English 1B: Critical Inquiry and Literature Fall 2008
Section 021532 MW 11:30-12:55 Room FM 206
Section 022358 MW 1:00-2:25 Room FM 206
Logic is the anatomy of thought. ~John Locke
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. ~Niels Bohr
Logic is one thing and commonsense another. ~Elbert Hubbard, The Note Book, 1927
Pure logic is the ruin of the spirit. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Flight to Arras, 1942
A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. ~Rabindranath Tagore
Logic, like whiskey, loses its beneficial effect when taken in too large quantities. ~Lord Dunsany
Instructor: John Johnston Office hours: TTH 10-11:30 & T 1-3
Email: John-Johnston@redwoods.edu Office: FM 200D
Contacting your instructor: The best way for you to contact me is via email. Doing so enables me to send to you any course documents handed out in class or Powerpoint presentations we discussed. When you email me, be sure to put ENGLISH 1B in the subject heading so I don’t mistake your email for junk mail and delete it.
· Chaffee, John. Thinking Critically 8th ed. NY: Houghton, 2006.
· Paul, Richard and Linda Elder. The Thinker’s Guide to Fallacies: The Art of Mental Trickery and Manipulation. 2004. (available on amazon.com)
· The Bedford Guide for Writers (or similar writing handbook)
· Daily (including weekends) access to an internet-connected computer.
As the quotes above make clear (make sure you’ve read them), logic is a contested concept. It can bring both peril and protection. It can imprison or liberate. It can lead us to dark depths of despair; it can show us the light. It can diminish or deepen our sense of humanity, and it can destroy or resuscitate our spirituality. Logic has such power because it is the fuel that drives what we commonly refer to as our “intellect”—that part of ourselves that interprets information, makes judgments and evaluations, solves problems, offers arguments, makes connections, recognizes patterns, thinks thoughts, etc. In short, our intellect is the part of ourselves that makes cognitive sense of the world we live in, and knowing how to engage our intellect effectively and appropriately is essential for being a “whole” person.
Unfortunately, we live in an age when our collective understanding of and regard for the intellect is extremely confused. Simply, our world simultaneously degrades and deifies the intellect. For example, politicians speak in sound bites because they know that most people care less for the sense and truth of their ideas and more for the “feeling” they get from particular politicians; at the same time, however, we give ourselves “objective” personality tests and compatibility tests because we believe quantitative information and conclusions of “experts” about who we are and our love lives must be more accurate than our mere intuitions and subjective insights. Similarly, studies show that we listen very attentively to and take very seriously the advertisers who bombard us with powerful but largely illogical and incoherent imagery and associations that tell us what we should wear, how we should act, and what we should want out of life; and at the same time we do this, we also dismiss as crude, silly, and superstitious religious practices such as prayer dances and ceremonial body painting.
Most telling, perhaps, is the way in which the individual intellect is being neglected in the arena that is supposed to foster its development: public education. Grade and high schools across the US focus increasingly on standardized tests that require little actual thinking, creativity, or imagination. Moreover, many colleges and universities have largely dropped the pursuit of “liberal” education that seeks to synthesize mind, body, and spirit in order to pursue rigorous work-force and career training. These institutions, typically, measure their success not by how “whole” the graduates are, but by how well they are prepared to work in their particular fields. In short, in much of modern education, it is less important for you know how to think and understand your experience of the world than it is for you to know the acceptable responses to particular situations and the proper ways to perform various tasks.
To become a critical thinker is to reverse that process by learning to practice the skills that enable one to take charge of the ideas and experiences that run one's life. It is to think consciously and deliberately and skillfully in ways that transform oneself. It is to begin to remake one's own mind. It is to simultaneously understand the complex relationships among one’s mind, body, and spirit and to experience them. With these things in mind, this course is exclusively concerned with the development of two abilities: 1. the ability to apply logic, emotion, intuition, and experience appropriately in order to better understand events in the world around you, your thoughts and feelings, the literature we read, and the actions and statements of others; 2. to use logic and sound reasoning in your own writing to create intelligent, insightful essays. By the end of this course, you should understand both the power and the limitations of logic and reason, and by doing so, you should find yourself more empowered personally, socially, and politically.
Course Outcomes/Objectives:
Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to
Prerequisite Knowledge: This is a second-semester composition course, and as such, it assumes you bring some college-level knowledge and skill with you. If you are going to succeed in this course, you should already have the ability to do the following:
Struggling: It is a requirement of this course that you struggle. Your books and I are not simply going to present a body of information for you to consume and then regurgitate on exams or in reports. We will explore complex historical, moral, cultural, philosophical, and political questions, and if you don’t struggle with these, it means you’re either God (in which case we’ll make an exception) or a human being thinking about these things only superficially. In other words, if you don’t struggle, it probably means you are not thinking. And if you’re not thinking….well, how can you write something that offers fresh insight if you’re relying only on what you and others already know?
Reading: The pattern that’s emerged over the years is clear: those who carefully and actively read their course texts score higher on their essays and exams than those who don’t read them at all (those who don’t read almost always fail exams and essays) and higher than those who read them only superficially (those who “skim” the reading or who read for the “gist” tend to score far below their potential and usually don’t understand why). Write in your books (doing so doesn’t affect the buyback price at all) and on your handouts. Make notes of what you read and bring questions about what we’ve read to class. The more actively you read, the more you’ll learn and the better you’ll perform. If you find yourself falling behind in your reading, don’t suffer in silence. Come talk to me, and hopefully, we can figure out a way to keep you from becoming swallowed up.
Computer: You must have regular access to an internet-connected computer. Very few students who could not access computers on evenings and weekends have successfully completed this course because all assignments are word processed and much of what we do requires use of our course webpage and online research databases. Talk with me ASAP if you anticipate computer access problems (seriously: don’t underestimate the importance of computer access).
Essays: Of course, you’ll have to do more than struggle in this course; you’ll also need to make some sense of what you’re struggling with. If you honestly grapple with your questions, you will gain insight into the reading, the issues we discuss and, ultimately, the world you live in and your place in it. These insights are valuable, and the essays you’ll write this semester are opportunities to explore and present your questions and discoveries.
Each out-of-class essay will receive comments and a grade. You may, if you choose, consider my feedback and rewrite ONE of these essays one time after it has been graded and resubmit it for reevaluation (you must attach the previous, commented-on/graded draft and a bulleted detailed description of what you’ve done in the revision to your rewrite). I will raise your grade if the draft is better, but I will not lower your original grade if the revised draft is inferior. Rewrites are due by Friday, December 5, 2008, and you cannot rewrite an essay if you did not turn it in by the scheduled due date unless you have written documentation of a medical, legal, or family emergency that prohibited you from meeting the due date. Late essays will be lowered one half letter grade for each day late (please pay attention to these last two sentences).
Language and Logic Exams: Over the final few weeks of the semester, there will be three fill-in-the-blank/short answer exams that involve identification of logical fallacies, reasoning strategies, and language use in short pieces of writing. The exams are equally weighted, but the difficulty of each increases. Please read “Makeup of Quizzes and Exams” below.
Quizzes: We will frequently have quizzes on the day’s reading at the beginning of our class meetings and/or take-home quizzes due at the beginning of our class meetings. If you are late or absent or leave class early for any reason (and I do mean any reason) and you miss a quiz, you will receive a “0” for the quiz. Take home quizzes are due in class at the beginning of class on the due date and will not be accepted after that. I will drop your lowest quiz score.
Activities: Every single class meeting we will do some kind of activity, and you must be in class on time to receive credit for a day’s activity. I will drop your lowest activity score.
Makeup of Take-Home Quizzes and Exams: If you know you are going to miss a take home quiz or exam, notify me ahead of the quiz or exam so we can arrange for you to submit the quiz early or take the exam in the ASC. If you miss an exam or quiz without notifying me ahead of time, you must present me with written documentation of a medical, legal, or family emergency in order to take a makeup. Late policies for essays and other work are explained above.
MLA Format: Homework, essays brought to workshop, and essays turned in for comments and grades must be double-spaced and typed in accordance with MLA guidelines (MLA format is described in most every writing handbook and in the MLA formatting handout linked to our course webpage).
www.turnitin.com: In addition to the stapled, hard copies of each of your formal essays that you submit to me on the due dates, you will also submit electronically each of your essays to www.turnitin.com. Instructions for using turnitin.com—including course ID and password—are available on our course webpage (see “Turnitin.com Instructions” link). At the end of the semester, the recorded grades for any essays that have not been submitted to turnitin.com will be deleted from the gradebook and you will receive a “zero” for the essay.
Note: I will not accept work that is not stapled.
Attendance: In order to establish an atmosphere of community and camaraderie, everyone must be here regularly, on time, and prepared. Each of you brings a unique perspective to this course, and you should be here regularly not just to do the work but to share your insights as well. You can inspire us. However, if you miss three classes in a row without contacting me or if you miss more than four meetings in the semester, I may stop accepting your work and/or drop you from the class. Don’t depend on me to do this, though. If you have missed three in a row or a total of four, it is your responsibility to protect your transcript and initiate an official withdrawal. Any student who is not withdrawn is still enrolled, and final grades reflect a student’s current level of activity and achievement. I cannot sign withdrawal slips after October 31, 2008 without documented extenuating circumstances (things like being in a coma and so forth), and I am required to issue grades for all enrolled students at the end of the semester. Do not have your academic transcript blemished by an F for a class you stopped attending.
Plagiarism: Offering someone else’s words or ideas as if they are your own (whether you do this intentionally or unintentionally) is plagiarism and will not be tolerated. Any assignment with plagiarized material may receive an F. Substantial or repeated plagiarism and cheating may result in an F for the course and possibly suspension from the college. We’ll discuss in class how to avoid plagiarism.
Grading: The grading for this course breaks down as follows: Points Earned Course Grade
Essay #2 20 points 89-87 B+
Essay #3 25 points 86-83 B
In-class Activities 5 points 82-80 B-
Quizzes 5 points 79-77 C+
Logic and reasoning exams 30 points 76-70 C
69-60 D
59-0 F
Special Needs: If you have special needs due to a verifiable physical, psychological, or learning disability, you are legally entitled to appropriate accommodations. The college offers a variety of services to support students with special needs, and you should talk with me as soon as possible if you would like my help with arranging accommodations to ensure your success in this course. I’m eager to help in whatever ways I can.
We may adjust the schedule as the semester progresses if the need to do so arises.
Week of August 25 (Days 1&2)
Theme: Inductive reasoning
Course intro; syllabus.
*Due: Take home quiz #1 on “Inductive Reasoning Explanation” on course webpage.
Kate Chopin stories: “The Story of an Hour”; “The Storm”; “The Kiss” and “A Respectable Woman” [all linked on course webpage].
Discuss Essay #1
Week of September 1 (Day 3)
MONDAY: Labor Day—no classes
Theme: Judging and Deciding
Due: Take Home Quiz #2
Discuss page 427-436 in Thinking Critically; “A Good Man is Hard to Find” & “Good Country People” [linked]
Using subscription databases review
Week of September 8 (Day 4&5)
Just the Facts worksheet
Discuss pages 170-186 & 203-210 in Thinking Critically.
Discuss “News of America’s Decline Greatly Exaggerated,” “Dissent is Now Dangerous,” “True Cost of SUV’s” (linked on website).
Bring 3 contested questions of fact (samples on essay #1 prompt)
Bring Question of Fact for essay #1
Week of September 15 (Day 6&7)
Print and read 3 sample student essays
*Due: Take home quiz #3 on “Deductive Reasoning Explanation” on course webpage; dilemmas that call for deduction exercise.
Week of September 22 (Day 8&9)
Due: Essay #1
Theme: Discourse: What is it and how does one analyze it?
Discuss pages 390-408 in Thinking Critically.
Discuss “Just Like Us?” (linked)
Analyzing discourses
“How to Read a Film” handout
Discuss Essay #2
Week of September 29 (Day 10&11)
Discuss pages 222-234 in Thinking Critically.
Discuss “Hills like White Elephants,” “Indian Camp,” “A Very Short Story,” & “Old Man at the Bridge” (linked)
Discuss all poems linked in “Poems for Name that Poet Game”
Tentative topic for essay #2
Week of October 6 (Day 12&13)
“Selection, Slanting, & Charged Learning” (attached to syllabus)
pages 246-256 in Thinking Critically
OutFOXed
Bring working thesis, evidence (i.e. primary sources), and secondary sources for essay #2
Week of October 13 (Day 14&15)
Three copies of rough draft of essay #2 due.
Discuss sample student essay: “He Said/He Said” and pages 264-270 in Thinking Critically.
Week of October 20 (Day 16&17)
Theme: Contested Reality
Due: Essay #2
View and discuss In the Light of Reverence in class.
What is perspective?
Discuss pages 129-167 in Thinking Critically.
Discuss Essay #3
Sure Thing (linked in assigned reading)
Week of October 27 (Day 18&19)
Take Home Quiz #4
Essay #3 topic share
Apply a perspective analysis template to “Young Goodman Brown” (linked in assigned reading)
Discuss “The Lottery” (linked in Assigned Reading)
Week of November 3 (Day 20&21)
Three copies of essay #3 rough draft due.
Discuss sample student essay: “Head vs. Heart”
Week of November 10 (Day 22)
MONDAY: Veteran’s Day—no classes
Theme: Logical Fallacies, Assumptions, and Values.
Due: Essay #3
Discuss pages 3-18 in Fallacies and Logical Fallacy handout
Discuss pages 453-466 in Thinking Critically.
Week of November 17 (Day 23&24)
Practice Logical Fallacy Exam
*Logic Exam #1
Week of November 24 (Day 25&26)
Analyzing discourses: “Politics and the English Language” (linked in assigned reading)
Pages 19-38 in Fallacies
Discuss pages 272-308 in Thinking Critically.
Week of December 1 (Day 27&28)
*Logic Exam #2
Week of December 8 (Day 29)
*Final logic and language exam