Inquiry: Questioning, Reading, Writing

This cross-curricular composition book emphasizes the idea of writing as thinking. Maintaining its core theme that good questions are at the heart of good writing, this Second Edition is organized around six thought-provoking questions intended to motivate contemplation and inspire prolific writing: 1) How do I know who I am?; 2) How do we know what we know?; 3) What principles do, and should, govern our personal lives?; 4) What are human rights and responsibilities?; 5) What can we learn from the past?; 6) What will the future be like? The reading selections in each chapter offer a variety of approaches to the chapter question, with representation from many different social perspectives. KEY TOPICS: A host of new readings have been added, including selections that relate to current issues such as war and terrorism, business ethics, computers and artificial intelligence. MARKET: For professionals with a career or interest in writing, teaching, journalism, editing and/or publishing.

Table of Contents:
(NOTE: Each chapter begins with an Introduction, Rhetorical Issues, and Questions for Discovery and Discussion, and concludes with Questions for Reflection, and Writing.) Introduction. 1. Identity: How Do I Know Who I Am? What Is My Physical Self? Maxine Hong Kingston, On Discovery. Natalie Angier, Estrogen, Desire, and Puberty. Nancy Mairs, On Being a Cripple. Shelby Steele, Jr., The Age of White Guilt and the Disappearance of the Black Individual. Who Am I in Relation to Others? Frederick Douglass, Resurrection. Mike Rose, I Just Wanna Be Average. Joan Didion, On Self-Respect. Eric Liu, Notes of a Native Speaker. Gloria Anzaldua, Beyond Traditional Notions of Identity. How Do Language and Literacy Affect My Identity? Amy Tan, Mother Tongue. Eudora Welty, Listening. Richard Wright, The Power of Books. Richard Rodriquez, Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood. 2. Thinking: How Do We Know What We Know? What is the Process of Thinking? Susanne K. Langer, Signs and Symbols. Plato, The Allegory of the Cave. Isaac Asimov, Those Crazy Ideas. Frank Conroy, Think About It. Anne Fadiman, Under Water. What Are Some Ways of Understanding Nature? Charles Darwin, Understanding Natural Selection. Stephen Jay Gould, Evolution as Fact and Theory. Jane Goodall, First Observations. Michael Pollan, Playing God in the Garden. How Can We Explain What We Know? Thomas S. Kuhn, The Route to Normal Science. Deborah Tannen, Conversational Styles. Benjamin Lee Whorf, An American Indian Model of the Universe. Perri Klass, Learning the Language. 3. Ethics: What Principles Do—and Should—Govern Our Personal Lives? What Governs Ethical Behavior? Jeffrey Wattles, The Golden Rule—One or Many, Gold or Glitter? Benjamin Franklin, Arriving at Moral Perfection. Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics. Peter Singer, The Singer Solution to World Poverty. What Are Some Operative Principles of Work and Play? Howard Gardner, Good Work, Well Done: A Psychological Study. Barbara Ehrenreich, Serving in Florida. Atul Gawande, When Doctors Make Mistakes. Deborah Fallows, Why Mothers Should Stay Home. Charles M. Young, Losing: An American Tradition. How Can We Meet the Challenge of Creativity? Jacob Bronowski, The Reach of the Imagination. Linda Hogan, Hearing Voices. Ursula LeGuin, Where Do You Get Your Ideas From? Alexander Calandra, Angels on a Pin. Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens. 4. Values: What Are Human Rights and Responsibilities? What Are Fundamental Human Rights? Wole Soyinka, Every Dictator's Nightmare. Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Declaration of Sentiments. Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address. Sojourner Truth, Ain't I a Woman. What Values Govern the Common Good? Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience. Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail. Lewis H. Van Dusen, Jr., Civil Disobedience: Destroyer of Democracy. Terry Tempest Williams, The Clan of One-Breasted Women. John McPhee, Los Angeles Against the Mountains. How Can Value Conflicts Be Resolved? Deborah Tannen, The Roots of Debate in Education and the Hope of Dialogue. Robert Wuthnow, Making Choices: From Short-Term Adjustments to Principled Lives. Nelson Mandela/Frederik Willem de Klerk, The End of Apartheid Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speeches (1993). Ursula Franklin, Silence and the Notion of the Commons. 5. Reinterpretation/Contexts: What Can We Learn From the Past? How Does Family Heritage Affect Who We Are? Barry Lopez, Searching for Ancestors. Pauli Murray, The Inheritance of Values. Scott Russell Sanders, The Inheritance of Tools. Cynthia Ozick, A Drugstore Eden. Scott Russell Sanders, Under the Influence: Paying the Price of My Father's Booze. How Can We Live in Harmony With Nature? Leslie Marmon Silko, Landscape, History, and the Pueblo Imagination. Henry David Thoreau, Where I Lived and What I Lived For. Rachel Carson, The Obligation to Endure. Sandra Postel, Troubled Waters. How Can We Interpret and Understand the Past? Stephen Hawking, Our Picture of the Universe. Italo Calvino, All at One Point. Frances Fitzgerald, America Revised. Linda Simon, The Naked Source. 6. Predictions: What Will the Future Be Like? How Can We Think About Technology and Gender Roles in the Future? Anne Fadiman, Mail. Paul de Palma, http.//www.when_is_enough_enough.com? Robert S. Weiss, Marriage as Partnership. Lettie Cottin Pogrebin, Why Feminism is Good for the Jews. Will War and Terrorism Shape Our Future? Margaret Mead, Warfare Is Only an Invention—Not a Biological Necessity. Czeslaw Milosz, American Ignorance of War. Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God. Wendell Berry, Thoughts in the Presence of Fear. Pope John XXIII, “Disarmament.” Will a New Utopia be Possible in the 21st Century? W. French Anderson, Genetics and Human Malleability. Leigh Turner, The Media and the Ethics of Cloning. Kofi Annan, The United Nations in the 21st Century. Karen Armstrong, Does God Have a Future?