The World of Ideas!
 

        There is no separate "world of ideas," of course. It's just a metaphor--a way of talking about something you can't see or touch--and I almost feel silly using it here. But I want to let you know that this course, like most other college courses, isn't as much about things and actions as it is about seeing and thinking-and that's where this "world of ideas" metaphor comes in.

        You already know most of the things and actions about writing. So what we'll be mainly interested in in this course is what you and we and other people thinkabout things and actions. That's really what "composition" is about--finding out what you think and trying to communicate it to other people.

        To that end, I'd like you to begin listening to either "All Things Considered" or "Morning Edition." These are the National Public Radio newsmagazines, and listening to them will help you at least indirectly with the thinking and searching and reporting that you'll need to do in this course. It'll help you run the world, too.

        Both programs are broadcast in this area on WCVE, 88.9 FM. You can also hear them on the Internet, at http://www.npr.org.

        "All Things Considered" is on from 4:00 to 6:30 p.m., Monday through Friday and 5:00 to 6:00 on weekends.

        "Morning Edition" is on from 6:00 to 9:00 a.m., Monday through Friday. There's also "Weekend Edition" on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

        I won't be checking up on you, and there's no extra credit for listening. On the other hand, I think you'll find the reports and other features interesting, useful, enjoyable, and educational--all in all, good antidotes to commercial radio and tv. And who knows--you might start seeing more clearly with your ears.
 
 

P.S. Speaking of listening, I've been thinking lately about something Jack Kennedy said to students and faculty at Rice University, in Houston Texas, on September 12, 1962:

        For a long time I heard it in my mind without "choose" and "in this decade" and "do the other things." I guess it seemed stronger and cleaner to me that way--"We go to the moon not because it's easy but because it's hard." But then I heard again a recording of that speech and was surprised--shocked because I'd remembered it so wrong--to find the other words.

        So I thought it over. What if Jack had left those words out? Would it be the same?

        "We choose." That's important because without it, we don't choose. It just happens to us.

        "In this decade" puts the sentence in a time, in a context. So that's important, too, because that affects how I understand the sentence.

        "And do the other things." That could go--but then we'd be left with only the one thing. That wouldn't be true and would be narrow and limited. So it has to stay, too.

        But why am I telling you this?

        Yes, why--when all I really meant to say is that the writing assignments for this course, if they're any good at all, have no bottoms, no far sides?  I'd like to talk with you too about the quest for truth, because that's what the assignments, however they might seem on the surface, are really about.

        The quest for truth begins with seeing what is really there.  And it ends--if it ends--with recognizing what is really there.