I'm stuck, though. There are too many types of papers that I want to assign in my classroom, and I know that's a bad idea. I really like the exploratory essay. And, I really like the visual argument assignment. And overarching all of this, I really like the topic of food. So, if I was going to structure this, I'd likely need to either cut the exploratory, or start with it...? Maybe the first assignment could be an exploratory essay that explores a variety of controversies surrounding the topic of food. My students could do research, finding sources that shed light on these controversies, and their goals could be to create questions that I can then use to frame the different argumentative units. I'm learning from another book that I'm reading, John Bean's Engaging Ideas, that if you give your students the question/problem, audience, purpose, and genre, the unit can take less time--students don't need those 2 weeks to come up with their own writing situation. So, if we spent the first unit coming up with questions and different writing situations where food controversies arise, we could spend the last 3 months writing different types of argumentative essays that address those controversies. Hmm....this just might work. *(And here has been a prime example of writing to learn--I was stuck at the start of this paragraph, and now I'm not as stuck. I could still use some help, though.
Does anyone have ideas for how I can try this arguing differently method while still assigning an exploratory essay and framing everything around questions/controversies-around/problems-related-to food?
I was actually pondering this final thought myself. I am finding that students are struggling to settle down on a topic. And, while I think I have alleviated some of their concerns by saying that they don't have to have the ideal research question quite yet, I think part of the issue is that they don't see how these explorations lead to argument. However, from my perspective, the gap actually occurs in the fact that they don't fully understand that argument is not merely arguing from an oppositional point of view. I have always found this precise lesson the most confusing to formulate for students.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do think that Kroll makes a crucial point in that he talk about it not from the perspective of teaching different types of papers but different perspectives of the same paper. Otherwise, arguing differently takes many different, yet distinct forms rather than illuminating how argument--in and of itself-- functions differently.