Implications for teaching academic writing

When I first tried to “redefine” argument for first year students along Kroll’s line, quite a few students were skeptical of me. Of particular concern for them was the fact that I was asking them to give space to their opponents as well. Argument for them meant winning. You are involved in an argument means you need to win. Those students very clearly envisioned their opponents as enemies. Sounds pretty harsh, but that was what some students were up to. One of the students even made a valid argument with me: won’t giving space to your opponent/ listening to your opponent show your weakness? To an extent it made sense, but again the question itself was based on the false premises that all arguments are for winning/ defeating your opponents. I remember, I had hard time convincing them that they had to understand argument differently. It was like redefining “argument.”

I think this situation speaks about the way our students have understood argument. We have already discussed so much about the argument culture of the American society – the TV shows, radio talks, town-hall debates, and all – and it needs further explication as to why our students would not readily new approach to argumentation. But having read the texts, and after all those discussions, I feel that I’m better prepared to deal with the concerns of the students who feel that all arguments are antagonistic and we need to win them.

I have been trying to convince my students that arguments should be for inquiry, but I have also realized that it is not always easy to make them practice it. One of the reasons why Toulminian method of argument (formalistic argument, following Kastely) has been very popular is perhaps its straightforward explanation to argumentation. Kastely also talks about the pedagogical value of Toulmin’s method. There is something concrete we can show our students, and that’s always good to have. We feel like teaching, and our students feel like learning something. That’s in a way a feel good pedagogy. However, in real life situation, I agree with Kroll, Kastely and others, that argument does not function in a straightforward fashion. And more importantly, just winning does not matter as much as convincing others.

This new approach can be tremendously helpful, I feel, when it comes to teaching students academic writing. Academic writing is all about joining a conversation. And if our students cannot listen to all the discussions, at least as many perspectives as possible, they will jump into a conclusion (almost always based on what they “feel” is true) and they will only try to justify their position irrespective of what the existing data and conversation might call for. In other words, when they do not prepare themselves to listen to other’s voices (read opponents’), they are most likely to miss the point. And their writing will end up being a piece on what they think, based on their feeling, or let’s say partial understanding. So, this approach can prepare our students in a way that they are ready to listen to all the voices, irrespective of their positions, so that they can come up with a more logical conclusion. So, I see a tremendous value of “arguing differently” approach in first year composition teaching.