Front Matter

“People often say, with pride, 'I'm not interested in politics.' They might as well say, 'I'm not interested in my standard of living, my health, my job, my rights, my freedoms, my future or any future.' ... If we mean to keep any control over our world and lives, we must be interested in politics.”

• Martha Gellhorn, in Granta [magazine], January 1984

Preface

In this era of influencers and A-D list celebrities, Martha Gellhorn is not a well-known name. Yet, because of her experiences as a war correspondent from World War II to the military conflicts of the nineties and her work as a novelist (See Granta magazine), Gellhorn’s thoughts on why we should care about politics remain relevant. The actions and decisions of those in power at a federal, state, and local level impact our everyday lives in innumerable ways. From debates over reducing the speed limit on city streets from 30mph to 25mph to the decision to add Jean Baptiste Point du Sable’s name to Chicago’s iconic Lake Shore Drive to form DuSable Lake Shore Drive (See Chicago Sun-Times, “Lake Shore Drive renamed to honor DuSable,” June 25, 2021), politics matter to our everyday lives.

Change “politics” to “social justice,” and the attention shifts from those in power to us. What are we going to do about their actions and the decisions they make? How are we going to “keep any control over our world and lives”? If politics matter to our everyday lives, then our everyday lives matter. We start then by paying attention to the details of our lives and our environments. That is, we start by observing our lives, noticing details, asking questions, finding answers, and sharing with others what we’ve learned. Also known as “consciousness-raising” (See, “Consciousness-raising Groups and the Women’s Movement” by Erin Blakemore, March 11, 2021 in JSTOR Daily), such activities are often the beginning of social justice activism . . . or just doing good in the world.

This booklet, a writing textbook developed in connection with CCC - OER initiative, is designed to support us in developing our observation, description, narration, and attention skills alongside our writing skills.

Introduction

Erik Pevernagie’s 2002 “Can We Keep the Door Unlocked” (CC-SA 4.0) offers some instructive thoughts for us as we begin this writing journey.

His description of the painting in Wikimedia Commons joins Gellhorn’s quote in the Preface in undergirding the ideas that drive this book:

Relatedness and interaction between individuals may have lost their drive and liability.

As people tend to ring-fence their privacy, they become ever-more “incommunicado,” deliberately untouchable.

By retreating in the secrecy of the safe haven of their living, their habitats become impregnable castles, with the draw-bridges of non-attendance always up. Adopting an attitude of "ghosting," constantly shamming ‘absence,’ homes gradually become ghost houses and, extensively, communities grow into ghost towns.

In our contemporary “brave new world," traditional trust or generous receptiveness has been replaced by ‘security devices’ and ‘safety gadgets.’

The familiar scenario about leaving our home or going to bed without locking the door, from our collective memory, has now mostly become an illusional setting. (File:Can we keep the door unlocked.jpg, Wikimedia Commons)

The writing activities and assignments in this textbook offer opportunities for “relatedness and interaction” with the readings, with your classmates, with your instructor, and with the outside world.

Description of Writing Projects

Our first writing project invites us to share our own stories in a Narrative essay. Here, we are the experts as to our own experiences. The challenge is for us to make sense of our stories and to clearly communicate their meaning to others in the telling.

Our second writing project focuses on the Summary-Response essay, which is exactly what it sounds like: summarizing a text and responding to it. Essentially, you are being asked to engage with another’s ideas — to have a conversation in writing. Because both activities required in the essay — summarizing and responding — are core activities in most academic and professional environments, we dedicate five chapters to exploring the process of summarizing from the first step of reading and taking notes to the second step of organizing those notes into a working summary. Then, we explore using those same notes to begin the process of responding to the reading as a whole. Then, we use those same notes to begin organizing an essay outline and identifying the appropriate areas to add quotes, paraphrases, or summaries of the reading to support our ideas.

Along the way, we will practice giving and receiving and applying peer feedback to revise and improve your writing. If writing is a way of expressing your thoughts, then it behooves us to pay attention to how we are expressing our thoughts and to whom. Our peers can tell us whether we are being clear, if our thoughts make sense, and if we have enough evidence to be convincing.

Our last writing project focuses on creating a neighborhood profile. We will work with metropolitan data and a library database on Chicago community areas to better understand our neighborhoods by the numbers. Then, we will be asked to talk directly with our neighbors to gain a more local and on-the-ground understanding of where we live. Thus, we will experienced two different ways of interacting with our environments.

Why Is Academic Writing Important?

Often students ask why they are being asked to learn and practice academic writing as they pursue their college degrees or their workforce certificates. While there are any number of answers that can be given, I will offer three:

1. Academic writing matters because it reflects the four basic principles of good writing: unity, coherence, development, and clarity. These principles hold true in journalistic writing, report writing, research writing, and other forms of professional writing. Here are some simplified descriptions of these principles:
   1. Unity: All presented ideas should align with each other in a given document.
   2. Coherence: Readers can follow the writer’s ideas from beginning to end because they are organized and presented in a logical/reasonable manner.
   3. Development: The writer fully supports their ideas with reasonable warrants and credible evidence for the writing situation.
   4. Clarity: The document is written in standard academic English such that readers can read and understand what is written.
2. Academic writing matters because English 101, English 102, and other college-level classes require students to demonstrate competency in academic writing in the course of completing assignments. This includes science classes (lab reports) and math classes (discussions of proof). In fact, in English 101, English 102, and other writing intensive courses, a significant portion of the grade may be based on demonstrating writing competence.
3. Writing is one of the primary tools we have for expressing our thoughts to others. Different communities write to each other differently. Consider, for example, the difference between those with whom you communicate by text or social media versus writing a letter to a newspaper or instructional notes for house guests. Academic writing supports us in expressing our thoughts to other professionals and scholars.

Other Considerations

In this class, as, I would argue, in life, the understanding is in the doing. That is, all of the exercises we will do — both in class and for homework — contribute to the three writing projects we will complete as well as to the final portfolio and the midterm/final Critical Reading Tests. However, they only help if you complete the work.

If you aren’t sure how to complete the assignment, ask me (your instructor) in class. If we need more time to discuss the process, meet me during my office hours or during a set appointment for review. If you are still not clear, bring the assignment to a tutor. No matter what though, do the assignment. Even if you do it wrong, you will still learn something. (I also am open to your redoing some assignments.)

In Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning, the authors showed that practicing (doing the work) helps students learn and remember the material even if their practice exercises are wrong. Thus, do the work — the homework, the writing projects, the in-class exercises.