They Say/I Say: Are Sentence Templates Helpful or Harmful?

 Of the reading for 4/5, the Lancaster article stood out to me a lot (although I enjoyed the article on The Behavior Book as well).  Lancaster presents us with the composition textbook They Say/I Say (TSIS), which offers students sentence templates with the aim to help acquaint them with structures that will help them defend their stances or make concessions.

There are pros and cons to this approach.  Positive endorsements of TSIS state that explicit instructions and templates can help struggling students, while critics cite that this approach is reductive and oversimplifies writing.

As someone with experience as a writing tutor, I can see how both of these benefits and criticisms make sense.  I have encountered students who need this kind of explicit handholding while composing their essays or various writing assignments.  Sometimes it's because they speak a different variety of English, sometimes it's because English isn't their first language, sometimes it's because academic writing mystifies them/feels beyond their grasp, etc.  There's a lot of reasons why I can see that these templates and patterns would be beneficial for some students. 

 However, as the article progresses, it mentions that the TSIS templates miss a lot of nuance; TSIS offers direct sentences with little to no concessions, while "indirect sentence formulations are preferred for entertaining objections..."  In short, Lancaster asserts that TSIS lacks "personal tact".  I think for a writer with more experience, they would be able to integrate more indirect concession strategies into their writing.  But, for students who are struggling, templates offer them a safety net and arms them with a good baseline of vocabulary, phrases, and terminology that will help get their writing off the ground.

So, are sentence templates helpful or harmful?  I guess my answer is: it depends.

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