And Yet

Graff, Gerald., Birkenstein, Cathy., Durst, Russel. They Say I Say and "The Decline and Fall of  Declinism." .New York: Norton, 2009. Print

Chapter five explains how to tell which side a speaker is taking. Sometimes listeners do not understand which point the speaker is taking and there are key words to listen for to view their side. The chapter also explains how to explain your position more clearly.

"When writers fail to use voice-marking devices like these, their summaries of others' views tend to become confused with their own ideas- and vice versa."

My English class in high school used to have socratic seminars very similar to what we do in English 155. After I read the above quote from the reading, my first thought was that our class had a problem of understanding each others' viewpoints. A lot of times during discussion, a classmate would ask the other what position they were taking. This chapter of the reading really motivated me to take a position and explain clearly why I chose that side. When someone speaks out their opinion it is important to have an understanding of what they said, and then clearly explain whether you agree or disagree. During our seminar it was easy to understand which position someone was taking. Our class did well picking sides but there were only a few occasions when I did not understand which position they were taking. I believe our next discussion together will be a lot better than the last. A lot of the reading from the book helps me get a better understanding  of how discussions should be reviewed. After practice and more reading, I think the next discussion we have as a class will be really interesting because every one of us will know how to respond.