Synopses & Reviews
A cross-disciplinary reader, Making Sense teaches students how knowledge is constructed as well as communicated through the exploration of significant issues from across the curriculum. Thirty-eight contemporary essays--drawn from the humanities, social sciences, and sciences--demonstrate a range of methods to make sense.
Chapters 2 and 3 cover the writing process and research methods, including database and Internet searches. Part II contains the rich anthology of current essays, alphabetically arranged, with accompanying apparatus. In Part III, students put abstract concepts into practice by reevaluating previous readings or revisiting their earlier papers. Part IV includes specially commissioned essays by professors on writing in their specific disciplines.
Synopsis
This cross-disciplinary reader gives students the opportunity to read and write about significant issues across the arts and sciences and to explore how knowledge is constructed and communicated. Thirty-eight contemporary essays are preceded by introductory chapters on writing and reading and are followed by assignment sequences that juxtapose three or more essays with a central theme. The Second Edition of Making Sense presents works by well-known authors such as Annie Dillard, Gloria Anzald?a, bell hooks, Lawrence Lessig, Ralph Ellison, and Nancy Sommers, as well as selections by lesser-known writers from a variety of fields. While the essays are arranged in alphabetical order, the text also offers alternative thematic and disciplinary tables of contents.
About the Author
Robert L. Coleman (Ph. D. in Literatures in English from Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1998) has been teaching at universities since 1987. Currently, he is Assistant Professor of English at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama, where he teaches American literature and composition. In addition to being the lead editor of "Making Sense: Constructing Knowledge in the Arts and Sciences," He is currently writing a book on intersections of rhetoric and romance in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American fiction. From 1996 to 1998, he was an Assistant Director of the Writing Program at Rutgers University.Scott Campbell is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Connecticut at Waterbury, and he serves as the Coordinator of Writing at the UConn campuses at Waterbury, Torrington, and Greater Hartford. Scott received his doctorate from Rutgers University and, in addition to the University of Connecticut, he has taught composition and literature courses at Stony Brook University, Montclair State University, and Rutgers. He is currently involved in building a multi-campus Writing Center, overseeing Freshman English courses, and facilitating writing intensive courses across the disciplines.Stephanie Girard is Faculty Development Coordinator and Assistant Professor of English at Spring Hill College. She holds a Ph.D. in English from Rutgers University, where she was a Jacob K. Javits Dissertation Fellow. She is the author of "'Standing at the Corner of Walk and Don't Walk': Vintage Contemporaries, Bright Lights, Big City, and the Problem of Betweeness" (American Literature, March 1996). She has given papers at numerous conferences including the MLA and the CCCC. In addition to Making Sense, she is co-editing a volume of essays on the topic of what it means to be a professor of the humanities in the 21st century. Dr. Girard has taught basic, standard, and advanced composition; proposal writing; writing in the professions; and studies in nonfiction prose. Her research interests include contemporary fiction, the history of publishing, and the sociology of literature.
Table of Contents
I. Making Sense 1. Making Sense through Reading 2. Making Sense through Writing II. Essays Dorothy Allison, "This is Our World" Gloria Anzald?a, "Chicana Artists: Exploring Nepantla, el Lugar de la Frontera" Sven Birkerts, "The Owl Has Flown" Julie Charlip, "A Real Class Act: Searching for Identity in the Classless Society" Scott DeVeaux, "Progress and the Bean" Annie Dillard, "Seeing" Julie English Early, "The Spectacle of Science and Self" Ralph Ellison, "The Little Man at Chehaw Station" Stuart Ewen, "The Marriage Between Art and Commerce" Richard Florida, "The Transformation of Everyday Life" Arlie Russell Hochschild, "From the Frying Pan into the Fire" bell hooks, "keeping close to home: class and education" Zita Ingham, "Landscape, Drama, and Dissensus: The Rhetorical Education of Red Lodge, Montana" Michio Kaku, "Second Thoughts: The Genetics of a Brave New World?" Thomas Kuhn, "The Historical Structure of Scientific Discovery" Christopher Lasch, "The Lost Art of Argument" Lawrence Lessig, "Introduction" to Free Culture Emily Martin et al., "Scientific Literacy, What It Is, Why It's Important, and Why Scientists Think We Don't Have It" Scott McCloud, "Setting the Record Straight" Erin McGraw, "Bad Eyes" Barbara Mellix, "From Outside, In" Walter Mosley, "For Authors, Fragile Ideas Need Loving Every Day" Walker Percy, "The Loss of the Creature" Richard Rodriguez, "'Blaxicans' and Other Reinvented Americans" Witold Rybczynski, "Designs for Escape" Rebecca Solnit, "Aerobic Sisyphus and the Suburbanized Psyche" Nancy Sommers, "I Stand Here Writing" Susan Sontag, "In Plato's Cave" Marita Sturken, "The Wall, the Screen, and the Image: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial" Jane Tompkins, "At the Buffalo Bill Museum, June 1988" Christopher P. Toumey, From "Science in an Old Testament Style" Haunani-Kay Trask, "From a Native Daughter" Yi-Fu Tuan, "Earth: Nature and Culture" Sherry Turkle, From "The Triumph of Tinkering" Susan Willis, "Disney World: Public Use/Private State" Jeanette Winterson, "Imagination and Reality" III. Assignment Sequences 1. Challenging the Inertia of Old Ideas (Toumey, Percy, Lessig, Hochschild) 2. Seeing and Knowing (Percy, Winterson, Dillard) 3. Reading Art and Culture (Tompkins, Anzald?a, Birkerts, Ewen) 4. Using Oneself as a Source (Rodriguez, McGraw, Allison, Sommers) 5. Contradictions in Class and Classroom (hooks, Charlip, Ellison) 6. History and Memory (Trask, Tompkins, Sturken) 7. Democracy and Debate (Lasch, Ingham, Hochschild) 8. Imagination, Possibility, and Control (Winterson, Mosley, Willis, Toumey) 9. Escapes (Tuan, Rybczynski, Solnit) 10. Fragility and Fruition (DeVeaux, Mosley, and McCloud) 11. Self-Reflection and Making Sense (Tompkins, hooks, Mellix) 12. Technology and Change (Sontag, Turkle, Kuhn, Lessig) 13. Parts and Wholes (Lasch, Anzald?a, Rodriguez) 14. Writing on Writing (Sommers, Mellix, Early) 15. The Art of "Reality" (Winterson, Sturken, Kaku, Allison) 16. The Arts and Sciences (Toumey, Kuhn, Winterson, Ellison) 17. Technology and Understanding (Sontag, Lasch, Turkle) 18. Images and Words (Hochschild, Florida, Tuan, Charlip) 19. Applying Arguments and Concepts (Ewen, Willis, Percy) 20. "Progress" in Art and Technology (DeVeaux, Ewen, Birkerts) 21. Rhetorical Education (Ingham, Burke, Martin et al.) 22. What Is Scientific Literacy? (Martin et al., Toumey, Kaku) 23. Visual Literacy (Sontag, McGraw, McCloud) 24. The Ways that Thinking Happens (Birkerts, Turkle, Solnit) 25. Status, Self, and Authority (Anzald?a, Trask, Early) Appendices Making Sense through Research Writing in the Disciplines