Jolly Rogers

I think that Rogerian Argument appeals to my sensibilities as a pacifist. It definitely seems more productive to respect all sides of an argument than to take a position and create what will ultimately sound like an "I'm right, you're an idiot" paper.

I made a comment on one of Leta's posts this week about how it can be dangerous to teach our students to think in terms of "my side and their side," just for the sake of avoiding binary thinking. However, I think there are ways to incorporate Rogerian techniques that allow students to see the complexities of any argument — that is, not all people on "my side" have the same top ten reasons to be on this side that I do, and some of the people on "their side" may have very similar beliefs to my own.

I think this also gestures towards what Claire was saying about Postcolonial theory. It's a field that interests me, as well, so I'm not discounting it by any means, but so much of Postcolonialism is grounded in "self/other." When you get down to it, isn't everyone an other from yourself?

As I was reading the selection on Rogerian Argument, this reminded me of my class activity about writing a letter to the author of a critical text. I think Leta may have also pointed this out — if I require the students to point out some effective, some weak, and some underdeveloped aspects of an essay they read, hopefully they will get a greater understanding and respect for the nuances of scholarly writing. Also, they'll have a good method to incorporate quotes into their papers in an analytical, engaging way that doesn't look like "here's a quote I found."