Devil's Advocate: What are You REALLY Saying?
Purpose: This exercise is an attempt to get students to see that what they think they have written is not always what they actually have on the page. It can also be attempt to have students forge their own opinions, in particular about a reading assignment, and be able to back up those opinions as well. Therefore, students will need to have made a close reading of a text in order to be able to validate their idea and beliefs.
Description: As a workshop exercise, students will break into pairs and exchange a copy of their paper draft with one another. Each will need two blank sheets of paper for responding to the drafts. As a critical response to a reading, students will need to have close-read the assignment, and have two blank sheets of paper for their responses.
Suggested Time: 20 minutes to a full class period.
Procedure:
As a workshop- Students should come prepared with an early draft of their argumentative or persuasive papers from ENC1101 or ENC2135. Ask students to get into pairs. Then ask your students to write the following:
1) In one sentence, their main position or thesis.
2) A list of their opinions included within the paper ( you may want to say at least 3 or at least 5, etc.)
3)Any possible counter-arguments to their opinions.
Then ask students to put that first sheet (with the three sections just listed) away and switch and read their partner’s paper. Then ask the students to write down, for their partner’s paper, the same thing they write down for their own:
1)The thesis
2)the opinions
3) counter-opinions.
Ask students to bring out the original sheets from their self-analysis and then compare the differences between what they thought was in their paper and what an outside reader thought was inherent in their text.
As a critical response- Ask students to write a response or a short paper, article, or a piece of fiction--preferably one that is wide open to interpretation or heavily skewed in one direction (this exercise could work if all students were asked to read the same piece of fiction and then be able to discuss it, but I like it better with a response). Follow the same procedure as above.
Hopefully, some students will realize that their opinions were not well supported or that they did not express that which they thought as well as possible. As well, they might consider the audience of a persuasive text -- if those who started the paper agreeing with you are the only ones who end agreeing with you, did your text have any real rhetorical impact, did it do its job? How do we find common ground and persuade those who begin the paper disagreeing with us or those who start the paper apathetic to our topic?
Ask the class for some examples/highlights from partner discussion. This exercise also will reveal the different ways in which people read texts and think about them.