Professor: Dr. Joe Goeke
TR 6:00–7:15
McIver 227
Office: McIver 126
Phone: 334-4694
Office Hrs: MW 11:00-12:00; TR 5:00-5:50
Email: jfgoeke@uncg.edu

Required Texts

? Bloom, Lynn Z., Edward M. White, and Shane Borrowman. Inquiry: Questioning, Reading, Writing. 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2004.
?Ruszkiewicz, John, Maxine Hairston, and Christy Friend. SF Express. New York: Longman, 2002.

Course Description
Designed to build on the writing experience and skills you developed in English 101, this course also includes a speaking-intensive component, which means that some of your compositions will be presented orally. The main objective of this class is, nonetheless, to become more able and confident in expressing yourself—your ideas, attitudes, experience, knowledge, and observations—for an audience. Whether you’re writing an essay or assembling an outline for a presentation, the goal of engaging your audience with clarity, insight, and possibly humor, too, requires a balanced amount of spontaneity and reflection. In writing, spontaneity comes from approaching a subject with an inquiring mind, asking questions, and seeking ways to answer them, learning as you write. Our textbook, Inquiry, encourages taking this approach with a collaborative tone, including your audience in the process of inquiry itself. Reflection, meanwhile, comes with revision. In this class, you will be expected to revise each essay at least once, having shared your work in a peer-editing workshop. When speaking, you can observe the same principles of spontaneity and reflection by allowing space for extemporaneous, or improvised, talking. Prepared outlines with notes and transitions are the most economical way to organize and build reflection into such a talk. Thus, in practicing both forms of composition in this class—writing and speaking—you will have the opportunity to learn more about communicating with people, with equal consideration for yourself and your audience.

Course Work and Class Demeanor
Assignments will emphasize learning through writing, speaking, and revision. Class meetings will combine lectures with discussion, in-class writing, student-led presentations, and small group work. Active participation and note taking are encouraged and will have a positive influence on your final grade. Supplementary materials such as film, music, and art may also be introduced.
Distracting behavior unworthy of a serious student (e.g., walking out before class is dismissed, carrying on conversations, reading newspapers or other unrelated texts, sleeping, disruptive late entrances, etc.) may result in a deduction of 5 points from the student’s final average and/or the student’s being asked to leave the room.

Grade Distribution
Attendance and Participation 5%
Oral Presentations (2) 30%
Paper One 20%
Paper Two 20%
Paper Three (source-supported) 25%

You will be required to make two oral presentations, each one related to a text from our reading list. One of these presentations will address rhetorical issues in the text: style (word choice, level of complexity and abstraction), organization, types of appeal, sensitivity to audience, and overall effectiveness. The other presentation will focus more on the context: relevant biographical material, original site and date of publication, probable audience.

Essay assignments (3-5 pages each) will relate to unit questions from Inquiry. The class will divide into three sections—A, B, and C—to work on these essays so that I can devote a fair amount of time to reading each one. You will share your essays with two fellow students on designated workshop days. (See schedule below and Workshop Schedule handout for further details.) You may revise after receiving my comments with a grade, as long as you meet with me first to review your graded essay and my comments. There will be four essay assignments. You are required to turn in only three for a grade. You may choose to (a) write four essays and keep the highest grades, or (b) write three essays and use the extra time to revise each essay for the grade you want. One of these essays must be source-supported, and that source-supported essay will count for 25% of the grade. The other two count for 20% each.

Plagiarism is strictly forbidden and will result in failure of the assignment, possibly even failure of the course and expulsion from the university.

Attendance and Participation
Much of our class will involve group discussion, which requires frequent participation, so attendance is very important. You should show up on time and be prepared to discuss the day’s reading(s). If you must miss a class, let me know before we meet, if possible. Absences over three will have a negative effect on your final grade. Such absences will especially affect borderline cases (e.g., a B-/C+ borderline grade would automatically become a C+). Any student who misses eight or more classes and does not withdraw from the course will automatically fail.

First Reading Assignment

Th 1/13 Introduction (xv-xix); Identity: How Do I Know Who I Am? (1-11)

(Full Schedule will be handed out on Th 1/13.)

English 102—Goeke

Course Schedule
This schedule is tentative and subject to change. Page numbers in parentheses refer to Inquiry, unless otherwise noted (SF=SF Express). We will discuss all readings in class on the assigned date, so please read them beforehand. Doing so should give you a clear sense of direction and progress in the course.

Date Reading / Class Activities Section A
Due Dates Section B Due Dates Section C
Due Dates
T 1/11 Meet and greet / Introduction of syllabus / “Critical Reading” and “Writing as Inquiry” / Assign Groups
Th 1/13 Introduction (xv-xix); Identity: How Do I Know Who I Am? (1-11)—Introduce First Essay Assignment and Presentation Assignments
T 1/18 What Is My Physical Self?: Nancy Mairs, “On Being a Cripple” (24-35)
Th 1/20 Shelby Steele, Jr., “The Age of White Guilt and the Disappearance of the Black Individual” (35-47)
T 1/25 Who Am I in Relation to Others?: Mike Rose, “‘I Just Wanna Be Average’” (53-61)
Th 1/27 Workshop 1-A / How Do Language and Literacy Affect My Identity?: Amy Tan, “Mother Tongue” (85-91) [Workshop 1]
T 2/1 Eudora Welty, “Listening” (91-99) Revision 1
Th 2/3 Workshop 1-B / Grammar, Rhetoric, and Style [Workshop 1]
T 2/8 Workshop 1-C / Grammar, Rhetoric, and Style Revision 1 [Workshop 1]
Th 2/10 Thinking: How Do We Know What We Know? (117-30) Revision 1
T 2/15 What Is the Process of Thinking?: Isaac Asimov, “Those Crazy Ideas” (142-52)
Th 2/17 Frank Conroy, “Think About It” (152-58)
T 2/22 Workshop 2-A / Anne Fadiman, “Under Water” (158-62) [Workshop 2]
Th 2/24 How Can We Explain What We Know?: Deborah Tannen, “Conversational Styles” (203-208) Revision 2
T 3/1 Workshop 2-B / Perri Klass, “Learning the Language” (216-220) [Workshop 2]
Th 3/3 Workshop 2-C / Grammar, Rhetoric, and Style Revision 2 [Workshop 2]
T 3/8 Spring Break—No Classes
Th 3/10 Spring Break—No Classes
T 3/15 Values: What Are Human Rights and Responsibilities? (340-53) Revision 2
Th 3/17 What Are Human Rights and Responsibilities?: Wole Soyinka, “Every Dictator’s Nightmare” (354-59)
T 3/22 What Values Govern the Common Good?: Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (388-404)
Th 3/24 Workshop 3-A / Terry Tempest Williams, “The Clan of One-Breasted Women” (411-18) [Workshop 3]
T 3/29 How Can Value Conflicts Be Resolved?: Nelson Mandela / Frederik Willem de Klerk, “The End of Apartheid” (460-69) Revision 3
Th 3/31 Workshop 3-B / Ursula Franklin, “Silence and the Notion of the Commons” (469-75) [Workshop 3]
T 4/5 Workshop 3-C/ Grammar, Rhetoric, and Style Revision 3 [Workshop 3]
Th 4/7 Reinterpretations/Contexts: What Can We Learn from the Past [about Nature]? (478-88) Revision 3
T 4/12 What Are Some Ways of Understanding Nature?: Stephen Jay Gould, “Evolution as Fact and Theory”(169-77)
Th 4/14 Jane Goodall, “First Observations” (177-85)
T 4/19 Workshop 4-A / How Can We Live in Harmony with Nature?: John McPhee, “Los Angeles Against the Mountains” (419-28) [Workshop 4]
Th 4/21 Workshop 4-B / Henry David Thoreau, “Where I Lived and What I Lived For” (549-555) Revision 4 [Workshop 4]
T 4/26 Workshop 4-C / Rachel Carson, “The Obligation to Endure” (555-61) Revision 4 [Workshop 4]
Th 4/28 Grammar, Rhetoric, and Style Revision 4
Th 5/5 Final Exam 7:00-10:00 p.m.