Rationale: As we begin this semester, I want to help my students get a realistic picture of where they are with argumentative writing. Most of them have been exposed mainly to ACT style prompts to which they are encouraged to respond with evidence from literature.
While I understand that there is truth in fiction, I have never understood our tendency as English teachers to overlap literary analysis and argumentative writing using plot events, etc. from Gatsby or The Crucible of Macbeth as evidence for the way things are in real life or as sound logic.
During this past week's exam writing, I had many students who relied on this technique. And rightfully so. Their previous teachers have trained them well in this skill. But now, it is time for them to look more at the world around them, to current events, to history, to their own personal experience and to the experiences of others that they have witnessed.
So, we read Dr. King's famous letter. It serves two purposes at this time of year. It helps us honor the civil rights leader on the day that was named in honor of him and it is an exemplary model of argument. Technically, it is a counterargument to the claims of a group of clergymen in Alabama who were troubled by civil disobedience.
So, the goal for this lesson:
To gain an awareness of the many and varied examples of evidence that Dr. King uses to support his claims in his letter to the clergymen of Birmingham in an attempt to apply the integration of their own many and varied types of evidence to support their own claims in their argumentative writing. They will begin with an analysis and revision of the exam writing after the analysis of King's piece.
The target:
The students will find various examples of evidence and identify it according to rhetorical strategy i.e., emotional, logical, ethical appeals, figurative language, syntactical strategies, specific choices in diction.
Procedure:
Before this lesson, students were required to read King's letter and to label the rhetorical strategies that they recognized.
The problem with teaching King's letter is that it contains an overwhelming amount of claims and evidence. Where to begin? Probably the best strategy--because students are coming prepared to the lesson with prior knowledge--is to now break students into groups and the letter into manageable sections.
To begin: in a brief reflective writing (index card, first and last
name) students will informally self-assess their ability to identify
King's claims and rhetorical strategies choosing a number between 1-4
and writing a few explanatory sentences.
Voluntary discussion of self-assessment? Not everyone need share during this time.
Collect the index cards.
Guided Practice: As a class, identify the claims of the clergymen. Post on the overhead screen. Discuss and identify evidence. Identify the type:logical, emotional, ethical.
Each student group will require one scribe, and two reporters: one who will report the claims and evidence to the entire class and one who will elaborate on the rhetorical techniques contained in the evidence.
Each group will begin by revisiting their assigned section of the letter.
Next, students will follow this protocol:
1. Decide who will start. Each person will take a turn sharing a few items that he/she annotated during his/her independent work. Others may add notations to their own copy as each person shares. One minute per person.
2. The scribe will list all of the following on chart paper in the same manner as those from the letter of the clergymen.
a. King's claim
b. The evidence for each claim followed by (an identification of the rhetorical strategy.)
3. The next steps will be presentations of the findings. And, hopefully, revisions to the findings by their classmates should they miss any crucial claims, evidence or strategies.
Students are so reluctant to go on at length in their writing, to provide an ample amount of evidence that is logically sound, fully elaborated upon and which demonstrates fresh thinking. They want to make general statements about what they think (much of the time incredibly cliche) and then leave it up to the reader to guess at the reasoning in their minds (if there is any) or relying on boring and stale (sorry) examples from literature which anyone will counter with "But, that's fiction." Hopefully, after experiencing this mentor text, they will be able to transfer the knowledge (with help )in an application to their own writing. Because King's evidence is overwhelming. It demonstrates the exact amount and the level of idea development that is necessary to convince an audience.
For later, I have these grand ideas about putting their theses from one of their previous arguments on index cards, doing a silent gallery walk where students vote on the best one.....Maybe they choose that thesis to re-work their own papers Next, I'll direct their attention to examining the evidence they used in their arguments so that they can analyze it the way that they are analyzing King's evidence. The thing is that the only example from literature that King uses is from the Bible, and that is not so much used as a literary example as an ethical appeal and evidence of his consideration of his audience (clergymen). How can they argue with reasoning from the Bible?
What I haven't decided yet is whether to work from the exam writing or from the AP prompt I had them do during my absence this week. Maybe they could choose.
The bottom line is that I am looking at this King exercise very much as a "let's explore this together" exercise because it is a large piece that is overwhelming to everyone as it is so full of skillful craftsmanship. It is also about "seeing how this can inform our own writing."
I hope we can do it justice. And what i need to remember is that good work takes time. So I need to make sure i don't rush the process.
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