In the rhetoric reading group, a reading from Henry Johnstone's Validity and Rhetoric in Philosophical Argument gave rise to a discussion of "risk" in argumentation. In Johnstone's view, people truly engaged in an argument must place themselves in a state of open-mindedness in which they "run the risk of having [their] behavior or beliefs altered by the argument." This kind of risk sounded familiar to us as we recounted the defensiveness, confusion and insecurity of our students as they encountered texts which supported conflicting views on the same issues. I want to suggest that this element of risk--this vulnerability--is also present in Studio 1 ethnography. Through exploring in Studio 1 how to mold claims to the available evidence, students might be receiving preparation to write persuasively under the rhetorical demands of Studio 2.

During my first semester here, I taught the eight week basic essay section, a course in writing persuasive essays. The brainstorming sessions we had were usually based on a single reading and concentrated on unfolding the arguments for and against a given proposition. These sessions helped students articulate a position but rarely did they seriously challenge the students' beliefs. I base this assertion on the difficulty the students had understanding the need for--or even the concept of--a concession and the way that the form of an argument overshadowed the plausibility of the argument. I think I shared with my students the feeling that the essays lacked grounding in examples, experience, or statistics to make them truly persuasive. I remember essays which were highly hypothetical. The risks of entering an argument often receded before the inconclusiveness of the evidence. The arguments were often written from closed minds.

That doing ethnography lets students gather the goods of evidence is usually the leading argument in ethnography's favor as a classroom assignment. I want to go on to suggest that humility before the evidence is potentially a greater benefit. Ideally, the students' minds should be "changed" by doing ethnography in a couple of ways:

1. They learn that the "obvious" is a complex set of unexamined conclusions. For students who never break through to actual discovery, describing "the obvious" requires the skillful use of evidence which becomes persuasive by virtue of its fitness and coherence--in this instance ethnography seems to be the wicked uncle of those primer technical writing assignments which begin "describe a chair for someone who has never seen one before." At this level the ethnography is in danger of being a "report."

2. They learn what it is to discover. To study a site, students leave the comfort of the obvious--their opinions prior to observation--traverse the chaos of experience--or, to lean on Walker Percy, the boredom of the spectacle--and arrive at discovery, the renewed order which is the seed of a paper. Discovery is the key difference between a drab ethnography and an exciting one. Discovery does not occur without the risk of open-mindedness, waiting out the period of inconclusiveness and meaninglessness before insight arrives (and for some students this is like waiting for Godot).

I want to pick up on the second point. This departs from the Baker essay classes where we drew opposing battle lines-- "everyone in favor of abortion raise your hand"--and afterward worked out the arguments. I have my students list preconceptions about their sites before they take any field notes and hold those preconceptions against them later--telling them that if they haven't learned anything beyond their initial preconceptions that they haven't looked beyond their own minds, that their papers aren't going to be very interesting, that they're not going to have much to offer the reader. I try to encourage consideration before decision. Of course I encouraged this when I was a teacher of basic essays, too, but in doing an ethnography the process of arriving at a claim is slowed down. The number of times those claims may require adjustment becomes significant.

The risk of discovery, of change, is most productive where it affects both student and teacher. When students write about literature, I have felt the comfort of my own "obvious"--that there is plenty to say about a certain text and that much of it will be familiar and all of it tied to a text which is within my relative expertise. This "obvious" is pulled away when a student returns from an unfamiliar site with a set of field notes. As a teacher, I have the gnawing feeling that fascinating things are escaping the student's notice, but all I can do is keep asking questions or help the student reflect on what he or she has already noticed. As a teacher, I am risking an exploration of the unknown, the unknown in this case being the capabilities of the student. Students realize this and are unnerved by the realization that there is no "right answer" beyond the one they put themselves at risk to create. Faith in the student is essential to good student ethnographies. I usually gripe and moan about my unimaginative students choosing to do their hall lounges, but a couple of my most interesting ethnographies this past semester began as lounge studies.

In doing ethnographies, students run the risk of discovering the inadequacies of their own personal categories. In a sense, students argue with themselves. Experience is complex. The evidence offered by the site and present in field notes may resist student claims. I've found myself counseling a number of students to offer the evidence which contradicts their claims along with the evidence which supports them to present a creditable description of a group or site. Working with groups of real people in concrete situations may make the need for intellectual honesty more immediate to students than the Baker essay brainstorming sessions which seemed to circle around discussions of an ill-defined "them." While doing an ethnography, students aren't putting themselves at risk relative to another argument but to the direct evidence. The changes in opinion which result are especially important for students who are participant observers or who have a similar personal investment in a group or site.

Without entering what they would see as a field of argument, student ethnographers are still exploring the nature of evidence. Most students are worried about what inferences they can make with a good conscience. The tinkering back and forth between claim and evidence, hypothesis and observation, shows students that they can't be as broad or as dogmatic in their assertions as they might want to be. I can't help but think that the insights gained will be valuable to them as they try to carve out their positions against a number of complex positions in Studio 2.