About the Book
Organized rhetorically, this reader opens with chapters which discuss the considerations important for active reading and good writing. It covers all modes including argumentation and persuasion and features five types of integrated questions following each reading. These questions focus on vocabulary, the writer's technique and ideas, guided writing assignments and evaluating the piece. The 3-4 page essays present topics that appeal to a broad audience, with the selections serving as models for writing, and reflecting the length of essays frequently required at college. "Summing Up" questions and writing assignments at the end of each chapter contain comparative perspectives and innovative writing projects. This edition contains 25% new essays, with more selections by multicultural writers.
Table of Contents:
On writing - why I write, William Saroyan, mother tongue, Amy Tan, writing, Willaim Stafford, simplicity, William Zinsser; on reading - moon on a silver spoon, Eudora Welty; prison studies, Malcolm X, "See Spot Run" - teaching my grandmother to read, Ellen Tashie Frisnia, survival, Margaret Atwood; description - Arizona 87, William Least-Heat Moon, catfish in the bathtub, Maxine Hong Kingston, the discus thrower, Richard Selzer, a river's route, Gretel Ehrlich, narration - the struggle to be an all-American girl, Elizabeth Wong, salvation, Langston Hughes, the Minnie Mouse kitchen, Michael Dorris, a hanging, George Orwell; illustration - tricks! treats! gangway!, Ray Bradbury, night walker, Brent Staples, a family of firsts, Patricia Volk, death in the open, Lewis Thomas; comparison and contrast - a fable for tomorrow, Rachel Carson, the place where I was born, Alice Walker, the tapestry of friendship, Ellen Goodman; fairy tales and modern stories, Bruno Buttelheim; definition - what's a bagel?, Jack Denton Scott, fun, oh boy, fun. You could die from it, Suzanne Britt Jordan, a word's meaning, Gloria Naylor; complexion, Richard Rodriquez; classification - friends, good friends - and such good friends, Judith Viorst, the three New Yorks, E.B. White; the scheme of colour, Malry Mebane, how do we find the student in a world of academic gymnasts and worker ants?, James T. Baker; process analysis - slice of life, Russell Baker; how to write a personal letter, Garrison Keillor; Coors Beer, Grace Lichtenstein; camping out, Ernest Hemingway; cause-and effect analysis - why marriages fail, Anne Roiphe, the ambivalence of abortion, Linda Bird, a question of manhood, Robert Ragaini, when bright girls decide that math is "A Waste of Time", Susan Jacoby; argumentation and persuasion - I want a wife, Judy Brady, are the homeless crazy?, Jonathan Kozal; Americans work too hard, Juliet B. Schor, America needs its nerds, Leonid Fridman; prose for further reading - an American childhood, Annie Dillard, shaved heads and pop-tarts, Jeannine Stein, if black English isn't a language, then tell me what is?, James Baldwin, women are just better, Anna Quindlen, the ugly tourist, Jamaica Kincaid, daddy tucked the blanket, Randall Williams, he rocked, I reeled, Tama Janowitz, is it really that wacky?, Pico Iyer, "Ever Et Raw Meat?" and other weird questions, Stephen King, schoolwork - the student's job, Barbara Kerbel, to the victor belongs the language, Rita Mae Brown, living with my VCR, Nora Ephron.
