You Say Tomato...

Writing a blog has never been easy, at least not for me. I do it not for fun (although at times it can be quite enjoyable), but I do it to show my writing students what conversations can be had in the blogosphere. I have reminded myself time and time again that there is one subject, both on blogs and in the papers that students write, that comes up. And that's this: how do professors deal with controversial topics in the classroom, ones in which students and faculty might align themselves on opposite ends of a discussion or issue? What can you constructively say when you think the writer is wrongheaded, or stubborn, or clearly ill-informed?

This happens to me every semester.  I read and evaluate a students' argumentative texts (be it essays, blogs, or even classroom discussions), and it is my job is to evaluate the strength of their arguments based on argument structure, evidence, and so forth. In Aristotle's On Rhetoric, he outlines three distinct types of persuasion: pathos (appealing to the emotions of the reader), ethos (the character of the author), and logos (the data and details that can make an argument credible), and I think his categorization was pretty spot-on and relevant to this day, even in the era of the technical online writer. I often find in my freshman students' writing that we get a wide variety of all three: there are a lot of emotional appeals to readers in an attempt to reach out and relate. For example, students in one of my online ENG 3 courses happen to write about U.S. health care reform, and often they use anecdotal evidence of their experiences with and without health care coverage. These circumstances can often be harrowing to read, especially when a student talks about his father's heart attack or another her mother's drug overdose and the type of health care responses that followed. Pathos allows these students to share feelings and thoughts with readers, and to let readers "empathize." Students often write with ethos in mind when they highlight their career goals and ambitions and describe their own experiences in their field. Ethos in writing can range from a cover letter highlighting the credentials of the writer, to an essay writer keeping their tone controlled and congenial and not overly aggressive when writing for a wide range of readers on a hot topic. Finally, every semester I cajole students into providing supporting information through the use of logos: those bits of reliable data and details that scaffold an argumentative position. 

So, if students have these three persuasive tools to choose from, how is it that sometimes I just am not convinced, no matter the data delivered, the emotional appeal provided, or the credential of the author and their expertise satisfied? I wonder if it is in human nature to disagree? (Of course it is.) I think of the political power couple of Mary Matalin and James Carville, both strategists for the Republican and Democratic parties, respectively. If they can stay married knowing their own political polemics, how hard can it be to accept the validity of a student's written truth, even if that truth is far and away not a truth that I can accept?

It comes down to understanding, I think, that the very heart of an argument is a thesis: the arguable position one takes. Persuasive tools aside, a student writer/blogger must make their case, to support that thesis with rational, reliable evidence. And to do that with ethos, they must use the best and freshest, most credible sources and examples they can find, through in-depth research, which we must model in the classroom learning space. Students should use pathos sparingly: it works in small doses and can enhance the connection and dialogic between writer and reader, but overkill can mask a lack of ethos and logos. And, above all, students must be able to understand good data, and that there is a difference between data. How does one create a survey? Who is surveyed? What type of test, or participant-observation, or interviewing, or historical research was done, by whom, and for what reason? Does this data really fit the student's argument? Where could it be flawed? 

I think it is easier for me to accept the work of a student with whom I fundamentally disagree, for example, if the student has paid attention to choosing reliable sources, verifiable data, and evidence both personal and of-the-world. These students are welcome to come to alternative positions on the issues. Don't economists? Don't lawyers, and doctors doing tricky surgeries or trying new modes of treatment? Don't historians interpret the events of our shared pasts in a wide variety of ways?

We do not have to agree with our students to help them to make acceptable, nuanced arguments. Based on my own research and understandings of the world, just about half the time I won't agree with a conclusion. And if the conclusion is flawed in a way that I can help the student (by finding better data, by evaluating the credentials of sources, by having additional sources or by thinking of an issue from many opposing sides), I must speak up, out, and pitch in to help the student find firmer ground on which to stand (Hurlbert). We have not had the experience of our students, nor have we shared in all of their research and thought processes. The place from where they "stand" is quite far apart from our own. But if a student puts thoughtful effort and research and comes up with a plausible argument that puts him or her on another side of an issue I am on, I just hope to learn more from them. And, maybe, be invested in the potential of continued dialogue. You never know. Sometimes you can change someone's mind, or at least open up the possibilities...

Work Cited

Hurlbert, Claude. “A Place in Which to Stand.” Relations, Locations, Positions: Composition Theory for Writing Teachers. Ed. Peter Vandenberg, Sue Hum, and Jennifer Clary-Lemon. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 2007. 353–58. Print.