Chapter 22: Persuasive Essay
Do It Yourself
Prewriting:
The authors of Language Network approach the process of prewriting for the persuasive essay with prompting students to consider their audience when deciding on a topic. They suggest using the newspaper, an opinion poll, and recalling arguments to get the student thinking about what topic is appropriate based on the relevance to an audience. Richard Fulkerson would label this a very rhetorical approach based on his philosophy that there are four basic approaches to teaching writing (1979). This approach is very appropriate for the persuasive essay because it urges the students to choose their topic based on whether or not anyone will care about it. Once they have decided on a topic, the authors of Language Network prompt students to freewrite to explore their topic. Freewriting is an expressivist approach that Peter Elbow would support using, but only as a way to get students to start writing. The authors of Language Network suggest that students use freewriting as a way to "discover" what interests the student most about their topic and help them find key points to support their argument. The theorists Flower and Hayes would directly oppose this because it "obscures the fact that writers don't find meanings, they make them" (1980). They would find it especially problematic because the prompt specifically uses the word "discover," which leads the student to believe that some knowledge exists that they must find, this means that students can fail at freewriting when it is approached with the goal of "discovery," and this directly contradicts what the practice of freewriting was invented to accomplish. Freewriting, according to Elbow, which Lad Tobin, who was inspired by Elbow, has interpreted to us as playing with words in order to jump start the imagination (2001).
Drafting:
The authors of Language Network prompt students to start drafting the persuasive essay in a very formalist, linear way. They begin their section on drafting with a bold-faced phrase and its definition: "thesis statement." Nancy Sommers would argue that the writing process is not this clean cut and that to outline, as the authors of Language Network further suggest, will only limit students in their understanding of the writing process by keeping them from revising, particularly at the level of organization of ideas (1980). Outlining exercises fail to allow room for students to revise, particularly when teachers use the outline as a benchmark for a larger assignment. Students will submit an outline, then get a good mark on it, but when the student sits down to write the paper, they are wracked with difficulties, oft times concerning transitions. Because the student received a good mark on their outline, they believe that what they were doing is correct, it is the exculsive "right way," and they don't realize that they can alter their game plan to accomodate for the contents of their paper. The authors of Language Network then prompt students to use logical arguments to support their thesis, and connect those arguments with clear transitions. They do not define in this section how to use clear transitions, that is left up to the teacher to either to gather materials to teach transitions. Note: there does not seem to be a chapter or lesson on transitions anywhere in this text.
Prewriting:
The authors of Language Network approach the process of prewriting for the persuasive essay with prompting students to consider their audience when deciding on a topic. They suggest using the newspaper, an opinion poll, and recalling arguments to get the student thinking about what topic is appropriate based on the relevance to an audience. Richard Fulkerson would label this a very rhetorical approach based on his philosophy that there are four basic approaches to teaching writing (1979). This approach is very appropriate for the persuasive essay because it urges the students to choose their topic based on whether or not anyone will care about it. Once they have decided on a topic, the authors of Language Network prompt students to freewrite to explore their topic. Freewriting is an expressivist approach that Peter Elbow would support using, but only as a way to get students to start writing. The authors of Language Network suggest that students use freewriting as a way to "discover" what interests the student most about their topic and help them find key points to support their argument. The theorists Flower and Hayes would directly oppose this because it "obscures the fact that writers don't find meanings, they make them" (1980). They would find it especially problematic because the prompt specifically uses the word "discover," which leads the student to believe that some knowledge exists that they must find, this means that students can fail at freewriting when it is approached with the goal of "discovery," and this directly contradicts what the practice of freewriting was invented to accomplish. Freewriting, according to Elbow, which Lad Tobin, who was inspired by Elbow, has interpreted to us as playing with words in order to jump start the imagination (2001).
Drafting:
The authors of Language Network prompt students to start drafting the persuasive essay in a very formalist, linear way. They begin their section on drafting with a bold-faced phrase and its definition: "thesis statement." Nancy Sommers would argue that the writing process is not this clean cut and that to outline, as the authors of Language Network further suggest, will only limit students in their understanding of the writing process by keeping them from revising, particularly at the level of organization of ideas (1980). Outlining exercises fail to allow room for students to revise, particularly when teachers use the outline as a benchmark for a larger assignment. Students will submit an outline, then get a good mark on it, but when the student sits down to write the paper, they are wracked with difficulties, oft times concerning transitions. Because the student received a good mark on their outline, they believe that what they were doing is correct, it is the exculsive "right way," and they don't realize that they can alter their game plan to accomodate for the contents of their paper. The authors of Language Network then prompt students to use logical arguments to support their thesis, and connect those arguments with clear transitions. They do not define in this section how to use clear transitions, that is left up to the teacher to either to gather materials to teach transitions. Note: there does not seem to be a chapter or lesson on transitions anywhere in this text.