Teachers of writing are rather sharply divided over Graff and Birkenstein’s book They Say/I Say: the moves that matter in academic writing. While the book clearly strikes a chord with students (it’s in its 3rd edition, after all), many faculty members resist the template approach that G&B take here. For my part, though, while I can appreciate teachers’ desire to avoid any suggestion that writing is as simple as filling-in-the-blanks, I think that such criticisms miss the larger point: that these templates can provide students with linguistic training wheels, that is, as temporary learning tools, rather than as permanent stylistic crutches.
That said, I’m using the same basic they say/I say move right now in this blog, so maybe G&B are on to something–the moves really are endemic to the work we do, even if the exact phrasing shifts depending on situation. There’s no harm in letting students in on that secret….
Graff and Birkenstein assert that many that times it is difficult to know what to do with all of the information out there available to us. I believe that they are correct in saying this because so much emphasis is placed on finding the correct sources, but once you’re there — what do you do with them?
good work–as you demonstrate, this TSIS business might unfold across a couple of sentences. It’s important to think of these templates as flexible, not just static fill-in-the-blank containers.
They say templates are not good, I say that it is an amazing approach for beginning writers to learn how to write.
solid–now consider how you could enrich this sentence by naming who ‘they’ are (who are the haters?) and explaining just how this is a valuable learning tool. In other words, this is a good start, and there’s room for development.
Note, too, that you’ve got two independent clauses in this sentence. A comma by itself isn’t enough to hold them together; a semicolon would be appropriate here.
Graff and Birkenstein believe that students need templates to aid their academic writing because they often have difficulty applying academic writing theories to their actual writing. While I believe this may have some merit, I think that if everyone uses templates it takes away from the individual writing process and makes it a less creative experience.
fair enough–you take time to lay out your thoughts here, and those thoughts make more sense because you tell us what you’re responding to. In short, the TSIS framework helped you to acknowledge two different viewpoints on the material.
They say that writing should be formulated in a way where templates should be used to organize your arguments. I say this is not always true and writing should be freely written while keeping a paragraph or essay concise and clear. Every person writes differently and he/she may have a different way of stating their arguments without using a template.
yes, but in representing what ‘they’ (Graff and Birkenstein) say, it’s important to acknowledge that they do say just this (that templates aren’t mandatory but that they can be helpful in constructing clear and concise essays). Make sure you’re fair to the original source text in your own response to it.
They say that college writing courses need to be democratized, I say that they are already democratized because each teacher teaches their writing class a little bit differently.
okay, but remember that when you’re replying to a ‘them’ in your writing, you need to fairly represent whatever ‘they’ are saying. In this case, you seem to be defining ‘democracy’ in rather different terms than they (Graff and Birkenstein) are, which means that your response doesn’t really align with what you’re responding to. When that happens, a reader might questions your application of the source in ways that undermine your own credibility as a writer.
Additionally, note that you have a comma splice here–a comma by itself isn’t enough to hold together two independent clauses.
G&B say that templates further our writing ability because it allows writers to piggyback off their expertise in the field. I believe that true growth through writing come from the development of ones ability to formulate ideas and concepts through phrases of their own.
Fair enough, but what would you say in response to their claim that it is really the moves that matter and not so much the phrasing? As you are engaging with sources, it’s important to represent their arguments fairly, in a way that the writers themselves would recognize and appreciate.
They say that translating research into text is difficult, I say that I struggle with with this issue as well. I find it difficult whether to paraphrase or directly quote and which quotes to use.
You’ve got the right idea here for agreeing with your source by adding some clarification. Consider, though, how you could make sentence structure work for you by coordinating these two ideas–instead of smoothing them together with a comma (which creates a comma splice run-on sentence), you could say “, and I agree because…” This would put the two ideas into alignment more clearly.
They say that giving students templates will help even the playing field for people that don’t intuitively know how to present their information and arguments. I believe that while the idea is well intended, it might allow for students to abuse the template and use it as more of a fill-in-the-blank kind of thing, making writing stiff and dry. I think a better approach would be having them analyze the writing styles of preexisting texts to use as examples on how to organize and apply their own information in their writing.
Solid work, Laura–your response is nuanced and clear, and you fairly represent the authors’ approach.
The use of research in writing is often times misuses, thus creating a piece lacking answers to the questions of “so what?” and “why does it matter?” One student of Graff and Birkenstein argue that the use of templates is “third-grade-level stuff,” while I support that they seem to have the ability to create the core of a great writing piece. It is then up to the writer to create the pieces’ greatness.
You’re on the right track here, Scott, though you could tighten up your syntax and phrasing here to make this more readable. The more straightforward, the better.