CORE101-37A: Wrestling With God
Dennis Beach, OSB
Spring 2004, 2-4-6 9:40 Quad 252

Office hours: 1-3-5: 1:00-3:00; 2-4-6: 11:00-noon; afternoons & evenings after 8 PM (Pat 121) by appointment

Description | Goals | Writing & Research | Reading | Attendance and Grading | Schedule

MS Word version of syllabus (easier for printing)

Description: Our topic remains the human experience of God and of faith or difficulties with faith, but our approach will change from looking at these questions through fiction to looking at biography, history, scripture and explorations of social justice from a religious perspective. At the same time we will shift some of the emphasis of our written and classroom work to research, presentation and discussion-leading skills. We will also write a number of shorter essays, some as short as a paragraph or a page, so that we continue to work on mechanics, style and syntax—elements of good writing that remain needed in research writing.

Goals:  While our general goal remains the same—deepening our understanding of the human experience of God and of the struggle to maintain and live out one’s faith—our practical goals will focus in four areas, sometimes raising the bar a little from fall to spring semester:

1. We’ll seek to write thoughtful, engaging and purposeful essays that demonstrate a maturing ability with mechanics and style.
2. We’ll attempt to discover more deliberately what we do not yet know through what others can tell us by discussing with honesty and candor—not just offering opinions or unassailable proofs, but questions, hypotheses, ideas, fears and hopes.
3. We’ll master basic abilities to conduct focused research on topics that arise from our reading and to present these findings in standard academic formats while maintaining the quality of our writing.
4. We’ll develop confidence in speaking and presenting ideas to one another in some more formal ways, including engaging others in discussion of key issues.

There are also some much more specific goals related to research (area 3 above):

1. developing competence in using college-level research tools,
2. constructing informed and responsible bibliographies and accessing sources,
3. reading and assimilating primary and secondary source material, and
4. incorporating this into our writing effectively, with respect for citation procedures.

Writing and Research: These will go hand in hand this semester, with about half of our writing having something to do with research topics. However, because it is a mistake to think that a researched, documented paper represents the highest form of the art of writing, we will also continue writing shorter, focused essays to develop skills in both thinking and expression.

Our research projects this semester will take the following forms:

1. A shorter, focused research project on a historical person whose life has been very strongly affected by the claims of faith or struggles with faith in God. St. Augustine, Dorothy Day, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Oscar Romero will serve as examples of such lives. This research will be presented to the class orally in a 6-8 minute presentation with a written summary.
2. A research project pursued in teams that will focus on a specific social justice issue and present that issue through the lens of Catholic Social Teaching as well as through published commentary on and discussion of this issue. The group will conduct class discussion(s) on readings they choose, and each member of the group will write a documented research paper focusing more specifically within the general topic area.

Reading: Most but not all of the texts we will study this semester are ones “left over” from your fall list. We will supplement these with the Rule of Benedict and a text on Catholic Social Teaching, as well as a few photocopied excerpts from writings of people we’ll watch films about: Dorothy Day, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Oscar Romero. In addition, in teams you will be selecting readings (available through the internet or by photocopy) to engage the whole class more closely in topics of research.

1. (15%) Daily preparation and active, critical yet respectful participation in discussion .
2. (20%) Focused writing assignments throughout the semester.
3. (15%) Oral research and presentation on historical person whose life was shaped by religion.
4. (15%) Discussion preparation and leadership (related to larger, group research project).
5. (15%) Specific research tasks done throughout the semester (graded separately from presentation and final paper).
6. (20%) Individual research paper stemming from group research topic.

    * Subject to revision if there are changes in assignments. All changes will be posted.