Kantz

“Helping Students Use Textual Sources

Persuasively”Margaret Kantz

Why use textual sources?

Analyzing Kantz

• Audience?• How is she entering the

“conversation”?• Purpose (exigence)?

Facts, Opinions, Claims

• What is the difference? (Alice knows.)

FactsAudience accepts as true without proof

(might require explanation)

OpinionsAudience will not accept as true without proof

Maybe limited truthQuestion interpretation of facts

Claims

Conflicting ideas• What do you do if sources disagree?• What did Shirley do?

– 10,000-45,000• What would Alice do?

– Rhetorical analysis

Rhetorical Analysis

• Encoder= writer/speaker/rhetor• Decoder=reader/listener/audience• Reality=constraints• (Exigence=purpose)

The Battle of Agincourt

• We won! And it was really hard, too.

• We lost. But we were outnumbered!

10,000 British soldiers 45,000 British soldiers

The Battle of Agincourt• 10,000 British soldiers• Rhetor

– Churchill, “A History of British Progress”

• Audience– British readers

• Constraints– written in 1930s, beginning of

WWII• Exigence

– Encourage readers to take pride in glorious history of British accomplishments

• 45,000 British soldiers• Rhetor

– Monsieur and Madame Guizot, “A History of France”

• Audience– French readers

• Constraints– Negative opinion of England,

British tactics• Exigence

– Show how French were taken advantage of, how the battle was not so glorious

What would Alice/Shirley do?

• 5 teams• First to buzz in and answer

correctly gets a point• Group with the most points gets

a bonus point

Alice vs. Shirley

• Definition of a fact– Shirley: thinks sources transmit facts– Alice: facts are claims

Alice vs. Shirley

• How do they read sources?– Shirley: narrative/story– Alice: a “message sent by someone to

somebody for a reason”

Alice vs. Shirley

• Why do they write?– Shirley: to find the truth– Alice: to make an argument

Alice vs. Shirley

• View of themselves as writers; what is their goal?– Shirley: to be credible– Alice: to persuade, say something new

Alice vs. Shirley• View of their task (task

representation)– Shirley: summary– Alice: original argument

Alice vs. Shirley

• How do they organize their writing?– Shirley: in the order she found it, order the

source writer puts it in– Alice: in the order that fits her purpose to

convince her audience

Alice vs. Shirley

• Who is more likely to plagiarize? Why?– Shirley

Alice vs. Shirley

• Who writes more drafts? Why?– Alice; summary, rhetorical analysis,

argument

Alice vs. Shirley

• View of research– Shirley: Research is not creative, but a static task

designed to examine students on their understanding of facts

– Alice: Research is creative, and students are scholars “who work to find answers to problem questions” and who “set reading and writing goals for themselves that will allow them to think constructively.”

Alice vs. Shirley

• What “tool” does Alice have in her toolbox that Shirley does not?– Rhetorical situation

More questions• It seems like everything worth saying has already

been said—how do you create an original argument? How can research be creative? Do you think that this would make research more enjoyable?

• How is it possible for sources to disagree in ways other than pro/con?

• Why does Kantz think that plagiarism can be understandable, or even inevitable?

• Why does Kantz suggest that multiple drafts are useful?

What did the instructor do wrong, and how could she fix it?

• Minimal notes on draft, and those notes had to do with formalist issues

• Didn’t sequence the assignment, pacing it with enough time to allow students’ thoughts to develop

• Didn’t teach rhetorical reading and writing strategies • Gave “weak assignment and an ineffective critique of the

draft” • Didn’t tell Shirley she was expected to say something

original, that she should look for discrepant facts/conflicts in her sources, or that she should use her notes to comment on the sources and use the notes to plan her paper

• Didn’t teach Shirley to look for arguments instead of facts