Open Questions: Readings for Critical Thinking and Writing

We all make many ethical choices, small and large, every day. Should we give money to that homeless person? Should we shade the truth to protect someone else's feelings? Should we endanger ourselves by chasing that purse-snatcher? A first-year college composition course devoted to critical thinking and writing presents an ideal opportunity for students to reflect on what goes into making such decisions, and to refine their own understanding of what constitutes ethical action. The first reader to tap into this opportunity, Open Questions presents a wide variety of perspectives on profound ethical issues, along with a unique method of approaching those issues based on careful listening, analytic thinking, and persuasive writing.

CHRIS ANDERSON is professor of English and the composition coordinator at Oregon State University. Author of many scholarly articles and reviews and coauthor or editor of numerous books, including several textbooks for composition, he is also a much-published poet and writer of creative nonfiction, whose Edge Effects: Notes from an Oregon Forest was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. His latest scholarly projects include the forthcoming Teaching as Believing: Faith in the University.

LEX RUNCIMAN is professor of English and former director of the writing center at Linfield College. He has written and lectured extensively on writing pedagogy, particularly writing across the curriculum. Coauthor or editor of several textbooks, he is the author of The St. Martin's Workbook (Bedford/St. Martin's, 2003). A poet and an editor of poetry anthologies, his latest collection of his own work is Out of Town.