: Publication

Preface

A variety of influences have prompted the writing of this text for freshman composition courses.  First is teaching experience, an estimated forty years among the three authors.  We have spent most of our academic careers in the kinds of institutions and with the sorts of students who are most numerous in American higher education.  We think that those who sign on to teach in two and four year colleges, where diversity is not only ethnic but socioeconomic, religious and academic, should stop complaining about feeling adrift in a sea of working class students.  The United States is a rough and tumble democratic experiment, not a salon for aristocrats, and our schools look like America.  We educators have exactly what we once said we wanted.

In this text, we have sought to lean on the strengths of a rising generation, their visual and technological literacy, sociability, and desire to be recognized as future professionals. They want to know how to write for their future workplace more than for graduate programs or literary publications.  They want feedback for their writing not only from professors but also from peers.  They are the perfect clientele for on-site and online writing workshops.  They want respect and recognition.

We hope to meet our students’ needs, but we also want to nudge them past their “like” buttons.  In devising lessons to spur writing skills development for adult learners, we have followed the lead of Anderson and Krathwohl ‘s revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy, where the three highest levels of cognitive development are analysis, evaluation and creativity.  These three levels correspond roughly to the three sections of our textbook.  We listened to Ron Ritchhart and David Perkins’ advice in Making Thinking Visible to interpret Bloom’s hierarchy of cognitive domains more flexibly. Creativity can be fostered at every stage of the learning process and not just at its culmination. We hope to have made a contribution to the literature on teaching writing.

PART ONE: Invention

The Writing Workshop                              2

Mother of Invention                                   2

Father of Invention                                    3

Aristotle’s Rhetorical Triangle                   3

Exercises to Stir the Imagination              4

After Invention: Swapping Papers            5

 Invention in Six Words (or Less)              6

Giving Feedback                                       7

“Eat to Live”                                               7

Receiving Feedback                                  7

What Is Good About the Draft?                 8

How Could the Draft Be Better?                8

FAQ: Should I Write the Way I Talk?        9

Slang, Profanity, and Stereotypes             9

Revising for Correctness and Credibility   10

What Is a Sentence?                                 12

Marking Sentence Boundaries                  12

What Is Terminal Punctuation?                 13

Punctuating Sentences                             13

I Declare: Simple Sentences                     14

Commas in Declarative Sentences           14

How Things Stand: Description                 16

Finding Words for Feelings                       16

Credibility Is in the Details                         17

Who? What? When? Where?                    17

Vantage Point                                            18

Angle and Depth of Vision                         18

Get Away from Earth Awhile                      19

The Dominant Impression                          20

Draw a Map and Give Directions               21

Organize Details                                        21

Left Behind                                                22

Parking Lot Sleuth                                     24

Tell Me No Lies: Narrative Writing             26

Use Conflict to Develop the Story              27

How to Signal Conflict                                27

Point of View (PoV)                                   28

Once Upon a Time                                    29

Whose Story Is This?                                29

Storyboards and Narrative Drafts              30

Writing Face and Body Language             31

Reading and Writing Emotions                  31

Dialogue and Credibility                            32

Such as it Is                                              33

Dialogue and Quotation Marks                 33

Start and End with the Best Material        34

Editing a Narrative Draft                           34

Verbs in Time: Action!                              36

Verb Tenses: A Writer’s Guide                 37

The Perfect Tenses                                  37

The Progressive Tenses                          38

The Perfect Progressive Tenses             38

Narrative Projects                                    40

Model Narrative: “Sitting Ducks”              40

PART TWO: Analysis

Analysis and Critical Thinking.                 44

Analysis in the Information Age                44

Data and Dabs                                         45

What Is Analysis?                                     45

Who Likes Pizza?                                     46

Types of Analysis                                     47

Point of View in Analysis Writing              47

Linking Ethos and Pathos                        47

Process Analysis                                     48

The How-They Process Analysis            48

The How-To Process Analysis                49

Upside-Down Analysis                            49

Transition Link Steps in a Process         50

Keep the Conversation Going                 51

Rhetorical Elements in Process Writing  52

Model Essay: Process Analysis              52

Logos, Pathos and Ethos in Process      53

Comparative Analysis                             54

Alike Yet Different                                   54

Points of Comparison                             55

Boolean Techniques in Web Searches  55

Smarter Searches Using And, Or, Not    55

Comparative Thesis and Introduction      56

Organizing with the Block Method           57

Organizing Point-by-Point                       57

The Pro/Con or Cost/Benefit Analysis    58

Add Up the Plusses and Minuses           58

Comparative Analysis in Action              59

Other Comparison Projects                    59

Causal Analysis                                      60

Causation and Correlation                      60

Patterns in Causal Analysis                    61

Consumers and Causal Analysis            63

Complex Causal Analysis Scenarios      64

Causal Analysis Project                          65

Data Collection and Interpretation          65

Writing a Causal Analysis                       66

Organizing a Causal Analysis                 66

Model Essay: Causal Analysis                67

Rhetorical Analysis                                 68

Rhetorical Elements: Pathos                  68

Rhetorical Elements: Ethos                    69

Rhetorical Elements: Logos                   69

Rhetoric and Timing                               70

Occasion and Context                            70

Stereotypes in Media Images                 71

What Is a PSA?                                      72

Rhetorical Analysis in Action                  72

Respecting Copyrighted Material           73

Works Cited or References                    73

What Is a Persuasive PSA?                   74

Analyzing Visual Arguments                  74

Project: Famous Speeches                    77

PART THREE: Argument

Anatomy of Argument                            80

What Do We Argue About?                   80

Argument and Persuasion                     81

Balancing Reason and Passion             81

Planning to Argue                                  82

Preliminary Steps: Topic Selection        82

Topics to Avoid                                      83

From Topics to Issues                           83

Framing the Issue for Readers              84

Framing the Issue for Decision Makers  84

From Issue to Thesis                              85

Fund My College Thesis                         85

Starting an Argument                              86

Introduce the Reader to the Thesis         86

Draft Introduction: Cyberbullying             87

Draft Introduction: Legalize Marijuana     87

Terms of the Argument                            88

History of the Issue                                  88

Reliable Sources                                      89

Where to Look for It                                  89

Evaluating Reference Works                    90

Ask a Reference Librarian                        90

Just the Facts                                           91

In our opinion                                            91

The Long and Short of Summary             92

Summarizing and Note Taking.                92

Four-Step Guide to Summary Writing      93

What Did President Kennedy Say?          93

Step one: Research Pro and Con            94

Step Two: Data Sort                                95

Step Three: Rhetorical Analysis              95

Step Four: Root Cause Analysis             96

Step Five: Stop and Think                       96

Step Six: Propose a Solution                  97

Step Seven: Write a Thesis                    97

Body of Evidence                                    102

Selecting and Evaluating Sources          102

Data and Inductive Reasoning                102

Inductive Reasoning in Argument           103

Look Before Leaping to Conclusions       103

Patterns in Induction: Analogies              104

Recognizing Analogies                            104

Strong and Weak Analogies                    105

Analogies in Public Health Debates        105

Inductive Patterns: Cause and Effect      106

Recognizing Causal Claims                    106

Inductive Patterns: Generalization          107

Troubleshooting Generalizations             107

Evaluating Causal Reasoning                  108

Hasty Generalizations and Bias               108

Informal Fallacies                                     109

Model Causal Analysis                             111

From Causes to Conclusions                   112

The Calming Power of Deduction            112

Basic Deductive Argument Forms           113

Not-A, Not-B, Not-C, Therefore D            113

Conditional Arguments: If, Then              114

Formal Fallacies                                      115

Watch out for Not’s in Logic                    115

Deduction and Decision Steps                116

Deduction Makes the Case                     116

Model Deductive Argument                     118

Objections: What’s Not to Love?             119

Pro and Con All Over                              119

Model Conclusion: “Use Your Head”      120

 

 

Kae Chatman is an Associate Professor of English and Philosophy at Arkansas State University – Beebe. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing at Wichita State University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy at the University of Kansas.  She had previously served as a military intelligence analyst and officer in the U.S. Army.  She edited the catalog for the U.S. Army Intelligence Center and School at Ft. Devens, MA.  Later, she served as a public affairs officer for the Army National Guard, a public relations writer for United Way, a freelance journalist, a medical textbook editor, and a technical writer for the Veterans Administration.  Dr. Chatman is on the board of the National Organization for Women and devotes her spare time to advocacy for feminist causes and online writing projects.

Dennis Humphrey is Chair of the English and Fine Arts Division at Arkansas State University—Beebe. He holds a PhD in English with Creative Writing emphasis from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and he holds a Masters in English from the University of Central Arkansas and a Masters in Strategic Studies from the US Army War College. Dr. Humphrey serves as a Colonel in the Arkansas Army National Guard and has served two tours in Iraq.    His fiction has appeared in such journals as Story South, Clapboard House, and Toad Suck Review.  He lives in Beebe, Arkansas, with his wife, Margo and their five children: Hannah, Mary Claire, Emily, Jared, and James.

Jodi Whitehurst works as a composition instructor at the Arkansas State University—Beebe. She lives in central Arkansas with her husband, Shane, and their children, O’Neal and Olivia. She holds an Ed.D. in higher education with an English composition faculty leadership concentration, an M.A. in professional and technical writing, and a B.S. in education. Jodi is also a Little Rock Writing Project teacher consultant. Her areas of research include digital rhetoric and writing processes of developing writers.