Why Margaret Kantz’s Article Matters to Us as Students

            Margaret Kantz explained in her article titled “Helping Students Use Textual Sources Persuasively” how most of the students react toward the articles they read, and what ideas related to writing about what they read do they have. She deeply illuminated the fact that students do not write what they are required to as sophisticated writers, but instead, they write what they believe will pleasure their teachers, which is agreeing with other popular writers. She gave a hint for improving the writing skills by thinking of Kinneavy‘s triangular diagram of the rhetorical situation (corners: writer/speaker, audience, and reality/topic) (75). Kantz mentioned examples of undergraduate students who were told to write a research paper with different sources showing how each person’s strategy varied from the other (72).

Shirley is one of the examples used in Kantz article. She is described as an intelligent student who values education and is good in writing and telling stories, but surprisingly got a C- grade in her assignment. Kantz, however, talked about the reasons that caused Shirley to get this mark and showed the solutions from Alice’s point of view (70-71). The biggest problem, according to Kantz, was that students like Shirley were taught to summarize and find the purpose of the essay at the first place instead of expressing their wonders about it. They did not realize yet that they must write to freely build arguments after evaluating and analyzing what they read. In fact, they do not look to the researches as claims, but as accurate facts that they cannot discuss.

Kantz stated in her article “She also needs strategies for analyzing her reading that allow her to build original arguments.” (74) After reading this statement I posed for seconds and connected it to “The Role of Inquiry in Writing a Researched Argument” by Stuart Greene. I found the two articles similar in a way where the both of them discussed the researched arguments. Kantz focused on how to build the argument, while Greene quoted a passage that explains how discussions start before you come and continue after you leave (11).

After reading this article, I woke up to many things that I did not recognize on myself before. I admit that I used to be a “Shirley” before moments. I had read the beginning of this article twice, because I was not paying enough attention to what I am reading in the first time. In other words, I did not take gaps to question myself why and how is it related to me, but after doing so, I found that the article is appealing since it contains a lot of significant strategies and ideas that change the reader’s mind toward reading and writing assignments. I really recommend every student to read it.

 

Works Cited

 

Greene, Stuart. "Arguments as Conversation: The Role of Inquiry in Writing a Researched Argument." Writing about Writing: A College Reader. Eds. Elizabeth A. Wardle and Doug Downs. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. 9-21. Print.

Kantz, Margaret. "Helping Students Use Textual Sources Persuasively." Writing about Writing: A College Reader. Eds. Elizabeth A. Wardle and Doug Downs. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. 67-85. Print.