Develop supporting evidence for both sides including factual knowledge, statistical evidence, authoritative testimony Identify the

issues and prejudices keeping in mind your audience List these as appropriate and anticipate counterclaims Assume familiarity with basic concepts but define unfamiliar terms/concepts or state meanings that define your point of departure Refer to those who agree with your position to assist you in developing your argument Familiarize yourself with those who disagree with you to prepare your defense. Summarize their argument and evidence, then refute Introduction: Consider your audience: start with a topic sentence or two that attracts attention and summarizes the is sue Inform the reader of your point of view Development: Focus on three main points to develop Each topic is developed with a general statement of the position an elaboration that references documents and source data past experiences and authoritative testimony conclusion restating the position Establish flow from paragraph to paragraph Keep your voice active Quote sources to establish authority Stay focused on your point of view throughout the essay Focus on logical arguments Don't lapse into summary in the development--wait for the conclusion Conclusion Summarize, then conclude, your argument Refer to the first paragraph/opening statements as well as the main points ? does the conclusion restate the main ideas? ? reflect the succession and importance of the arguments ? logically conclude their development? *note: your position paper could be in an outline form or a full blown paragraph form.

David Markowitz Al Filreis English 285 December 4, 1995 Position paper on Graff's Beyond the Culture Wars Gerald Graff's suggestion that colleges make issues of academic controversy part of the classroom dialogue, is for obvious reasons, attractive. However, his vision of a campus where political and academic confict is subsumed by-or at least symbiotic with-c lassroom learning assumes that the culture war is being fought in good faith. I think bel ieving that this is a good faith dispute ignores what are the most contentious fronts in the cult ure war, within as well as outside the colleges. Of course, these issues are race, gender, and sexuality. Both sides in the re war have proven themselves unable to contain themselves and argue objectively. They attempted, in some cases, to obfuscate the issue by creating code words to mize the issue, but ultimately feel a passion that is too raw, too visceral for the room to contain. cultu have euphe class

On the right, it is not simply a matter of the decay of the canon. Graff points out that several popular accounts mention the inclusion of marginal literature in syllabi, but I believe he doesn't realize the significance of who their targets are. While broadly, they c laim to be standing against "barbarism" and "relativism," they're particular targets seem t he same as a McCarthyite's rogues gallery: feminists, blacks and other minorities, homosexual s-challengers to a canon, but also, as might be expected, the enemies of the react ionaries calling themselves "conservatives." It should be no surprise that popular spokes men for the right embrace this, sometimes going to anti-intellectual extremes or plain lying . These conflicts when played out in colleges are genteel when compared with how they pl ay out in a larger national discourse about affirmative action and equal opportunity, civi l rights, personal liberties, and religious freedom. Graff rightly points out that the radical multi-culturalists have become the opp osite side of the same absolutist, exclusivist coin. But Leonard Jefferies isn't as alone as G raff would have us believe. For instance, the popularity of Nation of Islam speakers among black college students indicates that Jefferies has a good deal of company. The stifling of "h ate speech" is a more generalized indication that colleges are justifiably terrified of letting students at each other to resolve ideological disputes. Incidents like the Cornell students who d istributed

misogynist jokes or the Penn water buffalo case, should dramatize the fact that both sides of the culture war feel there is too much at stake in the culture war to permit opp osing perspectives. Judith Rodin, in a letter to parents and alumni, discussed the Red & Blue's racist article about Haiti as a success for rational student discourse, but conv eniently forgot to mention the devisiveness it caused. Graff's argument often boils down to schematizing how to represent conflicts, bu t I believe it ignores the larger, more rancorous, culture wars that revolve around the same is sues. In this regard, even though I feel his solution is elegant but unrealistic. It relies on passing absolute positions off as relative, and thus ignores how deeply felt those absolute ideol ogies are. Since this flaw is in the very foundational assumptions on which his idea rests, I think he is naive in suggesting that these arguments be contained and defused in a classroom . http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/graff-sample-paper.html http://www.studygs.net/wrtstr9.htm I. Introduction ___A. Introduce the topic ___B. Provide background on the topic ___C. Assert the thesis (your view of the issue)