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.
Monday, September 3, 2012
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Reading Response #2
In
his article “What Is It We Do When We Write Articles Like This One – and How
Can We Get Students to Join Us?”, Michael Kleine attempts to write about why students of higher education are not expanding their horizons beyond going to the library and start cramming in fact after fact in their research papers, which leads him to think about those who are professionally academic and figure out why they work beyond the way student conduct their writings and how they reach to that point of their studies, to the point where they find inspiration from people who are just as excited about learning as they are. He argues that if his idea of a more social research model works, students can not only have fun hunting info--to build their writing into more fascinating material--but they can also have fun gathering info to make their overall writing more richer than it ought to be, because he fears that the more students toil their research in a more solidarity location, the less rewarding their work would be if they ever decide to continue that kind of model in future studies.
Compared to Sturat Greene's "Argument As Conversation", an article that talks about how arguments could be beneficial instead of threatening, both articles are about two professionals--inspired by their love for writing--figuring out an idea on how writing studies can be a more social occupation, instead of being many lonesome moments of their lives they worked on by now, where a student has to rely on his own cogitative skills to bring a paper to fruition. To Kliene, it is about trying to make the process itself more intriguing, while Greene talks about maybe altering past thinking of his idea completely, to where he thinks social conversations could be made out of arguments instead of two parties fighting over a single truth, all out of respect of a process he loves dearly.
Getting Ready To Read
Using myself as an example, what I have done in the past is try to get a general understanding of what it is the teacher wants, then, after looking around on the Internet for general sources, I would look into books that are brought as sources for that project and start writing. Back then, I would try to find quotes that would apply to those papers, and once I found those that were satisfying, I would compose sentences that would strings the sentences into a whole passage about whatever the subject was for that class.
Questions for Discussion and Journaling
1.)
From what Kliene talks about, it looks like his research runs half and half on my own experiences. On one hand, his observations of students copying material that will eventually transform into their own writing rings true of what I have done, he does not mention the kind of sentences I would write if I could not rely books on, where I would think up a sentence to string various sources I quoted in my studies.
3.)
From the passages, Kliene seems to see sources importantly, but not in a way people are used to. To him, he saw research in a more social context, where the enthusiasm of the professionals around him colored the final research he conducted, while in my case, both the tone and the context of the text inside the books had a role on the papers I wrote. So, if there is a difference, I would say I tried to used my research efforts to empathize the actual material, while Kliene used his research to reach to an conclusion by using his observational judgement.
4.)
If I were to use Kliene's ideas, I would probably go out of my way to organize any kind of research in a way that can be understood in a more social context, where superficial material would be unnecessary to those who want me to reach to a point that can be much more communicate to those who are not into the sort of material I am in.
Overall, I would say Kliene's article brought up an idea I'm interested in knowing more about. A more social kind of writing, where one has to hunt for material and gather the reminds of his material in order to make the hunt worth it, is a subject that could make writing procures a lot more fun, and I can see myself being much more fascinated by my material if I had other people observing my own work, since for all I know, they have their theories I never thought of in the first place. If anything, his idea are much more appealing in a more social world, so if there is a way to apply his idea into another step of academic writing, I am sure me, my peers, and the world would be open to it.
Compared to Sturat Greene's "Argument As Conversation", an article that talks about how arguments could be beneficial instead of threatening, both articles are about two professionals--inspired by their love for writing--figuring out an idea on how writing studies can be a more social occupation, instead of being many lonesome moments of their lives they worked on by now, where a student has to rely on his own cogitative skills to bring a paper to fruition. To Kliene, it is about trying to make the process itself more intriguing, while Greene talks about maybe altering past thinking of his idea completely, to where he thinks social conversations could be made out of arguments instead of two parties fighting over a single truth, all out of respect of a process he loves dearly.
Getting Ready To Read
Using myself as an example, what I have done in the past is try to get a general understanding of what it is the teacher wants, then, after looking around on the Internet for general sources, I would look into books that are brought as sources for that project and start writing. Back then, I would try to find quotes that would apply to those papers, and once I found those that were satisfying, I would compose sentences that would strings the sentences into a whole passage about whatever the subject was for that class.
Questions for Discussion and Journaling
1.)
From what Kliene talks about, it looks like his research runs half and half on my own experiences. On one hand, his observations of students copying material that will eventually transform into their own writing rings true of what I have done, he does not mention the kind of sentences I would write if I could not rely books on, where I would think up a sentence to string various sources I quoted in my studies.
3.)
From the passages, Kliene seems to see sources importantly, but not in a way people are used to. To him, he saw research in a more social context, where the enthusiasm of the professionals around him colored the final research he conducted, while in my case, both the tone and the context of the text inside the books had a role on the papers I wrote. So, if there is a difference, I would say I tried to used my research efforts to empathize the actual material, while Kliene used his research to reach to an conclusion by using his observational judgement.
4.)
If I were to use Kliene's ideas, I would probably go out of my way to organize any kind of research in a way that can be understood in a more social context, where superficial material would be unnecessary to those who want me to reach to a point that can be much more communicate to those who are not into the sort of material I am in.
Overall, I would say Kliene's article brought up an idea I'm interested in knowing more about. A more social kind of writing, where one has to hunt for material and gather the reminds of his material in order to make the hunt worth it, is a subject that could make writing procures a lot more fun, and I can see myself being much more fascinated by my material if I had other people observing my own work, since for all I know, they have their theories I never thought of in the first place. If anything, his idea are much more appealing in a more social world, so if there is a way to apply his idea into another step of academic writing, I am sure me, my peers, and the world would be open to it.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Reading Respones #1
In his article "Argument as Conversion: The Role of Inquiry in Writing a Researched Argument," Stuart Greene attempts to convince his audience of college students and curious minds that an argument is not something to be afraid of. Once that becomes clear, he comes to a point that criticize the notion that down anyone could just walk away from it if the mood refuses to comply with that individual's wishes. Instead, he talks about that arguments are really an occupied social, or a solitary, activity that anyone can do if they're aware of what they can do with it. He argues that arguments are essentially conversations that support the social nature of writing, simply because one can view other works with an critical eye and find out that as long as that someone is aware of an argument's past, the questions asked to reach an conclusion quickly to prove a point, the actual issue raised, and the techniques (framing) needed to provide substance to someone's opinion, one can write an conclusion that can provoke someone into the conversation and let the argument to continue as long as the people who write it continue to write about it. (Summary, Greene's Audience)
If you were to ask me what argument was, I can summed it as an two people coming together from different corners of the world and fighting over a point they both are passionate about. If you were to ask a guy out of the street, he might think that it's one guy from one street going to another street, meet another guy from another street, yell and scream over something he can relate, chuckle to himself on how silly it all looks, and heads back to whatever purpose he was doing before seeing those two street people. Basically, to me, argument is two people fighting for one goal. Now if you use the word in an academic setting, things change. The goal is no longer try to upstage the other person, but is now about trying to reach to a conclusion that gives each a reason on why the others thinks on why that other person created those conclusions, and the result is either detachable admiration, or disagreeable feelings that becomes pathetic if analyzed incorrectly. While having interesting similarities, the big difference between everyday use and academic use is that one can reach its' point as quickly as possible, while the other can takes it time, since that is what is expected in the field. (Getting Ready to Read Question 1)
Structure has its' place, and the wonders of it is that if you strip it down to its' skeleton, the passages still remind the same, but the wording could provide interest once someone goes beyond the skeleton. Greene's article is no different, what with using passages from various authors like Burke, Rodriguez, and Pratt, and boiling down his point by the ways of using research, paying attention to the past, reading with passion, crafting tools to make the argument stronger, and finding the issues itself, using just enough support and ideas to bring his idea into fruition. (Getting Ready to Read Questions 3 and 4)
Greene's passage implores its' audience that arguments can cement any points any kind of author can make. The reason he quotes the passage on pg. 11 yet again because the passage is essentially a story that defines the idea of writing as conversation into a form that is easily digestible to writing lovers; an amusing summation of the point he is trying to make. This extended metaphor, however, can be viewed as symbolism for those others that shows on what they see in something they believe in, to the point that when one adds his or her's own opinion, it grows far beyond that person's control. So if that passage challenges anything to anyone, it is that, sometimes, a topic will never see a definitive answer, and the only way to let it go is to end it like any other conversation: no more provoking the other side. (QD 2)
Framing is a tool used to give a passage of writing context to a story much bigger than the one the reader is observing; a metaphor that focuses in the beginning and end of stories rather than the passages between those specific structures. Why Greene sees importance in the tool is that it could control different opinions into a singular perspective of an individual. In my case, framing allows the story to belong in a much grander form, where a simple concept could be used to further develop a character, place, structure, and plans for a story, explaining why certain texts the way they are. (QD 3)
In my personal opinion, Greene's article does not represent a "conversation" for one reason: it does not raise the fundamental question on why arguments exist, but instead analyze a solid construction of forming an argument and how arguing could be a thrilling exercise. While helpful, it does nothing to shatter my perspective of the word (along with general audiences), and unless something can prove me wrong, my opinion stands: Greene is unmasking on how conversations can provoked reactions through concepts, not explaining why the concept of conversations could be beneficial to the average writer. Not that I see it as a bad thing; the better I know the tools, the better my craft will be, so in that aspect, I feel like the text set out its' goal. I will see if it works out in the end... (AE 2, My Thoughts)
If you were to ask me what argument was, I can summed it as an two people coming together from different corners of the world and fighting over a point they both are passionate about. If you were to ask a guy out of the street, he might think that it's one guy from one street going to another street, meet another guy from another street, yell and scream over something he can relate, chuckle to himself on how silly it all looks, and heads back to whatever purpose he was doing before seeing those two street people. Basically, to me, argument is two people fighting for one goal. Now if you use the word in an academic setting, things change. The goal is no longer try to upstage the other person, but is now about trying to reach to a conclusion that gives each a reason on why the others thinks on why that other person created those conclusions, and the result is either detachable admiration, or disagreeable feelings that becomes pathetic if analyzed incorrectly. While having interesting similarities, the big difference between everyday use and academic use is that one can reach its' point as quickly as possible, while the other can takes it time, since that is what is expected in the field. (Getting Ready to Read Question 1)
Structure has its' place, and the wonders of it is that if you strip it down to its' skeleton, the passages still remind the same, but the wording could provide interest once someone goes beyond the skeleton. Greene's article is no different, what with using passages from various authors like Burke, Rodriguez, and Pratt, and boiling down his point by the ways of using research, paying attention to the past, reading with passion, crafting tools to make the argument stronger, and finding the issues itself, using just enough support and ideas to bring his idea into fruition. (Getting Ready to Read Questions 3 and 4)
Greene's passage implores its' audience that arguments can cement any points any kind of author can make. The reason he quotes the passage on pg. 11 yet again because the passage is essentially a story that defines the idea of writing as conversation into a form that is easily digestible to writing lovers; an amusing summation of the point he is trying to make. This extended metaphor, however, can be viewed as symbolism for those others that shows on what they see in something they believe in, to the point that when one adds his or her's own opinion, it grows far beyond that person's control. So if that passage challenges anything to anyone, it is that, sometimes, a topic will never see a definitive answer, and the only way to let it go is to end it like any other conversation: no more provoking the other side. (QD 2)
Framing is a tool used to give a passage of writing context to a story much bigger than the one the reader is observing; a metaphor that focuses in the beginning and end of stories rather than the passages between those specific structures. Why Greene sees importance in the tool is that it could control different opinions into a singular perspective of an individual. In my case, framing allows the story to belong in a much grander form, where a simple concept could be used to further develop a character, place, structure, and plans for a story, explaining why certain texts the way they are. (QD 3)
In my personal opinion, Greene's article does not represent a "conversation" for one reason: it does not raise the fundamental question on why arguments exist, but instead analyze a solid construction of forming an argument and how arguing could be a thrilling exercise. While helpful, it does nothing to shatter my perspective of the word (along with general audiences), and unless something can prove me wrong, my opinion stands: Greene is unmasking on how conversations can provoked reactions through concepts, not explaining why the concept of conversations could be beneficial to the average writer. Not that I see it as a bad thing; the better I know the tools, the better my craft will be, so in that aspect, I feel like the text set out its' goal. I will see if it works out in the end... (AE 2, My Thoughts)
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