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DOI: 10.7330_9780874219203.c002 2 R e f r a m i n g a n d D e l i b e r at i v e A r g um e n t Tell all the truth, but tell it slant — Success in circuit lies Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) When we imagine a fight, most of us think about a face-to-face confrontation , an encounter in which combatants engage one another along a linear axis; it’s a structure we recognize from fistfights, duels, and showdowns in old western towns. To demonstrate the linear nature of a fight, I often used large cardboard arrows, holding them up so students could see that they pointed directly at one another, representing a clash of forces in which the stronger will presumably overpower the weaker and emerge victorious. I illustrated the opposite situation, flight, by turning one arrow around 180 degrees and moving it away from the aggressor. In the unit Reframing and Deliberative Argument, I wanted to contrast the familiar fight-flight reaction (along a horizontal axis) with a response in which the angle of engagement is oblique. Instead of moving directly against an opposing force, as in a conventional fight, or fleeing from a confrontation, one could, I suggested, yield and blend with the attack, followed by moving off the horizontal axis and entering on an angle, redirecting the oppositional force. To illustrate, I began with the two arrows pointing toward one another, positioned for a fight. But rather than clashing, one of the arrows moved back and to one side, off the axis of confrontation—rotating about forty-five degrees so it pointed at the other arrow on an angle. When I pushed the arrows forward, the combined force moved them in a new direction, at something like ninety degrees to the original axis. This demonstration provided a visual depiction of reframing, a tactic that creates the necessary conditions for deliberative arguments. To borrow a line from Emily Dickinson’s wellknown poem, we would consider how to “tell all the truth, but tell it slant”: how, that is, to change the angle of confrontation from direct to oblique—and how to do so with intention and integrity.1 Reframing and Deliberative Argument   31 But before we began our work on reframing, I wanted students to become observers of the dynamics of everyday arguments, so I asked them to start paying attention to the conflicts taking place around them—with parents, with friends and romantic partners, and with roommates and new acquaintances in their residence halls. I encouraged them to record their observations in the weekly notebook entries, along with other reflections. Conflicts with roommates were common subjects, often over matters that seem unimportant from a distance—the temperature of the room, how to arrange the furniture in a small space—but clearly mattered to first-year students who were settling into a new life. My roommate and I got in a fight over the temperature of our room. I get hot easily and she is always cold, which poses problems. I always open the windows and when I return I see they are always shut. We began to fight, me talking about how hot I am and her saying she was cold and it’s not fair to open her window. As they began to pay attention to the arguments taking place around them, students were struck by the ubiquity of disagreements and disputes. The more I look around, the more arguments I see and hear. On my hall specifically, there has recently been constant arguing. A kid on my hall has been having a lot of problems with his girlfriend at home and is constantly arguing with her on the phone. I hear yelling and sad tones all the time, and it is rather depressing. A girl down the hall and her roommate have not gotten along since day one and often argue about various things. Instead of talking about what each of them should do to make their living environment better, they just yell and get angry about the things that are not going right. And in the process of observing disagreements among others, students began to pay attention to their own habits of arguing. As one student noted, “From a young age, I have definitely been inclined to confrontation. In fact, my mom always jokes that my first word was no.” Another recognized the pattern of argument that prevailed in her family. I have...

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