Writing Exploratory Essays

This reader/text progresses from expressive to expository to argumentative aims and culminates in the exploration of literary texts.

1. INTRODUCTION TO EXPLORATORY WRITING

Readings: E. B. White, The Essayist and the Essay / Joan Didion, Why I Write / Scott Russell Sanders, The Singular First Person / Leslie Marmon Silko, Language and Literature from a Pueblo Indian Perspective / Anne Dillard, Seeing /

2. EXPLORING THE SELF

Readings: Kesaya E. Noda, Growing Up Asian in America / Zora Neale Hurston, How It Feels to Be Colored Me / Nora Ephron, A Few Words about Breasts / Nancy Mairs, On Being a Cripple / Gerald Early, Introduction to Tuxedo Junction /

3. EXPLORING EVENTS

Readings: Tobias Wolff, On Being a Real Westerner / George Orwell, A Hanging / Henry David Thoreau, War of the Ants / Barry Lopez, A Stone Horse / E. B. White, Once More to the Lake / Alice Walker, Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self /

4. EXPLORING OTHER PEOPLE

Readings: Maya Angelou, Uncle Willie / Jean Ervin, Afterthoughts / Raymond Carver, My Father’s Life / Jay McInerney, Raymond Carver, Mentor / James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son /

5. EXPLORING RELATIONSHIPS

Readings: Maxine Hong Kingston, Photographs of My Parents / Gary Soto, Like Mexicans / Alan Lightman, Students and Teachers / N. Scott Momaday, My Horse and I / Nancy Mairs, On Being Raised by a Daughter / Gloria Steinem, Unlearning Romance /

6. EXPLORING CONCEPTS

Readings: Gloria Naylor, Mommy, What Does “Nigger” Mean? / Rose Del Castillo Guilbault, Americanization Is Tough on “Macho” / Mark Twain, On the Decay of the Art of Lying / Lewis Thomas, On Natural Death / Ambrose Bierce, Selections from the Devil’s Dictionary / Bruno Betteleim, The Ignored Lesson of Anne Frank /

7. EXPLORING BELIEFS

Readings: Mark Twain, Was the World Made for Man? / Virginia Woolf, The Death of the Moth / Molly Ivins, The Perils and Pitfalls of Reporting in the Lone Star State / Annie Dillard, Living Like Weasels / Henry David Thoreau, Where I Lived, and What I Lived For / Francis Bacon, The Four Idols /

8. EXPLORING CONTROVERSIES

Readings: Alice Walker, Am I Blue? / Edward I. Koch, Death and Justice / Woody Allen, Random Reflections of a Second-Rate Mind / Joyce Carol Oates, Against Nature / Joy Williams, Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp /

9. EXPLORING TEXTS

Readings: Kate Chopin, Desiree’s Baby / Nathaniel Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown / Janette Turner Hospital, The Dark Wood / Jack London, To Build a Fire / Luisa Valenzuela, The Censors / Susan Glaspell, Trifles / Lorna Dee Cervantes, Poem for Young White Man / Stephen Crane, Five Short Poems / Joy Harjo, The Woman Hanging from the 13th Floor Window / Garrett Hongo, Off from Swing Shift / Tato Laviera, Latero Story / Stevie Smith, The Weak Monk / Cathy Song, The Youngest Daughter / Sue Standing, Hopper’s Women / Tina Villaneuva, Scene from the Movie Giant /

10. REVISING CONTENT

11. REVISING STYLE / FURTHER READINGS

Woody Allen, My Speech to the Graduates / Dave Barry, Daze of Wine and Roses / William Blake, Proverbs of Hell / Anne Bradstreet, To My Dear Children / Sucheng Chan, You’re Short, Besides! / Frederick Douglass, from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Written by Himself / Charles Alexander Eastman, The Ghost Dance War / Edith Maud Eaton (Suisin Far), Leaves from the Mental Portfolio of a Eurasian / Barbara Ehrenreich, The Wretched of the Hearth / Benjamin Franklin, from Poor Richard’s Almanack / Abby Frucht, The Objects of My Invention / Bell Hooks, Madonna: Plantation Mistress or Soul Sister / Harriet Jacobs, from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl / Toni Morrison, The Site of Memory / Bharati Mukherjee, Love Me or Leave Me / P. J. O’Rourke, At Home in the Parliament of Whores / George Orwell, Shooting an Elephant / Rafael Suarez, Jr., Being a Jr. / Mark Twain, Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses / Grace Ming Yee Wai, Chinese Puzzle

In each chapter on exploratory writing:

Suggestions for Writing

Notes about the Authors

Glossary

Index