The common ingredient that I find in all the writing I admire ... is something that I shall reluctantly call the rhetorical stance, a stance which depends on discovering and maintaining in any writing situation a proper balance among the three elements that are at work in any communicative effort: the available argument about the subject itself, the interests and peculiarities of the audience, and the voice, the implied character of the speaker. I should like to suggest that it is this balance, this rhetorical stance, difficult as it is to describe, that is our main goal.

We have been reading and discussing many education topics for the last few weeks. Re-read the introduction for the Education section in your book (49). You might also want to review what you have written so far.

Some of the questions raised by the reading selections in POO

• Should colleges and universities serve to pass on to students the great traditions and values of Western culture? (Newman, Rose, Slate's "College Makeover")

• Do colleges and universities need to change to accommodate students once excluded from the university? ("Mission Statements," Rich, Rose, Sommers, Pollit, Fryer, Brooks)

• Should colleges and universities emphasize a unified view of culture and the commonalities among people, or should they emphasize people's differences? (Newman, Rich, Rose, Pollitt, Fryer)

• What is (or should be) the relationship between the college/university and society? (Newman, "Mission Statements," Spayde, Rich, Croissant, Rose, Sokolove, Tierney, Pollitt)

• In what ways is knowledge acquired, passed on, or made in college/university? Are some better than others? (Newman, "Mission Statements," Slate's "College Makeover," Spayde, Rich, Rose)

If you haven't already done so, take a look at the questions in your text after the articles for even more possibilities.

The final draft should be 5 pages minimum (double spaced, MLA format with a Works Cited page, not included in the final pagination). Please follow the dates below as closely as possible in order to allow enough time for feedback and development. You may use the above questions as starting places to focus your paper, or you may wish to develop your own question for a focus and try to answer it. The first draft (3 pages typed, double-spaced) is due in the following class period.

• A question worth answering:

• An audience who could possibly care:

• Feb 7: Rough draft (min 3 pages) for topic and development
• Feb 12: Workshop dev and organization
• Feb 14: Editing workshop
• Feb 16: Final Due

  Final draft due (paper draft, MLA format with work/s cited and self-evaluation).

  Collection due online (in-class essay, rough draft and final draft with an uploaded MLA formatted file).

I do not accept drafts or final papers in email, so if you have a question about an area of your paper that might be giving you a headache, please upload a draft to a page on mahara.

Follow up questions, as usual, can be posted to the FAQ forum on mahara.

Return to syllabus