For the second part of this course, we worked on argumentative/persuasive speeches. Now, we started learning how to write said speeches while we were still working on debates. After that day's group had their turn debating, we would spend at least 25-30 minutes learning or working on another step in the argumentative speech writing process.
It is very important that you teach formal essay writing of any kind quite explicitly to Chinese students (or really, to any student). We take for granted that logic and formal writing styles are the same everywhere, but they are not. Chinese logic tends to be circular, hovering around the central idea without ever really discussing it directly. It's almost like they want the audience to draw their own conclusions based on the evidence they are giving them. They put a lot more weight on assumptions, and rely heavily on the audience to make the correct assumptions; it's considerably more abstract. Western logic is much more linear and direct--this happened, for this reason, because evidence evidence evidence! Western logic typically lets the audience know exactly the opinion they are defending and then backs up that opinion with sequential evidence. Sometimes Chinese students will feel that you are insulting the intelligence of the audience by being quite so explicit in your argument (instead of trusting the audience to make the correct assumptions); thus if you want your students to write in a western fashion, you have to explicitly teach this style of writing. Because this style of argumentative writing is not universal and needs to be taught--some teachers get frustrated by their students writing because they are subconsciously expecting university students to have some academic writing prowess. And they do! They just don't have the same prowess in the same style of writing as many of their foreign teachers. I have watched this lack of explicit teaching drive foreign teachers into fits of frustration, which they then take out on their students--with less engaging lessons and punishing grades.
So we broke this argumentative writing down part by part. We started with the introduction, and broke that down even further into hook, expansion, and thesis. I taught them what a hook was and why it is a compelling way to start an argument. I had a lot of help with lessons for this as both Liv and Dave had taught several courses of academic writing by the time I taught this class. We played around with crafting different hooks for our different controversial topics. I would write a topic on the board, and we would generate possible hooks for an introductory paragraph of an argumentative speech on this topic. We then talked about expanding on the idea you were going to be writing about. We would briefly explain the issue (pros and cons) in two to three sentences and then state our thesis.
The thesis is the hardest concept I found for my students to understand. It seems to be in contrast to the Chinese style of writing. My students would ask me: "Why are we telling them what we are going to tell them about right now, in the beginning? Why not wait and explain each point in each paragraph?" I am not going to lie, I did not really have a compelling answer, other than keeping ourselves clear for an audience, and that clarity enhances the power of an argumentative speech. I told them the thesis has to contain the major talking points of your argument. So, for example, if you are going to write an essay on why the One Child Policy is bad, you could say something like this, "The One Child Policy negatively impacts development in China because it places too many burdens on children, increases the chances for female infanticide, and does not significantly decrease the growth of Chinese population."
After several classes on introduction and thesis, we moved on to the body paragraphs. Here, I explained that each paragraph needs to begin with a topic sentence. This topic sentence should address only one of your argumentative points. I made comparisons to their debates; a body paragraph is like a written version of one of your claims in your debate. You need to state the claim in the first (or topic) sentence. For example, if we used the example from the thesis above, the topic sentence for the first body paragraph might be "The One Child Policy negatively impacts development in China because it places too many burdens on children." You then need to follow it up with 'hard' evidence, anecdotal evidence, persuasive language. You also need to acknowledge the other side of the argument, briefly, but remind the audience why (with facts) your claim is more valid.
My biggest challenge with the body paragraph was getting students to use the 'hard' evidence; these are facts or statistics taken from other sources. My students seemed more prone to using personal or anecdotal evidence. I explained that this evidence was fine, but you need the hard evidence as well. I think this also has to do with the Chinese style of writing; providing these anecdotal examples and allowing the audience to assume correctly the right side of an argument. I made them compel the audience in no uncertain terms that the argument they were defending was the 'correct' one by making them use hard facts and evidence. I also had a problem with plagiarism. We discussed citations in class and how to use them, but I still had several students hand me speeches without citations. This is in part due to the fact that citations are a pain in the ass, no matter where you are teaching. Additionally, however, plagiarism does not carry the same level of horror in China as it does in the States. Thus, it took me a while to impress upon them the gravity of stealing someones intellectual property. However, we eventually got the hang of citations (and I was less worried about them being in strict accordance with APA/MLA/Chicago, and more just pleased that they noted an author or the name of a website/periodical--small steps!).
We then briefly discussed the conclusion. I told them they did not need to restate any hard evidence here, merely restate the problem, their claims (in their thesis) and told them to end on a strong and persuasive note. Here might be a good place for one last anecdote that will swing the audiences opinion in your favor.
With the speaking practice coming in from the debates, and the writing taking up the majority of our remaining class time, by the end of the semester, I would say about 20 out of the 24 students in my class wrote and delivered excellent argumentative speeches. They followed the linear format, used wonderful evidence/examples, and had developed their argumentative skills. We also improved our critical thinking by examining critical issues (that they self-selected*) from multiple view-points. I would say for those four who did not excel in this area were the result of not particularly enjoying public speaking, being new to the major (switched to English majors from other majors--they did well, but they started behind their classmates and struggled a bit with this task), or in one case just refused to listen to advice and constructive criticism from both teachers and classmates.
I sincerely wish I had video of their final exams, as they all did a wonderful job on their speeches. However, the flash drive in which I had their speeches saved to is completely dead. Even those student who struggled in this course showed improvement in their speeches (both in their Oral English and in their ability to write and deliver a persuasive speech). One of our first assignments of this course was for them to write an short essay telling me why a certain location (typically their hometown) was a great (or bad) place to visit. These initial argumentative essays pale in comparison to the paragons of persuasion they were able to write, develop, and deliver by the end of the course.
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| My Argumentative Orators on our final day of class. Miss these ladies. |
*Self selection is important, always, but in particular with something like this. If you are going to ask students to research a topic, choose a side, and ask them to defend that side, you need to make sure these are issues they care about. So even if you know of several fascinating world issues, if they are not relevant to your students, they are not going to care too much about forming an opinion about them. Thus, my students selected the topics they wanted to research, and had them approved by me--I only said no to issues that did not really have a compelling counterargument...I think I maybe refused two requests? Thus, in addition to issues such as global warming and the One Child Policy, students also selected issues such as students dating in college, using reality television to find a spouse, colleges requiring morning exercise.
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