They Say / I Say pg.1-18 #1&2

 

  1. “They Say / I Say”: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing ,written by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein, talks about writing templates and how they can help anyone immensely improve their writing and debate skills. Graff and Birkenstein start off the book by explaining how templates are important in critical thinking and can be related to things students do everyday. The authors talk about how their favorite template is “They Say___; I say____”. This is their favorite because they believe it is the set structure for other templates and presents the importance of listening to other people’s perspectives while doing argumentative or any kind of writing. Graff and Birkenstein argue the idea that the foundation for their templates are essential in every argument to captivate the audience and display that the speaker has an overall goal for his or her argument by stating an opposing opinion. To try to demonstrate the importance of these templates, the authors use quotes from different argumentative sources to show that it is used in important circumstances. Although some people believe that templates limit creativity and are for kids, Graff and Birkenstein believe that templates actually make writers more creative and need too much practice to be for kids. The authors compare writing with templates to doing any other extra curricular activity, and argue with the people who think templates are not creative by stating how writing needs a structure just like an activity is based on an established pattern. Graff and Birkenstein also use an excerpt from “Don’t Blame the Eater” by David Zinczenko to try and convince the readers that using a template does not sound robotic. To sum it up, Graff and Birkenstein suggest that using templates helps enhance a student’s writing while also teaching them to listen to both sides of an argument, and increase critical thinking skills necessary for their future interactions and writings. 

I have mixed feelings about templates. I agree with Graff and Birkenstein that templates teach valuable skills in the realm of speech and writing, and that they can be helpful tools. However, I disagree that all writings using templates don’t sound robotic and captivate the audience. For instance, it would not sound good if a student just copied right off of a template and/or had a boring argument, which in argument Graff and Birkenstein stated “In our view, the templates in this book will actually help your writing become more original and creative, not less”. Personally, I believe not all writings or speeches that have an argumentative motivation are going to captivate an audience. This does not mean I don’t think templates aren’t helpful though, in fact Graff and Birkenstein made good points in saying that they can be helpful in showing writers how to look at other sides of the argument and teach life-long skills. It is a fact that humans are arguing or debating almost everyday, so being able to compare what you are saying to the other side of your point is a huge advantage. Some might object, saying that looking at other’s views aren’t needed to win an argument, but looking at some perspective from Graff and Birkenstein; they say that “The answer is that if you don’t identify the “they say” you’re responding to, your own argument probably won’t have a point”. Overall, I believe that Graff and Birkenstein are right about templates being important to use and helpful for debating, but I don’t believe that all writings using templates are interesting and creative- an important point to make given that is one of the top reasons some students don’t use templates.


  1. Online school is a good way to keep students safe from coronavirus; however even after 8 hours of screen time, a lot of teachers assign homework which can take an extra 4 to four hours for a student to complete. This much screen time can cause bad posture, eye strain, extra stress, and many more horrible things to a person’s body. Some teachers see homework as good practice and think it helps a student properly learn the material. However, research has shown that not only does homework not raise a student’s GPA or teach them much, but there is more evidence showing that homework has many negative effects on students. Teachers argue that homework helps teach students to work independently and use time wisely. On the contrary, online school homework actually uses up student’s time that should be used for socialization or extracurriculars. For the truth, too much time with homework can make students stressed and deteriorate not only their mental health, but also their physical health as they don’t have a lot of time for physical activity; especially in online school. Still, teachers tend to give lots of unnecessary homework, while many studies show it is more harmful than benficial.

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