April 2

For writing into the day, we responded to one of three quotes about argument.  

1. —“Don't raise your voice, improve your argument." Desmond Tutu
2. —“That's the beauty of argument, if you argue correctly, you're never wrong.” Christopher Buckley
3. —“It does take great maturity to understand that the opinion we are arguing for is merely the hypothesis we favor, necessarily imperfect, probably transitory, which only very limited minds can declare to be a certainty or a truth.” Milan Kundera

Then, we read pages 146-148 in Practical Argument to learn about the structure of Rogerian argument.  In groups, we read and discussed the structure of the example essay on page 150-152.  Remember that Rogerian dialogue is not about proving one side wrong.  It is about explaining the valid opinions of each side and finding a compromise.  

We then talked about the organization of the Rogerian dialogue, which is as follows:

• Describe scene.

• You: Introduce the topic, explaining the issue and how supporters of both sides of topic are affected.  This tells your readers why they should care about this issue regardless of which side they support.

• Sources: Present one side of the issue and the arguments for it.

• Sources: Present the other side of the issue and the arguments for it.

• Sources: Explain why the second side would benefit from moving toward the first side’s position.

• You: Lay out possible compromises.

• You: Explain the “now what.”  This will state steps that can be taken once compromises are agreed on.  (i.e. Meetings between certain groups, advertising in particular places, talking to particular government officials, etc.)

Finally, we got into our blog groups and talked about possible compromises for each person's topic.

Homework:

• Post the second draft of your Annotated Bibliography to Blackboard and the blog.
• Post the answers to the Self Assessment questions to your blog.

Note: Bring your annotated bibliography and sources to class on Thursday.  We will be doing brainstorming and drafting for the Rogerian dialogue in class.