The Short Prose Reader

This rhetorically organized, student-friendly reader includes short essays on a range of topics. Each selection is supported by exceptionally thorough and thoughtfully designed editorial apparatus that integrates reading, writing, and critical thinking. The quality, variety, and number of reading, writing, and thinking prompts provide students with ample support for reading and writing, and can be adapted to a number of teaching approaches.

Table of Contents:
* indicates a selection new to this editionChapter 1: On Writing*Russell Baker: On Becoming a WriterKurt Vonnegut, Jr.: How to Write with StyleAmy Tan: Mother TongueWilliam Zinsser: SimplicityChapter 2: On ReadingEudora Welty: One Writer's Beginnings*Judith Ortiz Cofer: VolarMalcolm X: Prison StudiesEllen Tashie Frisina: "See Spot Run": Teaching My Grandmother to ReadChapter 3: Description*Annie Dillard: In the JungleMaxine Hong Kingston: Catfish in the BathtubRichard Selzer: The Discus Thrower Virginia Woolf: The Death of the MothChapter 4: NarrationElizabeth Wong: The Struggle to Be an All-American GirlLangston Hughes: SalvationGeorge Orwell: A HangingGrace Paley: TravellingChapter 5: IllustrationBrent Staples: Night WalkerBarbara Ehrenreich: What I've Learned from Men*Amarty Sen: A World Not Neatly DividedLewis Thomas: Death in the OpenChapter 6: Comparison and ContrastRachel Carson: A Fable for Tomorrow*Katha Pollitt: Why Boys Don't Play with DollsEllen Goodman: The Tapestry of FriendshipsMichele Ingrassia: The Body of the BeholderChapter 7: DefinitionJanice Castro with Dan Cook and Christina Garcia: SpanglishSuzanne Britt Jordan: Fun, Oh Boy, Fun. You Could Die from ItGloria Naylor: A Word's Meaning*David Brooks: The Organization KidChapter 8: Classification Judith Viorst: Friends, Good Friends - and Such Good FriendsE.B. White: The Three New YorksJames T. Baker: How Do We Find the Student in a World of Academic Gymnasts and Worker Ants?*Amy Rashap: The American Dream for Sale Chapter 9: Process AnalysisJerrold G. Simon: How to Write a Resume*John Lantos: Life and Death in the Neonatal Intensive CareErnest Hemingway: Camping OutHenry Louis Gates, Jr.: In the Kitchen Chapter 10: Cause-and-Effect AnalysisStephen King: Why We Crave Horror MoviesAnne Roiphe: Why Marriages Fail*Harry Crews: Why I Live Where I LiveSusan Jacoby: When Bright Girls Decide That Math Is "a Waste of Time"Chapter 11: Argumentation and PersuasionReparations for Slavery: Pro and Con*Manning Marable: An Idea Whose Time Has Come*Shelby Steele: A Childish Illusion of JusticeThe Death Penalty: Pro and Con*Bob Herbert: Death-Penalty Dissenters*James Q. Wilson: What Death-Penalty Errors?Issues of IdentityJudy Brady: I Want a WifeJonathan Kozol: Are the Homeless Crazy?*Robert L. Spitzer: Psychiatry and Homosexuality*Ronald Takaki: The Harmful Myth of Asian SuperiorityAnna Quindlen: Women Are Just BetterIssues of Political RightsMolly Ivins: Get a Knife, Get a Dog, but Get Rid of Guns*Julie Bosman: The (No) Free Speech MovementMartin Luther King, Jr.: I Have a Dream

About the Author :
Gilbert H. Muller, who received a Ph.D. in English and American Literature from Stanford University, is currently professor of English and Special Assistant to the President at the LaGuardia campus of the City University of New York. He has also taught at Stanford University, Vassar College, and several universities overseas. Dr. Muller is the author of the award-winning Nightmares and Visions: Flannery O'Connor and the Catholic Grotesque, Chester Himes , and other critical studies. His essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The New Republic, The Nation, The Sewanee Review, The Georgia Review, and elsewhere. He is also a noted author and editor of textbooks in English and composition, including The Short Prose Reader with Harvey Wiener, and with John A Williams, The McGraw-Hill Introduction to Literature, Bridges: Literature across Cultures, and Ways In: Reading and Writing about Literature. Among Dr. Muller's awards are National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships, a Fulbright Fellowship, and a Mellon Fellowship. Harvey S. Wiener is currently affiliated with Marymount Manhattan College after serving as Vice Provost for Academic Affairs at Adelphi University. Previously University Dean for Academic Affairs, the City University of New York, he was founding president of the Council of Writing Program Administrators. Dr. Wiener is the author of many books on reading and writing for college students and their teachers, including The Writing Room (Oxford, 1981). He is co-author of The McGraw-Hill College Handbook, a reference grammar and rhetoric text. Dr. Wiener has chaired the Teaching of Writing Division of the Modern Language Association (1987). He has taught writing at every level of education from elementary school to graduate school. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Brooklyn College, he holds a Ph.D. in Renaissance literature. Dr. Wiener has won grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, and the Exxon Education Foundation.