The Curious Reader Exploring Personal and Academic Inquiry

by Ballenger, Bruce; Payne, Michelle

• ISBN13: 9780321365224
• ISBN10: 0321365224
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-08-10
• Publisher: Pearson

Summary

Bridging the gap between personal and academic writing, The Curious Reader is a composition reader that introduces students to the unique reading strategies used by writers who research. Beginning with essays and creative nonfiction, readings that many students will be surprised to discover are research based, The Curious Reader leads students to see the many connections between all fact-based writing, whether it's a personal essay or an article from a scholarly journal. The Curious Reader invites students to become active researchers as they are encouraged to confront underlying beliefs that either hinder or help their fact-based writing. Questions and assignments ask students to explain, evaluate, explore, and reflect on what they have read and how it has changed their thinking.

Table of Contents

Preface for Instructors	xvii
Preface for Students	xxv
PART I: THE PROCESS OF INQUIRY
Acquiring the Inquiry Habit	1	(10)
Start with Questions Before Answers	1	(2)
Exercise 1.1: Twenty Ways to See a Blackbird	2	(1)
Use an Open-Ended Process	3	(1)
Choose an Inquiry Strategy	4	(3)
Investigate in a Rhetorical Context	7	(2)
Exercise 1.2: Practice with the Strategy of Inquiry	7	(2)
Inquiry and Research	9	(2)
The Inquiring Reader	11	(26)
Exercise 2.1: Autobiography of a Reader	11	(1)
Exercise 2.2: What Makes a ``Good Reader''?	12	(1)
Inquiring Minds and Intellectual Couch Potatoes	13	(2)
Start with Questions before Answers	15	(2)
Reading Behaviors and Perspectives	17	(1)
Techniques for Strategic Reading	18	(10)
Choose an Inquiry Strategy	19	(2)
Understand the Rhetorical Context	21	(1)
Avoid Making Pastel Islands	21	(1)
Read Twice	22	(1)
Be a Conversationalist	22	(2)
Exercise 2.3: Practicing Dialectical Thinking	24	(2)
Exercise 2.4: Responding to Difficult Texts	26	(2)
Reading Images	28	(8)
Exercise 2.5: Reading Images	28	(5)
Exercise 2.6: Reading Graphics	33	(3)
Readers Are Curious	36	(1)
How Do You Know?	37	(12)
Exercise 3.1: Your Ways of Knowing	38	(1)
Entitled to Your Own Opinion	39	(3)
Exercise 3.2: Knowing What Is Appropriate Evidence	40	(2)
Not Entitled to an Opinion	42	(1)
Opinions in an Uncertain World	43	(2)
Exercise 3.3: Practice with Believing and Doubting	44	(1)
At Issue: Should Educators Use Commercial Sevices to Combat Plagiarism?	45	(2)
Believing and Doubting	47	(2)
PART II: FORMS FOR DISCOVERY
The Researched Essay: ``Essaying'' as a Mode of Inquiry	49	(105)
No Wonder They Call Me a Bitch	51	(6)
Ann Hodgman
Why Did God Make Flies?	57	(10)
Richard Conniff
Yarn	67	(9)
Kyoko Mori
Did NASA Fake the Moon Landing?	76	(17)
Ray Villard
Looking at Women	93	(14)
Scott Russell Sanders
Dinosaur Dreams: Reading the Bones of America's Psychic Mascot	107	(13)
Jack Hitt
My Secret History	120	(14)
Jillian A. Sim
Let Them Eat Fat: The Heavy Truths About American Obesity	134	(12)
Greg Critser
Student Essay: An Experience in Acronyms	146	(8)
Jay Holmquist
The Personal Academic Essay: Boundary Crossing as a Mode of Inquiry	154	(86)
Exercise 5.1: Shalt I?	154	(1)
Objectivity and the Research Ideal	155	(3)
Tandem Readings: Business	158	(1)
Learning About Work from Joe Cool	158	(8)
Gib Akin
Storytelling and Organizational Studies: A Critique of ``Learning About Work from Joe Cool''	166	(5)
John M. Jermier
Theresa Domagalski
Learning About Work from Creative Nonfiction	171	(2)
Gary Alan Fine
Response to Commentaries on ``Learning About Work from Joe Cool''	173	(4)
Gib Akin
Tandem Readings: Anthropology	177	(1)
Grief and a Headhunter's Rage	178	(9)
Renato Rosaldo
The Politics of Headhunting, 1945--1954	187	(13)
Renato Rosaldo
Tandem Readings: English Studies	200	(1)
Somebody Must Say These Things: An Essay for My Mother	201	(13)
Melody Graulich
Every Husband's Right: Sex Roles in Mari Sandoz's Old Jules	214	(13)
Melody Graulich
Student Essay: In Search of Grace	227	(13)
Peggy Jordan
The Ethnographic Essay: Ethnography as a Mode of Inquiry	240	(81)
Exposing the Web of Culture	242	(2)
Exercise 6.1: Under Our Very Noses: Subcultures in the United States	243	(1)
Ethnographic Ways of Seeing	244	(2)
Approaches to Field Notes	245	(1)
Fifteen	246	(8)
Bob Greene
The American Man at Age Ten	254	(12)
Susan Orlean
Connie and the Sandman Ladies	266	(12)
Anne Campbell
The Cave	278	(7)
Jon Katz
Snake Handling and Redemption	285	(16)
Dennis Covington
Subcultures, Pop Music, and Politics: Skinheads and ``Nazi Rock'' in England and Germany	301	(10)
Timothy S. Brown
Student Essay: Mary Kay: American Dream in a Bottle	311	(10)
Tammy Anderson
Fields of Writing: Making Sense of Formal Research	321	(104)
An Outsider at the Dog Show	322	(1)
Case Study: Dissecting Academic Articles	323	(4)
Exercise 7.1: Can a Man and Woman Just Be Friends?	324	(1)
Michelle's Inquiry: The Story Begins with an Itch	325	(2)
Entering the Conversation: A Psychology Article	327	(1)
Challenges Confronting Cross-Sex Friendships: Much Ado About Nothing?	328	(31)
Michael Monsour
Bridgid Harris
Nancy Kurzweil
Chris Beard
Exercise 7.2: Reader Reflections	358	(1)
What's Alien and What's Not	358	(1)
Men and Women at Work: A Business Article	359	(1)
Love Without Sex: The Impact of Psychological Intimacy Between Men and Women at Work	360	(16)
Robert Quinn
Sharon A. Lobel
Lynda St. Clair
Exercise 7.3: Reader Reflections	375	(1)
Romance and Attraction: Three Communication Studies Articles	376	(1)
``I Like You . . . as a Friend'': The Role of Attraction in Cross-Sex Friendship	377	(15)
Heidi M. Reeder
We're Just Good Friends	392	(2)
Kathy Werking
Cross-Sex Friends and ``Marriage Work''	394	(4)
Kathy Werking
Exercise 7.4: Reader Reflections	397	(1)
How Social Context Affects Friendships: A Sociology Article	398	(1)
Friendship, Sociology, and Social Structure	398	(10)
Graham Allan
Exercise 7.5: Reader Reflections	408	(1)
Blame it on the Sexual Revolution: An English Studies Article	408	(1)
Dangerous Acquaintances: The Correspondence of Margaret Fuller and James Freeman Clarke	409	(16)
Barbara Packer
Exercise 7.6: Reader Reflections	421	(1)
How Does the Story End? Reflections on Michelle's Inquiry Project	421	(4)
Reading and Writing Across Disciplines: The Ethics of Publishing Disturbing Photos	425	(71)
Encounters with Disturbing Photographs	425	(5)
Exercise 8.1: First Thoughts, First Feelings	427	(3)
Case Study 26: Photojournalism and Tragedy	430	(4)
Clifford Christians
Kim Rotzoll
Mark Farkler
Code of Ethics of the National Press Photographers Association	434	(4)
Images of Horror from Fallujah	438	(9)
David D. Perlmutter
Lesa Hatley Major
Representing Contemporary War	447	(13)
David Campbell
Victims of Violence	460	(11)
Paul Martin Lester
Tragedy of the Common: Markedness and the Creation of Mundane Tragedy	471	(9)
Stevphen Shukaitis
Rachel Lichtenfeld
Images of Violence: A Transcript	480	(11)
Student Essay: After the Shock Is Gone	491	(5)
Mary Andrews
Appendix: Documenting Sources: MLA and APA Guidelines	496	(15)
Evaluating Sources	496	(1)
When to Cite	497	(1)
Avoiding Plagiarism	497	(1)
MLA Style	498	(7)
In-Text Citations	498	(1)
The Basics of Using Parenthetical Citations	498	(1)
Preparing the ``Works Cited'' Page	499	(1)
Citing Books	500	(1)
Sample Book Citations	500	(1)
Citing Periodicals	501	(1)
Sample Periodical Citations	502	(2)
Citing Online Databases	504	(1)
Sample Online Citations	504	(1)
APA Style	505	(6)
In-Text Citations	505	(1)
The Basics of Using Parenthetical Citations	505	(1)
Preparing the ``References'' List	506	(1)
Sample References	506	(3)
Citing Electronic Sources	509	(1)
Sample Online References	509	(2)
Credits	511