assignments

I found the Bean chapters useful for finding assignment possibilities, but I also looked at the Rogerian argument section in one of the textbooks I requested (Prentice Hall's Perspectives on Argument by Nancy Wood), which had some activities more specifically geared toward teaching Rogerian argument.

I, like Rebecca, volunteered to go ahead and lead a part of class on Thursday. This activity will prepare for my second paper assignment, which uses Rogerian argument. Basically, I'll divide the class into groups of 3 (or so) students, who will then write dialogues (or trialogues?) about controversial topics-- the Iraq War, immigration, etc. I want to make sure that a broad spectrum of opinions is represented and that the students avoid binary thinking, so I've written minimal descriptions for the 'characters' in the discussions. I'm hoping that this activity will help decenter my students and see issues from various points of view.

To prepare my students for their first assignment, in which they'll be analyzing 2 opinion articles, I intend to distribute copies of sample opinion articles to small groups of the students and have them list pros and cons of the article assigned to their group. By requiring them to find both positive and negative points about the article, I hope to encourage them to think about how the article acheives its effect and how it could be strengthened, regardless of whether they agree with it or not.

A couple of activities suggested by Perspectives on Argument that I thought were interesting were to have the students write a Rogerian response to a letter to the editor in a newspaper and to have them team up with classmates who have opposing views from them on some issue and to spend time stating and restating each other's positions until both feel that their position has been understood.