This collection of diverse readings is organized around the various purposes that motivate writers. Including detailed guides to understanding and composing for motives such as analyzing texts, analyzing images, and writing arguments, this text features a wide range of high-interest readings and provides a rhetorically grounded approach to academic writing and research.
Introduction: Writing for Your Life
Chapter 1 Writing to Understand Experience
Marilyn Schiel Levi’s
Scott Russell Sanders Grub
Gloria Naylor The Meaning of a Word
Tabari Njeri Life with Father
Rick Marin Count Me Out of Hard Labor
Sandy Fernandez I Dated Rick Marin (Companion Text)
Annie Dillard Living Like Weasels
Andre Aciman Lavender
Chapter 2 Writing to Report Information
Peter Stark As Freezing Persons Recollect the Snow
Peter Ling Thomas Jefferson and the Environment
Eric Schlosser Why McDonald’s Fries Taste So Good
Elizabeth Kolbert Uncharted Territory
American Federation of Teachers Charter School Results Repeatedly Delayed (Companion Text)
Tim Rogers Tough Break
Katherine Boo The Best Job in Town
Chapter 3 Writing to Explain Information
Wes Pitts Photo Exorcism
Nicholas D. Kristof In Japan, Nice Guys (and Girls) Finish Together
Catherine Dold What Happened to the Anasazi?
Gary Riven Bet on It
Stephen Jay Gould Women’s Brains
Joan Roughgarden Same-Sex Sexuality
Debrah Solomon An Interview with Joan Roughgarden (Companion Text)
Chapter 4 Writing to Evaluate Something
Jonathan Rowe Reach Out to Annoy Someone
Ken Belson Saved, and Enslaved, by the Cell (Companion Text)
YiLing-Chen Sweet and Lowdown
Dara Moskowitz The Sad Comedy of Really Bad Food
Francis Davis God’s Lonely Man
Susanna Kaysen My Diagnosis
American Psychiatric Association Borderline Personality Disorder (Companion Text)
Paul Goldberger High-Tech Bibliophila
Cynthia Ozick She: The Portrait of the Essay as a Warm Body
Chapter 5 Writing to Analyze Images
Jean Kilbourne Falling in Love with Food
Susan Bordo Beauty (Re)discovers the Male body
Steven Heller and Karen Pomerov Next: Understanding a Corporate Logo
Annie Bourneuf The Re-rebranding of Berlin
Barbie Zelizer Conveying Atrocity in Image
Matt Welch The Pentagon's Secret Stash
Sarah Boxer Torture Incarnate, Propped Up on a Pedestal(Companion Text)
Chapter 6 Writing to Analyze Texts
Kate Chopin The Story of an Hour (Core Text)
Angelyn Mitchell Feminine Double Consciousness in Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”
Lawrence I. Berkove Fatal Self-Assertion in Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”
Genesis 9:18-27 (Core Text)
F.W. Bassett Noah’s Nakedness and The Curse of Canaan: A Case of Incest?
Gene Rice The Curse That Never Was
Psalm 87 (Companion Text)
The Bill of Rights (Core Text)
John Paul Stevens Groh v. Ramirez: A Majority Decision
Clarence Thomas Groh v. Ramirez: A Dissenting Opinion
Chapter 7 Writing to Persuade Others
Adolph Reed Majoring in Debt
Sally Jenkins Flunking the NCAA
Stuart Taylor, Jr. Racial Profiling: The Liberals Are Right
Thomas Jefferson The Declaration of Independence
Martin Luther King, Jr. Letter from Birmingham Jail
A Letter from the Clergy (Companion Text)
Aaron Belkin and Melissa S. Ember-Herbert Privacy and the U.S. Military
U.S. Department of Defense Guidelines for Fact-Finding Inquiries into Homosexual Conduct (Companion Text)
Chapter 8 Writing to Inspire Others
Larry Carlat You Are Me
Martin Luther King,Jr. I Have a Dream
Garrison Keillor At the Cafe
Ron Reagan I Know a Child
Nancy Reagan Remarks at a Benefit for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (Companion Text)
George Bush The State of Our Union
George Orwell A Hanging
Alice Walker Am I Blue?
Chapter 9 Writing to Amuse Others
Patricia Volk Technology Makes Me Mad
John R. Alden Breakfast at the FDA Café
David Sadaris The Learning Curve
Cindy Chupach Relationship Reruns
Jill Conner Browne Vacations: His and Hers
Lynette Hanson Jill Conner Browne Tells All (Companion Text)
Jonathan Katzman, Andy Lutz, and Erik Olson Would Hemingway Get Into Harvard?
Chapter 10 Writing to Experiment with Form
John Berger Et in Arcadia Ego
Annie Dillard The Deer at Providencia
George Orwell Marrakech
Geeta Kothari If You Are What You Eat, Then What Am I?
Luc Sante I Was Born
Adam Hochschild The Great Forgetting (Companion Text)
Judy Ruiz Oranges and Sweet Sister Boy
Appendix: Writing from Sources