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Your assignment for Tuesday:

• Review the attached Syllabus for texts necessary for the course. Purchase these texts at the earliest possibility. Assignments from these texts will be given Tuesday, due on Wednesday. I'll have printed copies of the Syllabus for distribution on Tuesday.
• Read the attached document from Gore, The Assault on Reason.
  • Be familiar with content, intention, tone, and all references (MoveOn.org, politicians' names, “hanging chads,” etc. -- some of these terms can be discussed with parents for quick access). We will discuss both the message of this text as well as how Gore puts it together, his diction and vocabulary, tone, sentence and paragraph structure, inclusions and omissions, etc.

• Reflect on the definitions of the five steps of writing:

1. Pre-write
2. Composition
3. Revision
4. Edit
5. Publishing

There is a question under the Discussions section (see top menu) that I would like you to respond to by Thursday's class:

“What do you consider to be the most important social concern in Houston today? What has brought the situation to this point? How would Houston be a better place if this concern were resolved?” (purpose: this is a general theme of the final research paper of this class; I'd like you to begin thinking about issues that are important to you before we begin this research)