Writing Analytically, 6th Edition - Rosenwasser, David & Stephen, Jill.original_ [224]
September 11th: A National Tragedy?
By James Peck
Paragraph 1, sentence 1: Since the events of September 11th, I’ve been pursued by thoughts and images of tragedy.
Paragraph 1, last sentence: A voluminous literature theorizes the limits of tragic form, and I admit it rankles me to hear the word “tragic” used as a generic modifier for anything really bad that happens.
Paragraph 2, sentence 1: With the events of September 11th, however, I have found myself using the language of tragedy pretty indiscriminately.
Paragraph 2, last two sentences [Working thesis]: But I am coming to the conviction that tragedy offers a demanding, stark paradigm that at least accounts for some of the emotional force of these events and may even suggest some generative ways to think about them. Beyond simply capturing a bit of the devastation wrought by the attacks, can the form of tragedy help us narrate, image, or otherwise represent these horrors?
Paragraph 3, sentence 1: I acknowledge that it may seem frivolous, even blasphemous, to discuss these overwhelming and all too real events in a matrix borrowed from the relatively rarified topic of dramatic form.
Paragraph 4, sentence 1: I’m suggesting that the form of tragedy might accommodate some of the affective power of September 11th, and even point towards some of its moral claims.
Paragraph 5, sentence 1: I think this ought to be the tenor of our discourse in the wake of September 11th.
Paragraph 6, sentence 1: A tragic witnessing of September 11th must also preserve outrage at these callous acts.
Paragraph 7, sentence 1: Finally, a tragic witnessing of these events should squarely face some awful truths, dwell in the full weight of those truths, and try to see ourselves anew as a result of doing so.
Paragraph 8, sentence 1: The cornerstone of Aristotle’s theory of tragedy is the dual principle of peripety and recognition.
Paragraph 9, sentence 1: I worry that my discussion may seem tasteless, or worse, coy.
Paragraph 10, sentence 1: I don’t want to live in a melodrama. Paragraph 11, sentence 1: It deeply worries me that the dominant national discourse in the aftermath of September 11th is melodramatic.
Paragraph 12, sentence 1: I’d like to close by evoking the function of tragedy in Athenian democracy.
Paragraph 13, sentence 1: Given this avowedly patriotic context, the most remarkable thing about the City Dionysia was its frank criticism of Athenian public life.
Paragraph 13, final sentence [The evolved thesis]: In this moment of national crisis, I think we would benefit from bringing the same questioning, restless, self-critical spirit to our own national conversation.
Paragraph 14 (entire): I hope we take seriously our casual language, and witness September 11th as a tragedy. Remember the dead. Pursue their killers. Interrogate ourselves.
GUIDELINES FOR FORMS AND FORMATS ACROSS THE CURRICULUM
Find the space in a format that will allow it to work as a heuristic, a set of steps designed not just to organize but to stimulate and guide your thinking. Avoid the slot-filler mentality.
Look for and expect to find the common denominators among the various formats you learn to use across the curriculum. You can master—and benefit from—virtually any format if you approach it not as a set of arbitrary and rigid rules, but as a formalized guide to having ideas.
Don’t make your readers wait too long before you concede or refute a view that you can assume will already have occurred to them. Otherwise, they may assume you are unaware of the competing view or afraid to bring it up.
Always treat opposing views fairly. A good strategy is to concede their merits but argue that, in the particular context you are addressing,