Arguing About Literature: A Guide and Reader / Edition 2

by John Schilb, John Clifford

Overview

Arguing about Literature hones your analytical and argumentative writing skills by combining two books in one: a guide to reading literature and writing arguments, and a thematic anthology of literature and essays.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781319035327
Publisher:	Bedford/St. Martin's
Publication date:	12/09/2016
Edition description:	Second Edition
Pages:	1248
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

John Schilb (PhD, State University of New York—Binghamton) is a professor of English at Indiana University, Bloomington, where he holds the Culbertson Chair in Writing. He has coedited Contending with Words: Composition and Rhetoric in a Postmodern Age, and with John Clifford, Writing Theory and Critical Theory. He is author of Between the Lines: Relating Composition Theory and Literary Theory and Rhetorical Refusals: Defying Audiences’ Expectations.
 
John Clifford (PhD, New York University) is a professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. Editor of The Experience of Reading: Louis Rosenblatt and Reader-Response Theory, he has published numerous scholarly articles on pedagogy, critical theory, and composition theory, most recently in College English; Relations, Locations, Positions: Composition Theory for Writing Teachers; and in The Norton Book of Composition Studies.

Table of Contents

A Brief Guide to Arguing about Literature
Preface for Instructors 
Contents by Genre

1. What is Argument? 
     Paul Goldberger, Disconnected Urbanism
New    Understanding Rhetoric
The Elements of Argument
Sample Argument for Analysis
     David W. Barno, A New Moral Compact
     Writing a Response to an Argument
New  Strategies for Analyzing an Argument So You Can Write a Response to It
 An Argument for Analysis
New  Regina Rini, Should We Rename Institutions that Honor Dead Racists?


New 2.  Writing Effective Arguments
Strategies for Developing an Effective Style of Argument
Structuring Your Argument; Beyond the Five-Paragraph Essay
Student Response to an Argument
     Justin Korzack, How to Slow Down the Rush to War
Arguments for Analysis
New Lee Siegel, Why I Defaulted on My Student Loans
New Sophia McDougall, All Princesses Know Kung Fu


3. How Do You Argue about Literature?
What Is Literature?
Why Study Literature in a College Writing Course?
Two Stories for Analysis
     Daniel Orozco, Orientation (story)
      Jamaica Kincaid, Girl (story)
Strategies for Making Arguments about Literature
Sample Student Argument about Literature
      Ann Schumwalt, The Mother’s Mixed Messages in “Girl”
Looking at Literature as Argument
    John Milton, When I Consider How My Light Is Spent (poem)
      Robert Frost, Mending Wall (poem)
 Literature and Current Issues
New   Rivka Galchen, Usl at the Stadium (story)
New   Jon Ronson, from “How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life (argument)
New  Jennifer Jacquet, from Is Shame Necessary? (argument)
 
4..  The Reading Process
Strategies for Close Reading
A Poem for Analysis
     Sharon Olds, “Summer Solstice, New York City” (poem)
Applying the Strategies
Reading Closely by Annotating
     X. J. Kennedy, Death of a Window Washer (poem)
New Further Strategies for Close Reading
New   Identify Characters’ Emotions to Get Ideas
New    Edward Hirsch, Execution (poem)
    Use Topics of Literary Studies to Get Ideas
     Lynda Hull, Night Waitress (poem)
     T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (poem)
New   Allison Alsup, Old Houses (story)

5.   The Writing Process
    William Wordsworth, The Solitary Reaper (poem)
Strategies for Exploring
Strategies for Planning
Strategies for Composing
First Draft of a Student Paper
     Abby Hazelton, The Passage of Time in “The Solitary Reaper”
Strategies for Revising
     A Checklist for Revising
Revised Draft of a Student Paper
     Abby Hazelton, The Passage of Time in “The Solitary Reaper”
Strategies for Writing a Comparative Paper
      Don Paterson, Two Trees (poem)
    Luisa A. Igloria, Regarding History (poem) 
     List Similarities and Differences
    Consider “Weighting” Your Comparison
A Student Comparative Paper
     Jeremy Cooper,” Don Paterson’s Criticism of Nature’s Owners”

6.  Writing about Literary Genres
Writing about Stories
     Eudora Welty, A Visit of Charity
The Elements of Short Fiction 
     Plot and Structure/Point of View / Characters /Setting /Imagery/Language/Theme
Final Draft of a Student Paper
     Tanya Vincent, The Real Meaning of Charity in “A Visit of Charity”
Writing about Poems 
     Mary Oliver, Singapore
     Yusef Komunyakaa, Blackberries
    Edwin Arlington Robinson, The Mill
The Elements of Poetry
     Speaker and Tone / Diction and Syntax / Figures of Speech / Sound/ Rhythm and Meter /Theme
Final Draft of a Student Paper
     Michaela Fiorucci, “Negotiating Boundaries”
Comparing Poems and Pictures
     Analyzing Visual Art/ Writing an Essay that Compares Literature and Art/ A Sample Paper Comparing a Poem and a Picture
      Karl Magnusson, Lack of Motion and Speech in Rolando Perez’s “Office at Night”
    Edward Hopper, “Office at Night”
      Rolando Perez, “Office at Night
Writing about Plays
     August Strindberg, The Stronger
The Elements of Drama 
     Plot and Structure/ Characters/ Stage Directions and Setting /Imagery /Language/ Theme
Final Draft of a Student Paper
      Trish Carlisle, “Which Is the Stronger Actress in August Strindberg’s Play?”
 
7.    Writing Researched Arguments
New  Begin Your Research by Giving It Direction
Search for Sources in the Library and Online
Evaluate the Sources 
New   Record Your Sources’ Key Details
Strategies for Integrating Sources
New Avoid Plagiarism
Strategies for Documenting Sources (MLA Format) 
     MLA In-Text Citation 
     MLA Works Cited 
Three Annotated Student Researched Arguments
An Argument that Uses a Literary Work to Examine Social Issues
     Sarah Michaels, “The Yellow Wallpaper” as a Guide to Social Factors in Postpartum Depression
An Argument that Deals with Existing Interpretations of a Literary Work
     Katie Johnson, The Meaning of the Husband’s Fainting in “The Yellow Wall-Paper”
An Argument that Places a Literary Work in Historical and Cultural Context
     Brittany Thomas, The Relative Absence of the Human Touch in “The Yellow Wall-Paper”
 Contexts for Research:  Confinement,  Mental Illness and “The Yellow Wallpaper”
 Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper
 Cultural Contexts
    Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Why I Wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper”
     S. Weir Mitchell, From The Evolution of the Rest Treatment
    John Harvey Kellogg, From The Ladies’ Guide in Health and Disease

8. Writing with Critical Approaches to Literature 
 Contemporary Schools of Criticism
    New Criticism; Feminist Criticism; Psychoanalytic Criticism; Marxist Criticism; Deconstruction; Reader-Response Criticism; Postcolonial Criticism; New Historicism; Queer Theory

Working with the Critical Approaches
    James Joyce, Counterparts (story)
    Molly Fry, A Refugee at Home (student paper)
New  James Joyce, Eveline
 
PART TWO: Literature and Arguments

9. Families
Mothers and Daughters: Stories 
    Tillie Olsen, I Stand Here Ironing 
    Amy Tan, Two Kinds
    Alice Walker, Everyday Use 

Siblings in Conflict: Stories 
   Tobias Wolff, The Rich Brother
    James Baldwin, Sonny’s Blues

Returning Home from War:  Stories
New Ernest Hemingway, Soldier’s Home
New  Lauren Groff, Good People

Reconciling with Fathers:  Poems
    Lucille Clifton, forgiving my father
    Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays
     Theodore Roethke, My Papa's Waltz 
    Li-Young Lee, My Father, in Heaven, Is Reading Out Loud

Grandparents and Legacies: Poems 
   Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, Grandfather at the Indian Health Clinic
   Nikki Giovanni, Legacies 
   Linda Hogan, Heritage
   Alberto Ríos, Mi Abuelo 
   Judith Ortiz Cofer, Claims

Gays and Lesbians in Families: Poems
   Essex Hemphill, Commitments
     Audre Lorde, Who Said It Was Simple 
    Minnie Bruce Pratt, Two Small-Sized Girls 
New Richard Blanco, Queer Theory: According to My Grandmother

Literature and Current Issues: Should Working Women “Lean in”?
New  Deborah Garrison, Working Late on a Tuesday Night (poem)
Arguments on the Issue
New Sheryl Sandberg, from Lean In
New   Rosa Brooks, Recline, Don’t Lean In: Why I Hate Sheryl Sandberg

Literature and Current Issues:  Why Do Children Rebel Against Parental Expectations?
New  Hanif Kureishi, My Son the Fanatic (story)
 Arguments on the Issue
New   Roger Cohen, Why ISIS Trumps Freedom
New    Abdelkader Benali, From Teenage Angst to Jihad

 Arguments about a Poem: “Daddy”
    Sylvia Plath, Daddy
    Arguments about the Poem
      Mary Lynn Broe, From Protean Poetic: The Poetry of Sylvia Plath
       Lynda K. Bundtzen, From Plath's Incarnations
      Steven Gould Axelrod, From Sylvia Plath: The Wound and the Cure of Words
      Tim Kendall, from Sylvia Plath:  A Critical Study

Contexts for Research: Human Obligations, Robot Consciousness, and “The Long Years”
New Ray Bradbury, The Long Years (story)
Contexts for Research
New    Eric Schwitzgebel, We Have a Greater Moral Obligation to Robots than to Humans
New    Kenneth Chang, Can Robots become Conscious?
New     Dan Falk, How Long Before Robots Can Think Like Us?
New     A. M. Turing, From “Computing Machinery and Intelligence

 
10.  Love
Romantic Dreams:  Stories
   James Joyce, Araby 
    John Updike, A & P
New  Leslie Marmon Silko, Yellow Woman  

Is This Love?  Stories 
  William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily
   Raymond Carver, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

True Love: Poems
   William Shakespeare, Let me not to the marriage of true minds
   John Keats, Bright Star
New Elizabeth Barrett Browning, How Do I Love Thee?
   e. e. cummings, somewhere i have never travelled

Passionate Love: Poems
   Michael S. Harper, Discovery 
   Susan Minot, My Husband’s Back

Melancholy Loves: Poems
New  Edna St. Vincent Millay, What My Lips Have Kissed, and Where, and Why 
   W.H. Auden, Funeral Blues
New  Pablo Neruda, The Song of Despair
New Robin Becker, Morning Poem

Seductive Arguments: Poems
New  John Donne, The Flea
    Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress

Literature and Current Issues: Are Millennials Narcissists?
New  Tony Hoagland, What Narcissism Means to Me
 Arguments on the Issue
New  Brooke Lea Foster, The Persistent Myth of the Narcissistic Millennial
New  Emily Esfahani Smith and Jennifer Aaker, Millennial Searchers
New   Dr. Keith Ablow, We Are Raising a Generation of Deluded Narcissists
New  Colson Whitehead, How ‘You do You’ Perfectly Captures Our Narcissistic Culture
 
Literature and Current Issues:  Why Marry? 
   Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour  (story)
   Arguments on the Issue
    Laura Kipnis, Against Love
    Meghan O’Rourke, The Marriage Trap 
New  Bob Morris, Gay Marriage?  How Straight

Arguments about a Play: Othello
 William Shakespeare, Othello 
 Arguments about the Play:
    A.C. Bradley, The Noble Othello
    Millicent Bell, Othello’s Jealousy 
   Jeffrie G. Murphy, Jealousy, Shame, and Rival
Contexts for Research:  Social Disruption, Personal Anxiety, and “Dover Beach”
   Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach
Contexts for Research: 
New  Charles Dickens, from Hard Times
New  Friedrich Engels, from The Condition of the Working Class in England
New  James Eli Adams, Narrating Nature: Darwin

11.  Freedom and Confinement
Oppressive Traditions:  Stories
   Shirley Jackson, The Lottery 
New Caitlin Horrocks, The Sleep

Freedom for Animals: Poems
  William Blake, The Tyger
   D. H. Lawrence, Snake
   Elizabeth Bishop, The Fish
   Dean Young, Clam Ode

Trapped in Stereotypes: Poems
    Chrystos, Today Was a Bad Day Like TB
    Louise Erdrich, Dear John Wayne
    Dwight Okita, In Response to Executive Order 9066
    David Hernandez, Pigeons
   Pat Mora, Legal Alien
    Toi Derricotte, Black Boys Play the Classics
   Naomi Shihab Nye, Blood
 
A Creative Confinement:  Poems by Emily Dickinson
    Emily Dickinson, Wild Nights—Wild Nights!
New  Emily Dickinson, Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—
New  Emily Dickinson, Much Madness is divinest Sense
New  Emily Dickinson,  I’m Nobody! Who are you?

Domestic Prisons: Plays
   Susan Glaspell, Trifles 
  Lynn Nottage, POOF!

Literature and Current Issues:  Does Our Happiness Depend on Others’ Misery?
    Ursula LeGuin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
   Arguments on the Issue
New   David Brooks, The Child in the Basement
New    John R. Ehrenfeld, The Error of Trying to Measure Good and Bad

Literature and Current Issues: What Aren’t You Free to Say? 
New  Ariel Dorfman, The Gospel According to Garcia (story)
    Arguments on the Issue
New  Catherine Rampell, “Free Speech is Flunking Out on College Campuses”
New  Geoffrey R. Stone and Will Creeley, “Restoring Free Speech on Campus”
New  Nicholas Kristof, “Mizzou, Yale and Free Speech”

Contexts for Research: Domesticity, Women’s Rights, and A Doll’s House
   Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House
   Contexts for Research
New   Henrik Ibsen, Memorandum
New   August Strindberg, Woman in A Doll’s House
New   Emma Goldman, Review of A Doll’s House
New  Joan Templeton,  The Doll House Backlash:  Criticism, Feminism, and Ibsen
New   Susanna Rustin, Why A Doll’s House  Is More Relevant than Ever

12.  Crime and Justice
Discovering Injustice: Stories
   Nathaniel Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown
   Toni Cade Bambara, The Lesson
New  Ha Jin, Saboteur

Racial Injustice:  Poems
    Countee Cullen, Incident
    Natasha Trethewey, Incident

Justice for Workers: Poems
New   Philip Levine, What Work Is
New   Marge Piercy, The Secretary Chant 
New  Philip Shultz, Greed

Punishments: Poems
    Seamus Heaney, Punishment
    Carolyn Forché, The Colonel
 
He Said/She Said:  Poems
    Robert Browning, My Last Duchess
   Gabriel Spera, My Ex-Husband

A Dream of Justice:  Poems by Langston Hughes
   Langston Hughes, Open Letter to the South
   Langston Hughes, Theme for English B
    Langston Hughes, Harlem

How Can Injustice Be Resisted? Plays
   Sophocles, Antigone
   Ida Fink, The Table


Literature and Current Issues:  Should Neuroscience Redefine Criminal Law? 
New   Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart (story)
   Arguments on the Issue
      David Eagleman, The Brain on Trial (argument)
       Raymond Tallis, Why Blame Me?  It Was All My Brain’s Fault (argument)

Literature and Contemporary Debates:  How Just Is Capital Punishment?
      Sherman Alexie, Capital Punishment (poem)
      Arguments on the Issue
New    George Will, "Capital Punishment's Slow Death"
New    Bill Otis,  George Will's Limp Case Against the Death Penalty
New   Charles J. Ogletree, “Condemned to Die Because He’s Black”

Arguments about a Story:  “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”

  Flannery O’Connor, A Good Man Is Hard to Find
   Arguments about the Story
       Flannery O’Connor, from Mystery and Manners 
     Martha Stephens, from The Question of Flannery O’Connor
      Stephen Bandy, from “’One of My Babies’: The Misfit and the Grandmother
       John Desmond, from “Flannery O’Connor’s Misfit and the Mystery of Evil”

Contexts for Research:  Innocence, Evil, and “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”
    Joyce Carol Oates, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been 
   Contexts for Research
New    Don Moser, The Pied Piper of Tucson
New   Joyce Carol Oates, Smooth Talk: Short Story into Film
New    Margaret Talbot, from Gone Girl: The Extraordinary Resilience of Elizabeth Smart

13. Journeys
Fairy Tale Journeys:  Stories
   Charles Perrault, Little Red Riding Hood
   Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm, Little Red Cap 
   Angela Carter, The Company of Wolves

Wartime Journeys: Stories
   Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried
New  Ambrose Bierce, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

Roads Taken:  Poems by Robert Frost
   Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
   Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
   Robert Frost, Acquainted with the Night

Visionary Journeys: Poems
New  Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan
New  Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias
New  William Butler Yeats, Sailing to Byzantium

Final Journeys: Poems
   Mary Oliver, When Death Comes
   John Donne, Death Be Not Proud 
  Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night 
  Emily Dickinson, Because I could not stop for Death 

Literature and Current Issues:  Do Immigrants Take Jobs from Native-Born Workers?
New   Jimmy Santiago Baca, So Mexicans Are Taking Jobs from Americans (poem)
    Arguments on the Issue
New    Steven Camarota, Unskilled Workers Lose Out to Immigrants
New   Maria E. Enchautegui, Immigrants Are Replacing, Not Displacing, Workers
New   Ted Widmer, The Immigration Dividend

Literature and Current Issues:  What Makes a Woman? 
New  Adrienne Rich, Diving Into the Wreck
    Arguments on the Issue
New  Elinor Burkett, What Makes a Woman?
New  Jaclyn Friedman Who Decides What Makes a Woman?
New   Leela Ginelle, Trans Women are Women. Why Do We have to Keep Saying This?

Contexts for Research: Race, Social Equality, and “Battle Royal”
Ralph Ellison, “Battle Royal”
 Contexts for Research:
    Booker T. Washington, Atlanta Exposition Address
    W.E. B. DuBois, Of Mr. Booker T. Washington
   Gunnar Myrdal, Social Equality

Index of Authors, Titles, Terms, and First Lines