Arguing a PositionARGUMENT ESSAY

Format: Take a position Evidence (proper noun-Name, Date)ATO-Address to opposition (refutation)(one sentence

ATO)-need to address opposition or you don’t have an argument

EvidenceTie it to large idea

*Remember what good writers do-you have analyzed this in the RA essays. What can you use to make your writing and purpose eff ective? How can you use stylistic (rhetorical) devices to make your argument?

ARGUMENT REQUIRES A POSITION AND AN IDEA

2005-”Training for Statesmanship” by George F. Kennan

Directions: The passage below is from “Training for Statesmanship” (1953), an article written by George F. Kennan, one of the principal architects of Unites States foreign policy during the period following the end of the Second World War. Read the passage carefully and select what you believe is Kennan’s most compelling observation. Then write an essay in which you consider the extent to which that observation holds true for the United States or for any other country. Support your argument with appropriate evidence.

What is the questions asking? (2 parts) + big idea why is this important

READING THE ARGUMENT QUESTION

Pick one and write an argument in which you address the extent to which it holds true for the United States or for any other country (convince us/why)

Observations:Power diffused-powercommunityAmericans place extraordinary obligations of

conformityAmericans need for conformity breeds

oppressionPolice power-authority

KENNAN’S OBSERVATIONS

Find evidenceEvidence from: Current EventsHistoryScienceFilmOne body paragraph is telescopic in nature (detailed)

focus on one evidence and expandOne body paragraph is worldview-less detailed and

more dependent on diff erent evidence and tying it together

PICK ONE COMPELLING OBSERVATION

Position Statement: Kennan’s assertion that Americans need for conformity breeds oppression clearly articulates how we place unrealistic constraints on individual members of our society, suggesting how these spill over to our unfair treatment of others and other nations.

List six examples of evidence:Puritan SocietyThe Salem Witch TrialsThe Study of Eugenics Japanese Interment CampsMcCarthy EraThe Mortgage and Housing Crisis of 2006

EVIDENCE THAT CORRESPOND TO KENNAN’S OBSERVATION

Americans historical ly have valued individual ism, we are mythologized as rugged individual ists, but in real ity as George F. Kennan, a principal architect of U.S. foreign pol icy, notes in “Training for Statesmanship,” we place extraordinary obl igations of conformity on one another. Unfortunately, that need for conformity only serves to oppress .

Some may argue that conformity has been one of our greatest strengths. It has made a nation of disparate people-one. Our plural istic, public educational system guarantees that al l members in our society wil l have an equal and fair chance to an education.

However, during segregation, blacks were off ered a “separate but equal” access to education. Historical ly disfranchised minorities, immigrants-the poor, weak, and downtrodden have been promised equality through that great “equalizer” that is education. The great equalizer has been more l ike a great enforcer demanding that Native Americans sacrifi ce their rel igion and culture, that blacks submit to an inferior standard, and that Hispanics acquiesce to standardized testing.

Under the guise of this equality, of this promise to access, conformity has been used by the status-quo to oppress. This practice sti l l continues today and we, the struggling working and middle class are too easi ly swayed into Gatsbian dream of belonging, often with dire consequences.

RESPONSE

The pressure to conform, the force of community, has historically led every immigrant to believe that to achieve to succeed in the U.S. is to reach the American dream. This unrealistic measure of economic success has led to the demise of the middle-class. In the early 2000s, real-estate sells soared, practically every American had achieved the American dream of owning a house. Interests rates were low, lenders were lenient, and hopes were high. But in 2006, 2007, the real-estate market crashed and sub-prime mortgages imploded. What soon followed was a series of economic corrections in order to save the banking system-and that it did. The U.S. government gave bankers an excess of 25 billion dollars to clean up the mess they made. Meanwhile, the average American defaulted on their mortgage loans, banks refused to refi nance-and again Americans defaulted on their mortgages and lost their homes. The banking system lost nothing.

RESPONSE

The status-quo, our government, decided that who needed saving was the banking system, not Americans. The working class man, the middle-class single mother in an attempt to fi t, to conform, to achieve an equal measure as her neighbor, defaulted on their loans and lost everything. This is the common plight of working and middle class America. In an attempt to measure up to the status quo, to the Joneses, to the wealthy, we have lost any measure of equality that guaranteed our voice in society. Instead, we have heard our Calvinistic ancestry lash out against us and let us know that above all; it values wealth.

Why aren’t we outraged about this? Why haven’t we like our disfranchised forefathers called for economic revolution? The answer lies in our need to conform. To a nation of immigrants, fi nding common ground is important. There is comfort in belonging. It is our ever growing need to belong, to be part of the American dream. But l ike Jay Gatsby, we the downtrodden, disfranchised, may fi nd ourselves miles away from that other half that lives across the bay.

RESPONSE