“They Say, I Say” - pg. 14 Exercise #2

September 5th, 2007 by Meg

In the preface and introduction to “They Say, I Say”: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing”. Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein provide templates designed to provoke cognitive thought process in order to enhance writing skills. Specifically, Graff and Birkenstein argue that the types of writing templates they offer stretch beyond the basic grammar formats, like the 5 paragraph essay. As the authors themselves put it, “…our templates echo this classical rhetorical tradition of imitating established models”. Although some people believe stifle creativity. Graff and Birkenstein insist that these templates draw out creativity by taking out the guesswork involved in trying to establish the core foundation of format through templates. In sum, then, their view is that these templates are the gateway to more creative thought process, ergo, better writing.
I have mixed feelings. However , I tend more towards agreement. In my view, the types of templates that the authors recommend are intriguing because I have never seen anything like them. For instance, using this template has been difficult because I am not use to structuring my thoughts in this manner. In addition, I felt myself fighting my own inner skepticism that I could do better on my own, until I stopped fighting and started using the tools newly introduced through this template. Some might object, of course, on the grounds that the template told me what to write. Yet I would argue that if you read my first papers for this class one would see the omission of literary wit that seems to be gushing out in this essay. Overall, then, I believe that the template process works if you trust you have more to learn and that you can be taught new writing—an important point to make given I am still a student myself. However, I’m still not sure how to incorporate all that provoked interesting and resonating reflections in what I read with this particular template. I am sure I just need more practice!