The goal of English 1 is to encourage you to be a conscious writer who knows how to tell the truth with a little bit of grace. By "conscious writer" we mean that you don't just choose the first words, idea, or plan that comes to you, but that you think carefully about what you are doing, consider options available to you, and tailor your writing to a specific audience and purpose. By “telling the truth with a little bit of grace” we mean that you produce the kind of writing that is thoughtful, convincing, and pleasing to read.

Clipper English will involve substantial guided practice in and feedback on your writing. Specifically, you will write in some way for two or three weekly homework assignments, you will have four major writing projects of about 1250 words each, you will revise your writing frequently, and you will develop and test your writing confidence through consistent interaction with classmates and teacher.

This last point requires a bit of elaboration. Writing is communication, a two-way thing. Writer and audience. You need a good audience with whom to practice your writing; likewise, you must be a good audience for the writing of others. Thus, Clipper English is an interactive course. Open and honest and thoughtful interchange is essential. You must value collaboration and actively work to create a sense of community in the class. Unlike the other Clipper courses, in which you can work mainly at your own pace, Clipper English will require that you make timely responses to our online discussion board and meet periodically with the class in chat sessions.

What will you write about? Students in the two previous Clipper English courses confronted the question “How do we remember a war that we won?” through the example of history on trial called the "Enola Gay Controversy." The Enola Gay is the B-29 bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, triggering the end of World War II. In 1995 the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington proposed a controversial exhibit marking the 50th anniversary of the end of the war that coupled a display of the Enola Gay with an examination of the consequences of atomic warfare. We invite you to look at the short introduction to the Lehigh Enola Gay web site for an overview of the fierce controversy that ensued: http://www.lehigh.edu/EnolaGay.

This semester you will confront the parallel question “How do we remember a war that we ‘lost’?” through an examination of the “Vietnam Wall Controversy.” We would not be surprised if you have already visited “the Wall” in Washington with your family or your high school classmates. We would be surprised, though, if you knew the fierce controversy that surrounded and almost halted the construction of what has become perhaps the most sacred ground among all our war memorials. A Lehigh web site similar to the Enola Gay one and soon to go online will provide the basis for the course, but, for now, we invite you to read further about the controversy at: http://www.lehigh.edu/~ejg1/vietnam/index.html.

The "Vietnam Wall Controversy" is ripe for our purposes in this first-year writing course because it hinges on language: the use of language in the design of the memorial and the use of language by the very combatants in the controversy itself. Arguments over how to represent perhaps America’s most controversial war will provide the content of the course – the truths you will tell -- but we will always focus on the conscious choices and strategies the participants employed at each step in the unfolding story as models for your own writing.