statement that has been proved to be true many times in the past.
          Claim: One person using an subjective belief as if it was an objective fact.
          Opinion: Subjective statement that an individual believes in.
          Argument: Two or more people fighting their subjective opinions to arrive at an
                            objective conclusion they can all agree on. 

                                     
                                           Questions for Discussion and Journaling 

1.) 
          Going by just Kantz's article, it seems as she believes that both facts and opinions achieve the same goal, only that facts are events that can be easily manipulated and opinions are beliefs of a writer that either adds or subtracts to the writing. As for arguments, that is when one opinion of facts contradicts with other opinions of the same facts, so Kantz says to approach this kind of text in a more detached setting and figure out if those facts are actually being suppressed or not.  


2.) 
          According to Kantz, there are three causes for the material of student writers: They read sources as if they are stories, they go under the assumption that every word in the text is telling the truth, and they do not understand that facts are actually used to create an impression in a more persuasive fashion, acting more as claims in "objective" writing than valid sentences in any kind of writing.  Basically, what students don't comprehend is that higher educational writing is not constructed to a simple formula, where one has to find facts and main ideas and summarizes it to make it simple to understand. Related to the causes, she also pointed out that writing in a single draft is not enough to fully understand the ideas the term paper is suppose to teach a student, and once the student realizes that, they would have have to be more prepared to create more structural note-taking, along with creating higher task management skills to survive seeing the work show up in a more polished paper. Obviously, I agree with Kantz's thinking, and after reading the material, I now feel more comfortable writing papers, knowing that I can writing multiple drafts, find who it is the sources were aimed for, and finding gaps in the writing to construct a more satisfying paper for me, my peers, and my teachers.

                                                   Applying and Exploring Ideas

2.) 
          Prior to this class, I was under the assumption that the relationship between creatively and research, while important, was not something you should strive for in your work. As in, while it is a good idea to study your subjects and be creative with arranging the facts from those subjects all into a structure, what matters most is the observations and research the writers puts into the writing, so write down the facts in a way your high school teacher can understand it first, think about arguments for a boarder audience later.  Going by Kantz's text though, where creativity is essential to research, it seems like the way the student thinks about the material is still correct, but it really should done in a more rhetoric matter, where student writers think of the context and gaps of the writing more than outright story-based organization they are used to. If done right, the writing will become more important to the student once he or she goes beyond writing the facts into a structure that pleases not that many people, to the point where the writer actually learns something from the material given throughout the class.  Basically, Kantz and I both agree that putting the facts into a more self-satisfying analytical style will make the writing more richer to everyone involved, so much so that her mentions of rhetoric writing might be used by me in the future, I am a little more forgiving with the context of some factual statement in research than Kantz does, whereas Kantz sees facts as claims that can be easily manipulated, I see that manipulation as a way to find a bigger claim that points to a bigger objection to the research material, probably making it more fascinating than it has any right to be.    


                                                             Meta Moment
          Going by just the text, Kantz seems to analyze on how difficult it is for college student to go beyond "writer-based prose",  or a more narrative structure that organizes the material with "points" rather than arguments. Beyond that, the student has to learn to write material with much more sources, the context of those sources, the familiarity of the text within the sources, and come up with boils down to a compelling argument. Kantz suggest that, to make papers simpler in their construction, or to take all that organization into a more abstract theory that does not deal within specifics, there is a rhetorical triangle that has the Encoders, those who interpret the material, the Reality, the topic in hand, and the Decoder, or those who read the interpretation and figure out if the writings match Reality or not. Basically, all these constructs, findings, or claims all lead to one conclusion: Students like myself should understand rhetoric writing in the future, and once we go beyond telling a story with the facts in our research, it will allow us to compose material that is richer than we think it is actually is.   

          Overall, the article was satisfying to read, since now I know that some ideas that floated in my head about writing actually can be defined into terms, such as rhetoric, gaps, or cognitive overload. Now that I am aware of this sort of writing, I am hoping that my writing will now have this air of confidence that will make it satisfying to anyone who reads future material, especially myself.