English Web Blog # 2 DUE THURSDAY NEED ASAP NO PLAGERISM

Weblog 2

The Believing and Doubting Game

Now that you have read chapter two, you should have a good sense of how we will define argument in this course. As Ramage and his colleagues note, argument should be an exploratory process. When we form our own opinions about issues, we are often inclined in today’s society to respond to such issues with knee-jerk opinions. This is what we are trying to avoid through the process of critical thinking.

One way to engage yourself in critical thinking about an issue is to play what rhetorician Peter Elbow calls the believing and doubting game, which you read about on pages 29 and 30 of your text. As you read, when you play this game, you immerse yourself in one side of the issue at a time. As Ramage and his colleagues note, this process can be very difficult. You must abandon prior opinions and force yourself to consider and argue on behalf of a side of the argument with which you don’t agree (at some point, anyway). However, the benefits of such an exercise I hope will become obvious to you. In prior composition courses you most likely have had to write a persuasive essay.

An essential component of the persuasive essay is addressing the opposing viewpoint, so it is likely that you have been asked to consider the opposing viewpoint in order to argue against it. Please don’t mistake this assignment for such an exercise. You are not going to simply acknowledge the opposing viewpoint and move on to assert your opinion in this exercise; you are going to sincerely assume the role of one who holds each opposing opinion.

The Assignment:

For this weblog assignment, you will simply follow the directions found at the bottom of page 31. You will play the believing and doubting game with either one of the four issues listed or another issue you would like to think through a little further. If you would like to use your own issue, you might want to look through Discussion Board II responses to generate a claim about one of the problems listed. If you choose your own issue, you will need to pose your argument in a similar fashion you see at the bottom of page 30. These are stated as proposal statements (all using the word “should”). Therefore, a topic such as, “Spousal abuse is the biggest problem our society faces today,” wouldn’t be appropriate for this assignment. You would need to take this one step further and make the argument that, “There should be harsher penalties for those found guilty of child abuse.”

Step 1: Choose a claim. Again, you are to either choose a topic found on the bottom of page 30 or generate your own claim.