Deanna Brossman started teaching English in Geneseo, Illinois, in 2001. She earned her MA in English literature in 2007 and National Board Certification in 2012. She teaches dual credit composition, AP English Language and Composition, and a transitional English course for seniors wanting to strengthen their fundamental reading and writing skills before college. She and her husband enjoy visiting National Parks with their two small children, and both kiddos love snuggling in with a good book.
Image Credit: Alyson Anton
As a high school English teacher for the past twenty-three years, I often have been asked to name my favorite book to teach. I know the questioner is aiming for a classic novel or a modern masterpiece of fiction, but my answer would surprise most people. I am a superfan of the textbook “They Say / I Say” by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein, and I would never want to teach any course on my roster without it.
My initial encounter with this book was in 2008–09 during my first year of teaching AP English Language and Composition, and I have held steady with Graff and Birkenstein’s philosophy, from the First Edition to the Sixth, of treating academic writing as a conversation. The authors simplify complex ideas into recognizable patterns that guide my students as both readers and writers. I love this book so much that when I took over the dual credit composition courses a few years later, it became an essential part of my curriculum. When I was assigned to teach on-level seniors in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic, I lobbied to put it in my curriculum there as well. Students of every level in their last two years of high school can benefit from reading instruction that helps them see an academic argument as a conversation between real people, but some readers might need more support and practice to implement the lesson.
Fifteen years of using the same textbook with a variety of different grade levels, course requirements, and abilities has helped me identify challenges that students encounter when they put this method into practice. Almost all of the frustration revolves around an inability to identify “They.” Most students are sensitive enough as readers that they can discern the “Yes” and “No” language when it occurs in an essay, but they flounder when I ask them to pinpoint who that diction is aimed towards. Sometimes the most complex part of teaching students to read for positioning language is to just get them to answer that one question: Who is “They”?
Over the years I have come up with some solutions to this problem that I hope will help other educators looking to use my favorite book for the first time in their own classrooms. Here are a few strategies to get started:
- Define the concept. I love the templates provided in Chapter One, “They Say”; however, sometimes those sentence patterns make the most sense to students in their role as writers, not readers. In order to teach them how to remember what “They” stands for when reading a new text, I have devised an analytical method that frames the concept in four straightforward steps, which I practice with them repeatedly:
- Identify the subject matter of the article.
- Remind students that “They” can be defined as a person, group, or organization who has either said something or done something about the subject matter. (This helps the students see that actions are sometimes what we are arguing for or against and not just the speech of others.)
- Figure out what positioning pattern from Chapter Four, “Yes / No / Okay, But,” that writer is making in the argument.
- Test out that pattern to see if it makes sense in the context of the reading. For some students, the definition and the analytical method are all they need to figure out how to describe a complex article in Graff and Birkenstein’s terms.
I have even created a worksheet that students can keep in their binders or print electronically so that they can follow this method themselves in any text they might encounter outside my class as well.
- Use an analogy. I cannot stress enough to students how important it is to be able to accurately identify “They” from the beginning of their analysis. Sometimes I compare the idea of positioning language in an article to the act of giving someone directions when they are lost (like in the old days, without Google Maps to lean on). If someone is lost and can’t tell you where they are, then you can’t tell them what direction to take to rescue themselves. If you don’t know who “They” is, then how can you accurately describe what positioning pattern the author is using?
- Pretend you’re throwing a party. One of my favorite sections in the Introduction to “They Say / I Say” is the party metaphor shared through the quote from Kenneth Burke’s The Philosophy of Literary Form. I love having students imagine that academic writing is like arriving at a fancy party where their assignment is to mingle in and out of ongoing conversations by “putting in your oar,” as Graff and Birkenstein like to say. But that party metaphor can be even more useful when you are trying to get students to understand who “They” is in a text.
Sometimes when a student comes to my desk to discuss their frustration with analyzing the positioning language of an article, I will have them pick up a dry erase marker and turn to the white board next to us. I ask them to imagine that the writer has decided to throw a party that includes all of the people mentioned in their piece, including the author; my student is now in charge of the seating arrangements. I encourage them to draw it out. Who would they seat together because they have similar interests? Who should be placed far apart because they would hate each other? Who seems willing to stake out the middle ground and be a buffer? (Long tables work better for this exercise than round ones, because students can literally see the distance that a rectangle creates between sparring parties, but who am I to judge? It’s their party; the students can choose the arrangement.) Ultimately, this leads confused readers to work themselves through all the people mentioned in the text as potential options for “They,” figuring out who the writer is primarily aiming for in their argument. Visual and spatial learners can see relationships forming in the drawings better than by reading alone.
- Practice, practice, practice. The best way to get students to understand positioning language is to show them where the patterns “live” in real-life arguments. At the start of most class periods for both my AP Language and dual credit students, students take turns bringing in an opinion article from a newspaper dated no earlier than August of our current school year.
My primary purpose is twofold: First, we get to practice recognizing where the positioning language lives in a real-life text. Sometimes the “They Say / I Say” combo shows up in the opening paragraphs. Sometimes the article builds through a series of anecdotes or examples before revealing the main argument of the text closer to the end. It is good for students to see that these patterns are stable but not formulaic, and the only way to do this is to read a lot of professional writers who reflect the templates naturally in their writing. Second, we get to learn about arguments surrounding current events happening at this moment in our broader culture. Part of the reason why teenagers struggle to identify “They” involves a lack of knowledge about life outside their own social media bubbles. The discussions that ensue from these readings are always some of the most interesting parts of my day. The students get to learn who key players are in a variety of social, political, and economic arguments, and they become more comfortable sharing their own thoughts on these controversies as the semester moves forward. Because students pick the articles, they are more likely to buy into the conversations. Plus, at the end of the semester for my dual credit sections, these same articles become the foundation for the Synthesis Essays that they write to demonstrate their ability to incorporate and document sources into their own arguments. The wide variety of topics leads to a wide variety of papers and a healthy discussion of how these writers would interact with each other in real life. It’s “They Say / I Say” put into action!
Some might ask, Are these strategies worth the effort it takes to teach students to recognize positioning language? I say, Absolutely! Once adolescents can identify these patterns in real-life arguments, it’s like a switch has been flipped. Students report to me that they start to recognize “They Say / I Say” structures when they read the news, watch TikTok videos, or participate in meaningful conversations. One pupil even reported that she could recognize these patterns in the Bible. Most importantly, “They Say / I Say” takes the idea of making an argument out of the realm of the abstract into a concrete understanding of real-life conflicts and—let’s hope—resolutions. If we are to push against the tide of polarization in our culture, we need to get our students to listen to each other accurately, where “They” is no longer some disembodied ideology that readers can choose to ignore, but an actual person whose opinions are worthy of respect and consideration.
AP® is a trademark registered and/or owned by the College Board, which was not involved in the production of, and does not endorse, this product.