Introducing 

Prezi AI.

Your new presentation assistant.

Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.

Loading…
Transcript

"They Say/I Say"

The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing

The Conversation

Entering Academic Conversations

01.

Academic conversations express their own ideas in respose to what others have said

02.

Discover what you want to say by reading listening to what others say, and looking for an opening through which to enter the conversation

03.

The templates provide prompts such as: What do "they" say about my topic? What would a naysayer comment on? What is my evidence? Do I have to qualify my point? Who cares?

Templates

Templates

  • Writers routinely rely on established moves crucial to communicating sophisticated ideas

Working

With

Templates

Working

With

Templates

  • Enter into academic thinking, civic discourse
  • Templates help to put abstract principles into practice
  • Give an immediate sense of how to engage in critical thinking
  • Critical thinking requires questioning assumptions, developing strong claims, considering opposing arguments, but this cannot happen without the appropriate language

Examples

Examples

  • Many Americans assume that.....
  • Author X contradicts herself. At the same time that she argues...., she also implies....

State Your Own Ideas As a Response to Others

Responding to Others

  • "They say.....; I say....." formula
  • The importance of expressing your own ideas in response to some other person or group

Why?

  • Traditional five-paragraph essays may leave out the fact that in the real world we don't make arguments without provocation
  • If your argument doesn't identify what "they say", it likely won't make sense
  • WHAT you're saying might be clear, but not WHY

Example

"You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations"

-MLK Jr. "Letter from a Birmingham Jail"

  • King's Critics:
  • King's response:
  • Critics:
  • Response:

Example

Ways of Responding

Diagnostic Essay:

What has been the role of writing in your life thus far? Have you had any particularly positive or negative instances with writing that you feel have shaped your attitude about it (a teacher, class, subject or creative writing assignment, for instance)? Where do you feel your weaknesses are in the subject? Your strengths?

Creativity?

  • Templates don't dictate content, just how you say it

Don't rule out agreement:

  • She argues..., and I agree because....
  • Her argument that.....is supportted by new research showing that....

Agree and disagree at the same time:

  • He claims that...., and I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, I agree that.... On the other hand, I still insist that....

Ways of Responding

Plagiarism?

  • Only if you filll iin blanks that are borrowed from others
Learn more about creating dynamic, engaging presentations with Prezi