ALTHOUGH….

ALTHOUGH….One of the great teachers that Annalisa and Nick each had in high school—Mr. Clarke (Bruce Clarke)—told them that one good way to begin an essay in history was with the word “although.” The first sentence would take the form: “Although there are arguments against the proposition, the arguments for the proposition are stronger.” Stanley Fish recommends a similar strategy: copying the forms of good sentences as a means of learning to write better. In particular, he cites a recent book by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein, THEY SAY/ I SAY (2006), which recommends using forms of arguments they call “templates.” One of those templates is in the title of the book. The argument presents the conventional wisdom (“They say…”) and presents reasons for disagreeing (“I say…”). Graff and Birkenstein present a related template which involves using the form “at this point you will probably object that….” They say that students using the template come up with arguments on the other side that they would otherwise never have thought of.