The stases

Since reading Fahnestock and Secor’s article, I have been thinking a lot the stases.
In relation to English 1000, I think that the classical theory of the stases could help students develop an idea for a topic into an idea for a claim. By using the stases to ask good questions about a topic, as Fahnestock and Secor model (60), students could develop a better idea about why they are struggling to write the academic essay without a thesis.
Moreso, I think Fahnestock and Secor’s argument about arguments in literature and in science could come into play in the classroom. The authors point out that arguments in science are conducted in the lower stases and arguments in literature are conducted in the first stases (70). The discourse in each discipline has different values. As an English graduate student, I might be more inclined to encourage my students to write a paper that analyzes a complex problem, which is a paper that my discipline values, than a paper that provides a definite solution to that problem, which is a paper another discipline (in sciences, perhaps) might value. Yet, I think that most students will benefit more from writing a paper that forces them to take a side. I also think this paper is easier to write.