Argument vs.

Conversation
1/15/2015
What role, according to Greene, does the reader play in the kind(s) of
writing you will be asked to do in college?
Rhetoric reading and writing will show you how to support your
claims with evidence. In doing so you can persuade readers to
agree with you. This form of writing also teaches you how to hold
an educated argument as an inelegant conversation. A
consecration that can sway public opinion.
Take another look at the oft-quoted passage by Kenneth Burke in
paragraph 6. Why does Greene quote it yet again? Explain the
extended metaphor that Burke uses. How would you describe the way
it presents writing? What other ideas about writing might it challenge?
Greene uses the passage again to show how to enter an
argument with no information or introduction. Most of the time
people enter conversations, debuts, or augments long after they
have started; so it is key to listen first before speaking in any
form of group conversation. The metaphor used by Burke is You
listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor
of the argument, then you put in your oar. By using this
metaphor, you are now synchronized with the other argument
rowers and also helping move the topic boat forward. Writing is
like rowing a boat, you have to use oars to steer and move your
topic forward. While I find the metaphor a little far-fetched, it
does hold truth in the idea of what we are doing with our writing.
In a sense we are setting sail on our voyage to the sea of writing.
Explain the concept of framing. What metaphor underlies it? Why is the
concept important for Greene? What does framing allow a writer to do?
Framing is taking the big picture and focus on the little ideas.
Writing is a great to frame, because you can take a large topic
and focus on specific details.