About the Book
This rhetorical reader is designed to help individuals improve their abilities to think, read, and write on progressively more sophisticated levels. It features a collection of 56 provocative, interesting, rhetorically organized essays accompanied by clear, well-developed rhetorical introductions, sample essays, and carefully sequenced prereading and prewriting questions, comprehension questions, and writing projects. KEY TOPICS: Contains essays representing the four main purposes of writing — description, narration, exposition, persuasion. Organizes essays to reflect progressively more sophisticated levels of thinking, reading, and writing. The essays cover a broad range of contemporary topics and portray the universality of human experience as expressed through the viewpoints of men and women, many different ethnic and racial groups, and a variety of ages and social classes. Presents biographical information about the authors — explaining the real experiences from which the essay emerged poses provocative prereading questions that help readers focus on the purpose, audience, and subject of the essay. Provides complete sample essays illustrating each rhetorical pattern, accompanied by the writer's own thorough analysis of the writing experience — explaining the most enjoyable, exasperating, or noteworthy aspects of writing that particular essay. MARKET: For anyone interested in refining their basic composition skills.
Table of Contents:
Rhetorical Table of Contents.
Introduction: Thinking, Reading, and Writing.
1. Description: Exploring Through the Senses.
Summer Rituals, Ray Bradbury. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan. The Pines, John McPhee. Notes from the Country Club, Kimberly Wozencraft. The View from 80, Malcolm Cowley.
2. Narration: Telling a Story.
For My Indian Daughter, Lewis Sawaquat. The Concert, Gary Soto. New Directions, Maya Angelou. The Saturday Evening Post, Russell Baker. How the Crab Apple Grew, Garrison Keillor.
3. Example: Illustrating Idea.
The Baffling Question, Bill Cosby. Hating the Sick: Health Chauvinism and Its Cure, Fred Pelka. Darkness at Noon, Harold Krents. The Mind of the Chimpanzee, Jane Goodall. Sexism in English: A 1990s Update, Alleen Pace Nilsen.
4. Process Analysis: Explaining Step by Step.
Write Your Own Success Story, Carol Carter. Managing Your Time, Edwin Bliss. Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain, Jessica Mitford. How to Say Nothing in Five Hundred Words, Paul Roberts. Accidents, Suicides and Euthanasia, Sherwin Nuland.
5. Division/Classification: Finding Categories.
Thinking as a Hobby, William Golding. Why I Want a Wife, Judy Brady. Second Chances for Children of Divorce,Judith Wallerstein and Sandra Blakeslee. Confessions of an Ex-Smoker, Franklin Zimring. The Truth About Lying, Judith Viorst.
6. Comparison/Contrast: Discovering Similarities.
Grant and Lee: A Study in Contrasts, Bruce Catton. A Child Is Born, Germaine Greer. Japanese and American Workers: Two Casts of Mind, William Ouchi. The Politics of Muscle, Gloria Steinem. Living Like Weasels, Annie Dillard.
7. Definition: Limiting the Frame of Reference.
When Is It Rape?, Nancy Gibbs. The Barrio, Robert Ramirez. Beliefs About Families, Mary Pipher. Writing as a Moral Act, Rita Mae Brown. A Working Community, Ellen Goodman.
8. Cause/Effect: Tracing Reasons and Results.
Why We Crave Horror Movies, Stephen King. The Broken Cord, Michael Dorris. The Fear of Losing a Culture, Richard Rodriguez. We Writhe; Therefore, We Are, George Felton. Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self, Alice Walker.
9. Argument and Persuasion: Inciting People to Thought or Action.
The Death of Reading, Mitchell Stephens. Affirmative Action: The Price of Preference, Shelby Steele. Take a Ticket, Peter Salins. Opposing Viewpoints: TV Violence: Honey, I Warped the Kids, Carl Cannon. Why Blame TV?, John Leonard. Opposing Viewpoints: Freedom of the Press: Freedom of the Press Must be Unlimited, Mario Cuomo. Freedom of the Press Must Be Limited, John Merrill.
10. Documented Essays: Reading and Writing from Sources.
The Ecstasy of War, Barbara Ehrenreich. Appearance and Delinquency: A Research Note, Jill Leslie Rosenbaum and Meda Chesney-Lind.
11. Essays on Thinking, Reading, and Writing.
Listening, Eudora Welty. To Read Fiction, Donald Hall. The Rules of Writing, Natalie Goldberg. How to Write with Style, Kurt Vonnegut. Writing with a Word Processor, William Zinsser.
Glossary of Useful Terms.
Credits.
Index of Authors and Titles.
