English 1321 Fall 2006 Dr. Brady Peterson Office phone: 254 295-4564 Home phone: 254 939-1674 Office e-mail: [email protected] Office: Heard 102 Office hours: MWF – 1-3, TTh 9:30-11

Texts: Faigley, The Penguin Handbook; 2nd Edition. Peterson and Brereton, The Norton Reader; 11th Edition. Lunsford and Ruszkiewicz, everything’s an argument, 3rd Edition. Orwell, Down and Out In Paris and London. A current college level Dictionary.

Suggested reading: Strunk and White, The Elements of Style, (any edition) On can find this book at Amazon or in most book stores. It is not required reading, but it is an easy read, and it is one of the better books on style.

A Rationale:

This class is about writing and about arguments.

To be engaged in this class is to confront the question what makes for good writing and what makes a reasoned argument. Moreover, to be engaged in this class means having the commitment to work at producing that reasoned argument in a well-written essay, an essay worth reading.

We begin with the understanding that an essay is something more than a report. An essay expresses a point of view, and it attempts to convince the reader to accept that point of view or at least to consider it. An essay worth reading often embraces controversy and disagreement. It challenges us to look at ourselves and our world in a different way. It reminds us of the differences between appearances and reality, between the platitudes we pretend to believe in and the way we really live. An essay worth reading seeks out the truth, but more than that, it seeks out the significance of that truth.

Your task then as an essayist is to say something true and significant and to convince your reader what you say is true and significant. It requires a kind of honesty with your subject, with your reader, and with yourself that may prove uncomfortable. It also requires the hard work of putting words on paper, scribbling down ideas to see if they work, to see if they stand up to the criteria of truth and significance.

So where do we begin? What is the truth of a thing, and what makes a truth significant?

Let us take the assertion that a person must eat in order to live. That would seem true enough. Little or no proof would be required to convince most if not all of us that we need to eat to live. I am currently chomping on a banana as I write this. So where is the essay? Where is the argument as it relates to this truth? I finish my banana and

1 congratulate myself on not pigging out for lunch. It’s time I made a serious effort at reducing the old waist line. I know that we need to eat to live, but the problem with me is that I eat too much. Our whole culture, bulging with affluence, crammed with supermarkets and fast food chains, eats too much. Most of us have never been hungry. What we call hunger is probably more accurately described as merely being ready to eat the next meal, a meal that has always been there. Thus the truism that we must eat to live, while it remains true, is little more than a cliché for many of us.

But if we turn to Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London, we may find ourselves experiencing a different point of view. Here hunger and fatigue are the norm. Most are out of work, and even working people are scraping to find that next morsel to sustain themselves. Our narrator pinches his cheeks before he goes in for a job interview to give his hollow cheeks the appearance of health. Here the empty belly becomes the center of consciousness, and everything else fades into the background. In this context, the truism that a person must eat to live takes on an entirely different meaning.

That is not to say that the first context necessarily renders the original assertion meaningless. It remains true in both cases. It runs the risk of being meaningless in the first case if, with our bellies full, we fail to think about it. The person in Orwell’s Paris has no choice but to think about it. The person reading Orwell’s book, if that person is truly alive, if that person can truly read, cannot help but think about it as well. Orwell, as essayist, places the reader inside the mind of a narrator living in a hotel where few had luggage and most had sold all but the clothes on their backs to feed their bellies. He is working as a dishwasher and is too exhausted from his labor to search for anything better. Here Orwell reminds the reader that hunger and poverty exist. He reminds the reader that any person is perhaps only a few bad breaks away from being one of these people. And as an essayist, Orwell challenges the reader to come up with a solution to this problem.

That, in essence, is the job of the essayist, to remind us of the truth and significance of the world we live in and of our place in that world. The essayist urges us to open our eyes, compels us to rethink our view of the world, and argues for our sympathies. That is the task of the essayist, and again, that is the task before you.

Understand, however, that truth is found not only in broad abstract assertions. It can also be found in what at first glance would seem to be the most mundane of places. It might be found in the smell of fresh bread baking in the morning, coming from the bakery next to the lumber yard where you worked one summer. It might be found in a small café in Lawn, Texas, late one winter night when you were forced off the road by sleet and a defroster that wasn’t working. It might be found in the voice of your grandmother waking you in the morning during Christmas vacations at her house and asking if you wanted one egg or two.

It may begin with a simple memory. But for the essayist, the memory must expand. It must grow into meaning. The essayist believes above all else that there must be meaning to life, even if we don’t know it. It is the reason for his writing. And what the essayist

2 and the reader of essays may discover as they dig into the subject matter at hand is that there is no end to the meaning of things, and this discovery enriches their lives.

So what was it I learned when I was forced off the road that night in Lawn, Texas? I was in the Navy and was supposed to be reporting for duty at Goodfellow Air Force Base, and I wasn’t going to make it. I was stuck. I found myself in a small café in the middle of Texas in the middle of the night in the middle of a storm. I had been driving for miles with my head out the window, my P-coat collar turned up, and my white hat turned down, leaving only a slit for my eyes, squinting at the landscape before me lit by the headlights of my car. Sleet had turned everything white, and the road was the smooth part in all that whiteness. And then I found the café, and a stranger took me to his house. It wasn’t much more than a shack, and he lived there with his aging mother.

We spent the evening looking at old family photographs, looking at the faces of strangers peering at me from the past. Strangers to me, but not to the old woman who turned the pages of the album for me. Then Charley, I will call him Charley though the truth of it is I can’t remember his name, told me of the times he served in the Pacific during World War II and about the metal plate he had in his head.

During the night while I was trying to sleep on a cot in the kitchen, Charley seemed to be wrestling with angels or demons in his room. There was the noise of tumbling and rolling about, and once Charley cried out, “I’m going to kill you, you son of a bitch!” I did not sleep well.

The next morning Charley helped me melt the five inch coating of ice off my car. He fixed my defroster for me. His mother fed me breakfast. And I left for my duty station.

So where is the meaning in all this? What is the significance of this story? The truth is there. The event occurred. That is if I am being honest. You will have to trust me on that. But what is my point, what is the meaning of this truth?

As I dig into this story, I have discovered there seems to be no end to the points I could make. The fact I was in uniform is not insignificant. It is what drew Charley to me in the first place. Moreover, this was during the Vietnam War, a time when, if you pay too much attention to the movies about that era, servicemen in America were being spat upon. That never happened to me, and I traveled around quite a bit during my time in the Navy. But that is not where I want to go with this piece of truth.

What stands out in my mind today was that I was a stranger, and Charley and his mother took me in. I was hungry, and they fed me. My car defroster wasn’t working, and Charley fixed it. It was a simple act of kindness and trust. It wasn’t without risk. They didn’t know me. I might have been a thief or worse. Moreover, Charley didn’t look like the most respected citizen in town when he declared to the rest of the café that I was going home with him. I had second thoughts, and when Charley was screaming in the night, reliving battles fought at some other time, I did have moments when I thought about taking my chances out in the freezing night air.

3 But I didn’t. I went to his house, and I stayed. He proved to be kind. Perhaps I was lucky. There are always those gruesome stories about being taken in at night in the middle of the storm. I was aware of those stories. But Charley proved to be kind, and in that simple act showed more kindness to me than I have ever shown anyone else.

That is where I want to go with this essay. In doing so I am making an argument though much of it is implied. I am also aware that in no small way I am discovering the argument as I am making it. Kindness exists, Charley was telling me. It exists in the concrete reality of our lives. It exists, and thus it is an option open to us all.

It is not a perfect argument. But it does suggest the possibility of revisiting a place, a time, or an idea and rethinking it. That is what an essay does.

Course Activities and Assignments:

Reading assignments and journal writing:

Reading and reading carefully is an integral part of a university education. Reading assignments are given in the course schedule, and all assignment should be completed by the date assigned. You should be prepared to discuss the assignments in detail.

Note that we will be reading Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris in London in October. It would probably help you to be reading the book as we progress toward that date.

Part 7 in the Faigley Handbook and Chapter 20 in the Lunsford text are to be read immediately. You will be expected to know and apply the material there in all of your writing. Also you may bring up specific questions concerning these readings in any class.

In the writing process, the journal entry assignments might be seen as pre- writing and draft writing, what you do on your way to producing an essay or a finished document of some kind. You will be asked to submit a series of these journal entries or pre-writings. (See the course schedule.) In them you will address questions concerning the readings and or concerning possible essays you will be writing. Correctness is style, usage, and grammar are not the primarily concerns in these entries. Ideas in depth and the organization of these ideas will be your focus. The evaluation of these assignments will be on the depth of your engagement with the subject material. You may be asked to read any of the writing assignments aloud in groups sessions.

You will be asked to submit the journal entries in the forum section and in the coursework section of the LMS no later than midnight the day before the assigned class day.

4 Essays:

You will be asked to write and turn in three major essays in this class. The essays will be the revised product of some of your journal writing. They will be 4-8 pages long. They will be printed, double spaced with conventional font and size, and they will be submitted as an attachment on line both in the form and in the coursework section of the LMS

Visual Essay:

This will be a group project. You will be asked to produce one visual argument as a group. The format and subject of this assignment will be developed in class.

In Class Exams:

There will be a Mid Term and a Final exam. These exams will be comprehensive and will require some analysis in essay form.

Departmental Grammar Exam:

A departmental exam will be given twice during the semester. (See handout.) Anyone not passing the exam the first time will be required to take it a second time. Other students may opt to take it a second time. Any student not passing the exam must petition the chair of the department to receive credit for the course. If the exam is taken twice the grade you will receive with be the average of the two grades.

Grading:

Reading Journal - 20% Grammar Exam - 5% 3Essays (15% each) - 45% Visual Essay – 10% Mid Term – 10% Final Exam -10%

5 Notes: Coming to class prepared to engage the material is simply an expectation of the course. Failure to attend or a failure to come prepared could result in a 2 % reduction in your grade for each occurrence.

Attendance:

Attendance is required.. Missing more than five classes may be grounds for dropping you from the class.

Academic Honesty:

Do your own work. In other words do not turn in someone else’s writing as your own. Also give credit to the ideas that are not originally your own through correct citations of quotations and paraphrases. The minimum penalty for “cheating” will be a zero on the assignment. Also, I do reserve the right to drop you from the class with a failing grade. Read Chapter 20 in Lunsford.

Format requirements:

All outside writing will be typed and double spaced, using a conventional font and size (for example: Times New Roman, font size 12).

Semester: Fall 2005 Course Title: Rhetoric and Composition I ***Read Part 7 in Faigley and Chapter Unique No.: Eng 1321 20 Instructor: Dr. Peterson in Lunsford on your own. You will be responsible for this material in all your writing. Tentative Schedule

Date Reading Assignments Assignments Wednesday Introductions Etc. Informal writing assignment 8/23/2006 (read the course outline) Friday Lunsford (3-26) Journal Entry 8/25/2006 Monday "Salvation" 1125 8/28/2006 Lunsford (27-50) Wednesday "Aria" 492 8/30/2006 Lunsford (51-61) Friday Journal Entry 9/1/2006 Monday Labor Day Holiday 9/4/2006 Wednesday "Beauty: When the Other Dancer…" 68 9/6/2006 Lunsford (63-77) Friday Journal Entry 9/8/2006 (independent group work: ideas for

6 essay) Monday "On Being a Cripple" 58 9/11/2006 Lunsford (78-99) "The Clan of One-Breasted Women" Wednesday 636 9/13/2006 Lunsford (100-118) Friday Journal Entry 9/15/2006 Draft of Essay #1 Monday Lunsford (119 - 146) 9/18/2006 Wednesday "On Going Home" 9 9/20/2006 Lunsford (147-173) Friday Essay #1 9/22/2006 Monday Departmental Grammar Exam 9/25/2006 Wednesday "Kill 'Em! Crush 'Em!..." 309 9/27/2006 Lunsford (174-204) Friday Lunsford (205-237) Journal Entry 9/29/2006 Monday "Shooting an Elephant" 851 10/2/2006 Wednesday "Letter From Birmingham Jail" 889 10/4/2006 Lunsford (238-261) Friday Journal Entry 10/6/2006 Monday Lunsford (262 - 282) 10/9/2006 "University Days" 437 Wednesday Lunsford (283-300) 10/11/2006 Friday Mid Term Exam 10/13/2006 Monday Fall Break 10/16/2006 Wednesday Down and Out… (1-55) 10/18/2006 Friday Down and Out… (55 - 75) Journal Entry 10/20/2006 Draft of Essay #2 Monday Down and Out… (75 - 125) 10/23/2006 Wednesday Down and Out… (125- 174) 10/25/2006 Friday Down and Out… (174-213) Essay #2 10/27/2006 Monday Lunsford (301 - 330) 10/30/2006 Wednesday Lunsford (331 - 347) 11/1/2006 Friday Journal Entry 11/3/2006

7 Monday (visual arguments) 11/6/2006 Wednesday (contemporary arguments) 11/8/2006 Friday Journal Entry 11/10/2006 Monday Departmental Grammar Exam 11/13/2006 Wednesday more on the visual agruments group work 11/15/2006 Friday more on the visual agruments group work 11/17/2006 Monday The Visual Essay 11/20/2006 Wednesday Thanksgiving Holiday 11/22/2006 Friday Thanksgiving Holiday 11/24/2006 Monday Lunsford (365 - 383) 11/27/2006 Wednesday Lunsford (384 - 400) 11/29/2006 Friday Lunsford (412 - 423) Journal Entry 12/1/2006 Monday Review Essay #3 12/4/2006 Wednesday Review 12/6/2006 Thursday Final Exam 12/7/2005

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