Kantz Reading Response

Summary

In her article “Helping Students Use Textual Sources Persuasively,” Margaret Kantz attempts to make teachers aware of the way students view the use of sources in their papers, and warns them of the problems they will have to address in student writing if they want their students to truly engage with their sources and come up with an original argument. She argues that students must understand that facts and opinions are both really just claims, and that in order to come up with an original idea for a paper they must read rhetorically and find a gap within the conversation. In addition to finding that gap (on any point in Kinneavy’s triangle), they must answer the all important question—so what? Why is that gap a problem? These many complicated tasks, when paired with the summary skills a student usually already has, can combine to form an original, creative research paper.

 

Synthesis

Kantz’s article is reminiscent of Kleine’s rant on the night library. Those students in the night library hunt for quotes within sources that they can plug into their preconceived papers, without really reading rhetorically the texts they are using. Kantz illustrates a similar scene, saying “a skillful student using the summarize-the-main-ideas approach can set her writing goals and even plan (i.e., outline) a paper before she reads the sources” (80). Both authors concern themselves with the disassociation between students and their sources. They are not entering in on the academic conversation, as Greene would have them do, and as all of the authors advocate.

 

 

Pre-Reading Exercises

The last argument I remember having where there was a dispute over a fact concerned (nerdily enough) the full name of Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. My opponent was insistent upon the fact that Mr. Darcy’s first name was not Fitzwilliam, and I was emphatic that it was. We settled the dispute by looking it up in a reference book. My opponent acknowledged his error and left shamefaced.

 

Fact- A piece of information that is generally considered to be true by most people.

Claim- An opinion put forth by a person who supports its truth.

Opinion- A belief put forth and supported by a person.

Argument- A debate in which two or more parties make opposing claims.

 

Questions for Discussion and Journaling

 

1) Kantz contends that facts and opinions are both really just different types of claims. The audience’s reception of the statement is what determines whether a claim is a fact or an opinion. Kantz goes on to say that both of these claims can be found in an argument, where an author will need to back up his claim to his audience.

3) Kantz, in her mission to get students to alter their view of “facts,” allows students to open up their minds to the possibility of using sources persuasively. For example, when Shirley let go of the notion that all of the historical texts she found were full of absolute “facts,” she could allow herself to explore the reasons why some of the so-called “facts” didn’t match up. In other words, she could begin to ask the types of questions necessary to develop an original argument.

4) I don’t think Kantz contradicts herself when she says we should view sources neither as stories nor as repositories of truth. Students should not take what a source says at face value, because the “facts” the student is reading are really just claims. Neither should students read sources as “stories” because then they might read the sources with an eye to plot and character, and subsequently skim over the real points the source is trying to make. So really there is no contradiction with Kantz’s statement, for the two warnings apply to different reading strategies.

 

Personal Reflection

I like this article both as an informative article for teachers as well as a cautionary tale for students; I think a lot of students can relate to Shirley. Though my writing process is more like Alice’s than Shirley’s, I could never articulate what I did as “reading rhetorically”. Kantz has introduced me to a new vocabulary to use when talking about writing the research paper. I think I will use Kinneavy’s triangle when practicing my own rhetorical reading strategies.