Back in high school I was b
lessed to have great teachers in advanced placement English courses. They thoroughly explained material from the class, but it never clicked for me. My writing was weak and lacked the ever escaping characteristic of “flow”. The frustrating part of it was that I watched powerful speeches and read interesting articles, but I still could not figure out the techniques they used to have effective writing. That was until Ms. Lueck graced us with the book of They say; I say.
They say; I say revealed to me the hidden aspect all of the famous speeches and writings held in common. Every one of them, at some point, treated their material as an argument. Essentially they addressed what the opposition was saying, and then th
ey disputed their claims and furthered them with evidence. Ronald Reagan’s speech “A Time for Choosing” first addressed the statements of the democrats in America, and then he proceeded to tell his audience what his thoughts were.
Martin Luther King Jr. in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” first pointed out what those who believed in segregation and racism were saying about him, the black community, and the country as a whole, and then he eloquently proved to those people and a larger audience why they were so terribly wrong.
The ironic thing about my late discovery of this tactic was that in one of my advanced English courses in high school we were actually working with a book titled Everything’s an Argument. I guess I just never gave it the attention it deserved, but as the old saying goes, better late than never. Now I can at least have a better opportunity at writing effective essays or speeches in my future.