Except for looking at the Tucson shootings, my students had a hard time connecting to the readings I chose for last spring. They didn't have adequate background information to understanding contextual nuances in the text, and the subject matter didn't compel them to even try.
A few semesters ago I showed Invisible Children to my students, and it really captured their attention. Half of them were already familiar with the story of kidnapped Ugandan children forced to serve as soldiers. About a quarter of them had participated or organized fundraising to assist the children. The film moved them emotionally so that they really couldn't talk after they saw it. I asked them to write whatever they were thinking, and I saw the best writing they had done all semester.
The students connected with this film emotionally that semester, and I wanted to show it again.
I immediately thought about a theme of social justice. I thought about the famine in Somalia. I thought about Give Clean Water. I thought about education and fighting AIDS and apartheid in South Africa and so on and so on.
And then I thought about Gerald Graff and his philosophy of teaching the controversy. I wondered: What is controversial about helping people? Why wouldn't we want to help the people of Somalia so that they don't starve due to drought and famine and war?
Where's the controversy there? (As it turns out, that's really only part of his philosophy, which has to do with exposing academic arguments.)
And then I started thinking about who was going to pay for food and who was going to deliver it and how much food is enough and do we also provide medical care and how much and to what extent. And now it's not so simple. Who do we feed? How much do we feed them? And who pays for it?
And are we obligated to rescue the starving? We certainly don't feel obligated to do too much in this country right now.
Now I have a controversy. A pretty big one.
I remembered articles from Peter Singer and Nicholas Kristof, who have both written about helping those who are less fortunate. I looked up "social justice" on Wikipedia and found *
More controversy. Graff says, "College paper assignments tend to ask for information or textual interpretations in a vacuum, not polemical engagement" (59). This is the kind of stuff that makes writing incredibly boring for students. Graff wants students to enter into the same kinds of conversations that academics engage in. He wants them to examine claims and dispute them, to recognize that knowledge is continually growing and changing. He contends that acknowledging and entering into the controversy clarifies understanding and perspective.
Now, I like Graff. I like the way he teaches argument in They Say/I Say. I like the way he demystifies academic discourse by introducing templates that students can use and adapt to suit writing. He was the first comp theorist to describe "entering into a conversation" to me. I like that idea. As a result of all these things, I pay attention to Graff.
So I want to teach the controversy. What is social justice? Does it, in fact, lead to injustice? Do we side with Rawls or Singer or Kuper or someone else entirely? Let's examine the claims and take a position.
I admit I have shamelessly appealed to pathos in order to interest the students. I am hoping emotional attachment to a topic will motivate them to tackle difficult texts addressing the controversy. I plan to challenge the students by introducing academic journals. I want to give them the skills to decipher those--Swales and Feak's CARS (Create a Research Space). I want them to see that academics incorporate certain patterns in academic discourse. Recognizing those patterns makes reading those journals less difficult.
This approach is a risk, to be sure. I can modify my last project, however.
Now, I like Graff. I like the way he teaches argument in They Say/I Say. I like the way he demystifies academic discourse by introducing templates that students can use and adapt to suit writing. He was the first comp theorist to describe "entering into a conversation" to me. I like that idea. As a result of all these things, I pay attention to Graff.
So I want to teach the controversy. What is social justice? Does it, in fact, lead to injustice? Do we side with Rawls or Singer or Kuper or someone else entirely? Let's examine the claims and take a position.
I admit I have shamelessly appealed to pathos in order to interest the students. I am hoping emotional attachment to a topic will motivate them to tackle difficult texts addressing the controversy. I plan to challenge the students by introducing academic journals. I want to give them the skills to decipher those--Swales and Feak's CARS (Create a Research Space). I want them to see that academics incorporate certain patterns in academic discourse. Recognizing those patterns makes reading those journals less difficult.
This approach is a risk, to be sure. I can modify my last project, however.
Graff, Gerald. "Two Cheers for the Argument Culture."
