In-Class Exercise: What is "General Welfare"?

Here is the preamble to the U.S. Constitution:

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. [as quoted off Cornell University Law School's website]

What does general welfare mean? How can we adequately define it?

Consider, for example, how politicians fighting for the upcoming U.S. presidency are promoting or fighting over a new concept for America: "Universal Healthcare" (UH). Can the preamble's goals be tied to UH? Which candidate do you think supports the preamble most closely with regards to health care or what you have come to define as "general welfare"?

Where Does This Piece of Writing End?

The Waiting Game

So by now most everybody within a 100-foot radius of me at any moment knows that I've started my dissertation. Proposal round three is with my director, and I'm sure I'll get it back after the Thanksgiving Holidays. For rounds one and two I was suspicious of any large white packet that came in the mail. Is this the one with the feedback? Is it a sweepstakes offer? Could it be quarterly losses from my 401(k)? Any of the above would have been depressing. I was waiting (am waiting still) to jump through this last hoop on my way to finishing my Ph.D. work. And it still feels like the beginning.

For starters, here are all the places in which any graduate school can waylay the best of educational travelers (or gatekeeping mechanisms, as they are):

1. Acceptance to any graduate program (GPA, letters of recommendation, work histories, other experience, writing samples);



2. Introductory courses/grades;



3. The "qualifying portfolio": a place in which, midway through coursework, students must put a portfolio together that's considered academically viable work;



4. Finishing coursework (both required and elective) at a steady pace with acceptable grades (mostly "A"s);



5. Getting somebody to chair your dissertation committee;



6. Getting the proposal passed;



7. Signing up other advisors/readers to be on your committee;



8. Passing the 3-chapter defense; and



9. Passing the final dissertation defense.

And so, three years in, I am only at step 6. I guess it feels like I've done more than that, but there is so much left to do. And where does this writing piece end (the theme, of course, of my dissertation)? Through rounds and rounds of submission, feedback, frustration, rewriting, and resubmission, I have gotten this far. And I guess that's pretty good. But this piece of writing will then blend and merge into my dissertation itself (mostly part of the prologue and chapter 1), continue to change, and not be anything at all like I thought it would be.

I am a stranger to my own written voice. I never sound on paper like I do in my head, or when I speak. It is as if there are three writers here, and each voice is distinct; yet I never know who will show up for the final version. I just hope that I don't have to wait too long to know whether I can take that next step. I mean, I know it's coming, but the waiting is excruciating.

And this reminds me: this is exactly what it feels like for my ENG 111 students to wait 8 weeks for a grade (I'll never do that again!).

Photo Courtesy the Yoga gurus.

Week 5: In-class exercise

Blogs and reporting...

How do blogs and "legitimate" (depends on how you define it) news outlets report on the same issue?

Take a look at the recent Hollywood writers' strike. Here are two bloggers different interpretations of issues surrounding the strike: Writer's Blog or Lowrychris's "Is the Writer's Strike in Hollywood just Gold Digging by the WGA?" and how media (newspaper and online news outlets) are reporting on the issue: "Bad Day at The Office" from MSNBC.

Questions to consider:
1. How do these different types of Internet "reports" handle the issue of the Writers' strike?
2. What are the writing style(s) shown? Are they similar?
3. Based on what you see here, where do you go to get your news?

References Cited (Thus far)

Here is a copy of my growing References Cited list. Not all the pieces are used in my proposal, but I believe I will be actively using them (99%, at least) in the main project.

Baynes, Kenneth, et al., eds. After Philosophy: End or Transformation? Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1986.

Berlin, James. Rhetorics, Poetics, Cultures: Refiguring College English Studies. Urbana, Ill.: National Council of Teachers of English, 1996.

Burke, Kenneth. A Rhetoric of Motives. Cleveland: Meridian, 1962.

Carter, Michael. Where Writing Begins: A Postmodern Reconstruction. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.

China Daily. “Archaeologists Rewrite History.” China Daily, June 12, 2003. 29 Sept. 2007 http://www.china.org.cn/english/2003/Jun/66806.htm

Dobrin, Sidney. Constructing Knowledges: The Politics of Theory-Building and Pedagogy in Composition. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997.

---------. “From Writing Processes to Cultural (Re)production: Composition’s Theoretical Shift.” Conference on College Composition and Communication, Chicago, 22 March 2002.

Faigley, Lester. Fragments of Rationality: Postmodernity and the Subject of Composition. Pittsburgh: U. of Pittsburgh Press, 1992.

Fish, Stanley. “Being Interdisciplinary Is So Very Hard to Do.” Profession 89, 15–22, 1991.

Guthrie, W. K. C. A History of Greek Philosophy. 6 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press, 1962.

Haldane, John. “Philosophy, Death, and Immortality.” Philosophical Investigations 30(3), 245-265.

Hawking, Stephen. A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes. Toronto: Bantam, 1988.

Hyers, Conrad. The Interpreter’s Bible. 12 vols. New York: Abington, 1952.

Joyce, Rosemary. The Languages of Archaeology: Dialogue, Narrative, and Writing. London: Blackwell Publishers, 2002.

Journet, Debra. “Writing within (and between) Disciplinary Genres.” In Thomas Kent, Ed. Post Process Theory: Beyond the Writing Process Paradigm. Carbondale, Ill: Southern Illinois University Press, 1999.

Klein, Julie. Interdisciplinarity: History, Theory, and Practice. Detroit: Wayne State U. Press, 1990.

Knoblauch, Cy, and Lil Brannon. Rhetorical Traditions and the Teaching of Writing. Upper Montclair, NJ: Boynton/Cook, 1984.

Lucas, Gavin. The Archaeology of Time. New York: Routledge, 2005.

Luce, J. V. An Introduction to Greek Philosophy. London: Thames and Hudson, 1992.

Lukacs, John. At the End of an Age. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002.

Lyon, Arabella. “Interdisciplinarity: Giving Up Territory.” College English 54 (1992): 681–93.

McIver, Tom. “The Alpha & the Omega.” Skeptic 7(3), (ID # 10639330), 1999.

North, Stephen. The Making of Knowledge in Composition: Portrait of an Emerging Field. Upper Montclair, NJ: Boynton, 1987.

Plato, and Albert Keith Whitaker. Parmenides. Newburyport, MA: Focus Publishing, 1996.

Preucel, Robert. Archaeological Semiotics. London: Blackwell Publishing, 2006.

Said, Edward W. Beginnings: Intention and Method. New York: Basic, 1975.

Vandenberg, Peter, Sue Hum, and Jennifer Clary-Lemon. Relations, Locations, Positions: Composition Theory for Writing Teachers. Urbana, Ill.: National Council of Teachers of English, 2006.

Vitanza, Victor. “Three Countertheses: Or a Critical In(ter)vention into Composition Theories and Pedagogies.” In Harkin and Schlib, eds. Contending with Words: Composition and Rhetoric in a Postmodern Age. New York: MLA, 1991.

Whitehead, Alfred North. Adventures of Ideas. New York: Macmillan, 1933.

Class Exercise: Blog Genres

In small groups, present your topic and discuss the blog leaders in your field. Come up with a list of reasons (a rationale) as to why these might be the bloggers you discuss for your final paper. For example: What makes them a leader? site popularity? Current on issues? Writing style? Technical prowess?

Break apart from groups and write a “review” of one of these bloggers (you can use this as one of your posts next week).

Note: If there are no other bloggers on this topic, you can either broaden your genre (from Colbert to politics in general, for example) or you can write about why you’re the lone blogger on this topic.