We’re going to read, talk, think, and write about the city we are reading, talking, thinking, and writing in: Saint Louis, Missouri, population approximately 2 million. Or 400,000, depending how you count. (As we will see, the way we choose to count and account for things makes a big difference.) We’ll investigate all kinds of claims about the city’s problems and what can be done about them.

“What? I thought we were here to learn how to write, not for a sociology class.” You’re right, of course, but this isn’t a sociology class. It’s a course in rhetoric -- the art of intelligent dialogue and persuasive speaking. That means that the topic of the class is really just a good pretext for having a dialogue. In other words, if you want to learn to write persuasively -- to make strong, articulate, convincing arguments to an audience that isn’t necessarily ready to agree with you right away -- it helps if you have something to argue about. If we want to find good material for discussion and debate, we ought to look for something that is complex, ambiguous, and full of unanswered questions, where there’s plenty of room for disagreement.

Saint Louis and its problems are a good territory for arguments.

We will not merely rehearse our pre-determined opinions on issues. “Opinions” are cheap; they are like personal tastes. There’s no disputing an opinion or a taste: to each his or her own, we say. Reasoned ideas that can be tested and defended in a public setting -- those interest me. So, we’ll

• develop and try out some ideas together.

• practice putting together and taking apart arguments for those ideas.

• learn how to use all kinds of research tools, and how to use the sources we find to support arguments with evidence.

• learn to recognize what a valid, logical argument looks like and what constitutes good evidence for a claim.

All of these are things you’ll need to learn in order to do well in your other classes at Fontbonne, of course. However, they’re also the kind of skills you would need if, say, you wanted to be a full member of a self-governing community. As long as most people are too inarticulate and/or uninformed to intervene in the discussions and decision-making processes that affect what happens in their neighborhoods and their cities, we will all rely on some group of “experts” to solve our problems for us... and perhaps some of those problems are the result of bad decisions on the part of some “experts.”

The fate of a city like St. Louis might depend on more of us entering the conversation about its problems as informed, critical, active participants. To borrow Professor Farrar’s favorite George Orwell quote: “If people cannot write well, they cannot think well. And if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them.”

What you need for class

• You need John Ramage and John Bean’s Writing Arguments (also known as Ramage & Bean, or “R&B” for short, like Rhythm & Blues) and Diana Hacker’s Pocket Style Manual (I bet you always wanted to learn how to be a hacker -- and here’s your chance). I will give you lots of supplemental readings via the magic of the Xerox machine.

• You need to have an email account -- if you don’t have one, get one right away. I can help anyone who needs help learning how to use email.

• You need a sturdy two-pocket folder to hold all of the written material you produce for the class -- notes, drafts of papers, other written assignments. This is your portfolio.

What I expect from you

I’ve been asked to append a list of faculty and student responsibilities that sums all this up, but here are the things I especially want to call your attention to:

• I expect you to ask for help rather than wait for me to notice you need help. I’ll certainly do my best to anticipate your needs, but I’m not psychic. Ask for help in a timely way (not when it’s too late!), and you’ll find me pretty receptive. Whatever you’re struggling with -- the assignments, the reading, finding time to study, dealing with bad circumstances -- it’s nothing I haven’t seen before, and I’ll do what I can to help. Otherwise...

• I expect you to really engage with the task of arguing for your positions. Don’t fall into the trap of assuming that what’s obvious to you (or even to you, me, and the rest of the class) is necessarily going to be obvious to everyone else. Anticipate, imagine, and seek out other peoples’ points of view, other ways of looking at things, different perspectives. Show respect for them by making carefully considered counter-arguments from a position of understanding.

Attendance Policy

We have 32 class meetings this semester. If you miss more than 4 of them (more than 15% of the total) without what I deem a legitimate excuse (e.g., illness, a family emergency, official college business), you are no longer eligible for an A-level grade (an A or an A-minus); the highest grade you can receive is a B-plus. If you miss more than 6 (more than 20%), the highest grade you can get will be a C-plus. More than 8 (a quarter of the classes) will fail you.

Students coming to class 10 minutes late will be counted as absent. (It’s really disruptive when people wander in late.) If too many people come in late, I’ll lower this limit to 5 minutes.

This might seem harsh, but it’s more lenient than the departmental norm... and your presence or absence affects both what we can accomplish as a class and what you, individually, can learn.

Office Hours

I’ll be in the office at least 2 hours a week. This is a great time for you to come by with questions, problems you’d like help with, or just to talk about the class. If you need to see me outside of class for any of these reasons, I can make appointments to meet you at the office at other times -- I’m flexible. At the office, you get to monopolize my time and appear to me as an individual, rather than as part of a single 15-headed creature. There, you can tell me individually what’s working for you and what isn’t, what you need from me to help you do well and to get what you need out of the class in general. We can use that time to work on your writing, too -- bring in your draft and I’ll tell you what you need to do to get it into shape. We can also use the time to work on elements of writing that are particularly bothersome for you, the stuff that you want to focus on most, like grammar, organization, punctuation, paragraph structure, or maybe just the process of generating ideas. Take advantage of the opportunity.

Work

Over the course of the semester, you will turn in a lot of written work (there’s only one way to learn -- practice). This will include lots of miscellaneous small assignments (such as in-class writings, topic proposals, etc.), and it will centrally feature four essays of steadily increasing length -- a first and a final draft for each. Each will receive a letter grade. I will also look at them in the context of all the writing you produce this semester -- in your portfolio, a folder in which you collect every bit of writing you do for the class (notes, planning, hard copy of your emails, assignments, workshop responses, in-class writings). This will let me adjust your final grade slightly to reflect improvement in your writing. An incomplete portfolio (missing assignments) will mean a lower portfolio grade. You will add some informal reflective writing to the portfolio at the two review times. If you make substantial notes in class (at least 10 days’ worth), I will award a little extra credit. You will have the opportunity to revise one major assignment (other than the research paper) a second time; if the results are a substantial improvement, I will record the higher grade. I’ll explain how I want you to turn in drafts later. If you don’t have a complete draft of a major assignment to turn in on workshop day and/or the final due date, the grade will drop a point.

We’ll also be doing a good deal of reading. We’ll have to, in order to enter into the ongoing public discussions about the city. We’re going to mine what we read, not only for information, but for lessons in the effective or ineffective use of argument. This is important stuff: if you get behind in the reading, you can’t participate in class. If I sense that discussion is dragging because not enough people are caught up on the reading, I may give surprise quizzes on the reading, which would factor into the participation grade. I would prefer not to do this, as I've always hated taking quizzes myself, but I'll do what it takes to keep things on track! This is also a matter of mutual respect for your fellow students: to assume that someone else will do the reading and talk about it in class so that you don't have to talk is making someone else do your work for you.

You will write responses to drafts of papers by other students in your workshop group. This is a crucial exercise -- it can make all the difference in training you to look critically at your own writing, to become a better editor. It also means that you will receive much more feedback on your drafts, since you will have multiple readers.

Each of you will sign up for a day in the semester when you will lead a class discussion. Don’t worry -- you will do this in a group of three! You will have to do some preparation, meeting outside of class with your group to make plans. Creative, vigorous efforts at discussion-leading that produce good conversations will get good grades. Each member will write a short reflection afterwards, giving an account of your planning. If it’s fairly clear to me that the contributions of the group members were unequal, I will adjust individual grades upwards or downwards accordingly.

At least once every other week (starting on the second or third week), you will write an email to the rest of the class, joining an online conversation about material and issues we’ve touched on during the week. These can be informal (as long as they’re appropriate), but they have to be substantial and relevant to the discussion (my judgement) to count for the grade. These exchanges will let us continue conversations we won’t have time to pursue in class. (Here is another place where you can earn a little extra credit -- not enough to make up for lack of participation in face-to-face discussions, but some butter for the bread.)

Grades

Here’s where your final grade will come from:*

• Whole-class participation: 15%

• Workshop participation: 10%

• Portfolio (letter grades of written assignments + possible extra credit for notes, modified by completeness, adjusted for improvement): 60%
  Assorted minor written work, and four major assignments:
  • Field observations (2-3 pp)
  • Preliminary planning proposal (3-5 pp)
  • Analysis of an argument (3-5 pp)
  • Research paper (6-8 pp)

• Group discussion-leading (adjusted for quality of individual contribution): 10%

• Emails contributed to online discussion (at least 6, possible extra credit for more): 5%

*I reserve the right to change any of these policies and plans if circumstances warrant. Any changes that might affect your grade will be issued in writing.

Semester Schedule

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