Page 310 - Gabrijela Kišiček and Igor Ž. Žagar (eds.), What do we know about the world? Rhetorical and argumentative perspectives, Digital Library, Educational Research Institute, Ljubljana 2013
P. 310
What Do We Know about the World?
- “Standing by trees, men should make the sign of cross, because trees in-
spire carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen”. (cause and effect)
- If someone wanted to cut down your filbert-tree what would you do? I
asked George.
- I would try to prevent him. (antecedent and consequence)
Students focused their attention on the above organizational pat-
terns and the analysis of their structure, based on the assumption that
knowledge of common topics may facilitate the production of argu-
ments on any future given subject (Zompetti, 2006: 22). Accepting the
idea that topics may provide an argumentative classification, the above
topics were modeled on the blackboard as petals of a flower. Each petal
represented a different argumentative locus, a different kind of thought
which could help students in generating more arguments to support
their opinion.
Furthermore, during the text analysis students searched for the
main stylistic features used by the author, such as metaphors and rhetor-
ical questions. Scholars propose that such an effort improves students’
personal linguistic and stylistic expression as well as their syntactic com-
petence (D’ Angelo, 1973). For example:
- “A tree is a breathe of life”. (metaphor)
- “Mister Mayor, I learnt that a Dutch airline offered to Athens forty thou-
sands tulips. And you, can’t you offer not even a tree to neighbourhood’s
children?” (antithesis expressed in a form of rhetorical question)
c) The writing of a second letter (Text B) to the mayor with the same
theme followed (one didactic hour). The change of the dialogic extract
in a letter-form was an attempt to give a more dynamic character to the
imitative practice similar to the classical rhetorical exercise of paraphrase
or, in intersexuality terms, to the strategy of adaptation of the original
text (Sanders, 2006: 26; Clark, 1951: 20).
d) Three days later, students carried out a similar writing task
(Text C) (one didactic hour). This time, the theme of the argumenta-
tive letter was: You want desperately a pet. Write a letter to your mother
trying to convince her with your arguments to buy it. The activity high-
lighted the effects of the prior imitative practice, mainly, of the topi-
cal invention of arguments and examined whether the results obtained
could be dynamically transferred to a new writing attempt relative to
a different content and context, to a “new conceptual intention” (Kel-
ly, 1987: 375).
- “Standing by trees, men should make the sign of cross, because trees in-
spire carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen”. (cause and effect)
- If someone wanted to cut down your filbert-tree what would you do? I
asked George.
- I would try to prevent him. (antecedent and consequence)
Students focused their attention on the above organizational pat-
terns and the analysis of their structure, based on the assumption that
knowledge of common topics may facilitate the production of argu-
ments on any future given subject (Zompetti, 2006: 22). Accepting the
idea that topics may provide an argumentative classification, the above
topics were modeled on the blackboard as petals of a flower. Each petal
represented a different argumentative locus, a different kind of thought
which could help students in generating more arguments to support
their opinion.
Furthermore, during the text analysis students searched for the
main stylistic features used by the author, such as metaphors and rhetor-
ical questions. Scholars propose that such an effort improves students’
personal linguistic and stylistic expression as well as their syntactic com-
petence (D’ Angelo, 1973). For example:
- “A tree is a breathe of life”. (metaphor)
- “Mister Mayor, I learnt that a Dutch airline offered to Athens forty thou-
sands tulips. And you, can’t you offer not even a tree to neighbourhood’s
children?” (antithesis expressed in a form of rhetorical question)
c) The writing of a second letter (Text B) to the mayor with the same
theme followed (one didactic hour). The change of the dialogic extract
in a letter-form was an attempt to give a more dynamic character to the
imitative practice similar to the classical rhetorical exercise of paraphrase
or, in intersexuality terms, to the strategy of adaptation of the original
text (Sanders, 2006: 26; Clark, 1951: 20).
d) Three days later, students carried out a similar writing task
(Text C) (one didactic hour). This time, the theme of the argumenta-
tive letter was: You want desperately a pet. Write a letter to your mother
trying to convince her with your arguments to buy it. The activity high-
lighted the effects of the prior imitative practice, mainly, of the topi-
cal invention of arguments and examined whether the results obtained
could be dynamically transferred to a new writing attempt relative to
a different content and context, to a “new conceptual intention” (Kel-
ly, 1987: 375).
