As Bartholemae argues, it’s impossible to discuss something without evoking what has been said (or rather, written) in the past. That’s come to light a few times in my grading.
During Essay 1, with one reading, I had a lot of students who basically just restated the reading’s main point. I gave out a lot of Cs, at that point. Over time, their arguements got more nuanced.
But when Essay 4 came around, with one topic? Everyone fell back into the pattern of restating things. It was FRUSTRATING. I was thinking, “is something wrong? How could my whole class be doing this?”
…Then I had a realization; it’s really hard to come up with an original thought when all you have is a single view point to work from. It’s not impossible, but there’s that whole inescapable pit of language thing. You either agree with it, or you disagree. That’s it.
So perhaps those early essays should be structured differently. Rather than having them focus on WHAT the author is saying, we should have them focus primarily on how it’s being said. How is this person making their arguement? Why are they doing it this way? I don’t care if you agree ot not, I want to know what the rhetoric at play is. Identify rhetorical devices and logical fallacies. Talk about what they might have left out, or have done differently.
Then, once they have a grasp of that, they can start constructing their own rhetorical arguements and persuasive essays.