Prose Reader: Essays for Thinking, Reading, and Writing / Edition 11|Paperback

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780134071558
Publisher:	Pearson
Publication date:	01/19/2016
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	624
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Kim Flachmann teaches at the California State University, Bakersfield, where she also administers the Composition Program—from remedial English through the Graduate Teaching Assistants. She was chosen Outstanding Professor at CSUB in 1998-99. She also was Rhetorician of the Year for the Young Rhetoricians’ Conference in 2007 and was the recipient of the California Association of Teachers of English Excellence in Teaching Award in 2009. She has published numerous articles on rhetoric and American literature and has written seven textbooks—among them a college reader ( The Prose Reader (Pearson) in its eleventh edition), a series of three books for developmental English called Mosaics: Reading and Writing Sentences , Mosaics: Reading and Writing Paragraphs , and Mosaics: Reading and Writing Essays ,

(Pearson), and Nexus: A Rhetorical Reader for Writers (Pearson), which combines traditional rhetorical modes with students’ interest in

technology.

Kim has dedicated her career to helping students achieve their goals in life through communication. Her mission has always been to teach others how to write well, which she believes is one of the most important gifts we can give our students. She believes that reading and writing are the gateways to each student’s full potential and success in life.

Read an Excerpt

The Prose Reader is based on the assumption that lucid writing follows lucid thinking, whereas poor written work is almost inevitably the product of foggy, irrational thought processes. As a result, our primary purpose in this book, as in the first five editions, is to help students think more clearly and logically—both in their minds and on paper.

Furthermore, we believe that college students should be able to think, read, and write on three increasingly difficult levels:

Literal—characterized by a basic understanding of words and their meanings;
Interpretive—consisting of a knowledge of linear connections between ideas and an ability to make valid inferences based on those ideas; and
Critical—the highest level, distinguished by the systematic investigation of complex ideas and by the analysis of their relationship to the world around us.

To demonstrate the vital interrelationship between reader and writer, our text provides your students with prose models intended to inspire their own thinking and writing. Although studying rhetorical strategies is certainly not the only way to approach writing, it is a productive means of helping students become better writers. These essays are intended to encourage your students to improve their writing through a partnership with some of the best examples of professional prose available today. Just as musicians and athletes richly benefit from studying the techniques of the foremost people in their fields, your students will grow in spirit and language use from their collaborative work with the excellent writers in thiscollection.

HOW THE TEXT WORKS

Each chapter of The Prose Reader begins with an explanation of a single rhetorical technique. These explanations are divided into six sections that progress from the effect of this technique on our daily lives to its integral role in the writing process. Also in each introduction, we include a student paragraph and a student essay featuring each particular rhetorical strategy under discussion. The essay is highlighted by annotations and underlining to illustrate how to write that type of essay and to help bridge the gap between student writing and the professional selections that follow. After each essay, the student writer has drafted a personal note with some useful advice for other student writers.

The essays that follow each chapter introduction are selected from a wide variety of well-known contemporary authors. Needless to say, "pure" rhetorical types rarely exist, of course, and when they do, the result often seems artificial. Therefore, although each essay in this collection focuses on a single rhetorical mode as its primary strategy, other strategies are always simultaneously at work. These selections concentrate on one primary technique at a time in much the same way a well-arranged photograph highlights a certain visual detail, though many other elements function in the background to make the picture an organic whole.

Before each reading selection, we offer some material to focus your students' attention on a particular writer and topic before they begin reading the essay. This "prereading" segment begins with biographical information about the author and ends with a number of questions to whet the reader's appetite for the essay that follows. This section is intended to help your students discover interesting relationships among ideas in their reading and then anticipate various ways of thinking about and analyzing the essay. The prereading questions forecast not only the content of the essay, but also the questions and writing assignments that follow.

The questions after each reading selection are designed as guides for thinking about the essay. These questions are at the heart of the relationship represented in this book among thinking, reading, and writing. They are divided into four interrelated sections that move your students smoothly from a literal understanding of what they have just read, to interpretation, and finally to analysis.

After your students have studied the different techniques at work in a reading selection, a specific essay assignment lets them practice all these skills in unison and encourages them to discover even more secrets about the intricate and exciting details of effective communication. Three "Ideas for Discussion/Writing" topics are preceded by "prewriting" questions to help your students generate new ideas. Most of these topics specify a purpose and an audience so that your students can focus their writing as precisely as possible. The word essay (which comes from the Old French essai, meaning a "try" or an "attempt") is an appropriate label for these writing assignments, because they all ask your students to wrestle with an idea or problem and then attempt to give shape to their conclusions in some effective manner. Such "exercises" can be equated with the development of athletic ability: The essay itself demonstrates that your students can put together all the various skills they have learned; it proves they can actually play the "sport" of writing.

WHAT REMAINS THE SAME?

The Prose Reader is still organized according to the belief that our mental abilities are logically sequential.

In other words, students cannot read or write analytically before they are able to perform well on the literal and interpretive levels. Accordingly, the book progresses from selections that require predominantly literal skills (Description, Narration, and Example) through readings involving more interpretation (Process Analysis, Division/Classication, Comparison/Contrast, and Definition) to essays that demand a high degree of analytical thought (Cause/Effect and Argument/Persuasion). Depending on your curriculum and the caliber of your students, these rhetorical modes can, of course, be studied in any order.

The Prose Reader provides two Tables of Contents.

First, the book contains a Rhetorical Table of Contents, which includes a one- or two-sentence synopsis of the selection so you can peruse the list quickly and decide which essays to assign. An alternate Thematic Table of Contents lists selections by academic discipline.

The chapter introductions are filled with several types of useful information about each rhetorical mode.

Each of the nine rhetorical divisions in the text is introduced by an explanation of how to think, read, and write in that particular mode. Although each chapter focuses on one rhetorical strategy, students are continually encouraged to examine ways in which other modes help support each essay's main intentions.

Two separate student writing samples are featured in each chapter introduction.

The chapter introductions contain a sample student paragraph and a complete student essay that illustrate each rhetorical pattern. After each essay, the student writer has provided a thorough analysis, explaining the most enjoyable, exasperating, or noteworthy aspects of writing that particular essay. We have found that this combination of student essays and commentaries makes the professional selections easier for students to read and more accessible as models of thinking and writing.

This edition includes user-friendly checklists at the end of each chapter introduction.

These checklists summarize the information in the chapter introduction and serve as references for the students in their own writing tasks. Students should be directed to these fists as early in the course as possible.

We precede each reading selection with thorough biographical information on the author and provocative prereading questions on the subject of the essay.

Because our own experience suggests that students often produce their best writing when they are personally involved in the topics of the essays they read and in the human drama surrounding the creation of those essays, the biographies explain the real experiences from which each essay emerged, and the prereading questions ("Preparing to Read") help students focus on the purpose, audience, and subject of the essay. The prereading material also foreshadows the questions and writing assignments that follow each selection. Personalizing this preliminary material encourages students to identify with both the author of an essay and its subject matter, thereby engaging the students' attention and energizing their responses to the selections they read.

The essays in The Prose Reader continue to represent a wide range of topics.

As in the past, the essays in this edition were selected on the basis of five important criteria: (1) high interest level, (2) currency in the field, (3) moderate length, (4) readability, and (5) broad subject variety. Together, they 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. The essay topics in this volume include such provocative subjects as discrimination, ethnic identity, job opportunities, aging, war, the media, women's roles, prison life, time management, euthanasia, romantic relationships, family values, immigration, physical handicaps, reading, and the writing process itself.

The Argument and Persuasion section (Chapter 9) includes three essays on a variety of topics and two sets of opposing-viewpoint essays.

The essays in Chapter 9 are particularly useful for helping your students refine their critical thinking skills in preparation for longer, more sustained papers on a single topic. The first three essays in this chapter encourage students to grapple with provocative issues that make a crucial difference in how we all live. Then the two sets of opposing viewpoint essays help the students see coherent arguments at work from two different perspectives on a single issue. The argumentative essays cover such timely topics as gun control, affirmative action, and immigration; the opposing viewpoint essays are on the relationship between computers and books and on freedom of the press.

"Documented Essays: Reading and Writing from Sources" (Chapter 10) features research papers throughout the college curriculum.

These essays demonstrate the two most common documentation styles—Modern Language Association (MLA) and American Psychological Association (APA). By including documented essays, we intend to clarify some of the mysteries connected with research and documentation and to provide interesting material for creating longer and more elaborate writing assignments. These essays cover the history of war and the relationship between personal appearance and delinquency. We offer a full range of apparatus for these selections, and we provide at the end of each selection a list of Further Reading on each subject and suggested topics for longer, more sophisticated essays and research papers.

This edition offers four progressively more sophisticated types of questions at the end of each selection.

These questions are designed to help students move sequentially from various literal-level responses to interpretation and analysis; they also help reveal both the form and content of the essays so your students can cultivate a similar balance in their own writing.

Understanding Details—questions that test the students' literal and interpretive understanding of what they have read;
Analyzing Meaning—questions that require students to analyze various aspects of the essay;
Discovering Rhetorical Strategies—questions that investigate the author's rhetorical strategies in constructing the essay;
Making Connections—questions that ask students to find thematic and rhetorical connections among essays they have read.

The writing assignments ("Ideas for Discussion/Writing") are preceded by Preparing to Write questions.

These questions are designed to encourage students to express their feelings, thoughts, observations, and opinions on various topics. Questions about their own ideas and experiences help students produce writing that corresponds as closely as possible to the way they think.

The writing assignments seek to involve students in realistic situations.

They often provide a specific purpose and audience for the essay topic. In this manner, student writers are drawn into rhetorical scenes that carefully focus their responses to a variety of questions or problems. These prompts are designed for use inside or outside the classroom.

The book concludes with a glossary of composition terms (along with examples and page references from the text) and an index of authors and titles.

The glossary provides not only definitions of composition terms but also examples of these terms from this book and their page numbers. The index lists both the author and title of each essay in the book. Both the glossary and the index serve as excellent reference tools for your students as they progress through the material in the text.

WHAT IS NEW?

We have made several changes in the sixth edition of The Prose Reader that represent the responses of instructors from many different types of colleges and universities throughout the United States:

The sixth edition of The Prose Reader contains fifteen new essays.

We have updated some of the selections, added new authors, and introduced many new topics, such as nature, self-esteem, language, gang violence, e-mail, memory, romantic love, guidelines for arguing, gun control, books and computers, writing, and technology.

This edition makes an even stronger commitment to cultural and gender diversity.

Although multicultural and women's issues have always been well represented in The Prose Reader, in this edition we have included even more essays by women and ethnic-minority authors, among them Susan Austin, Sandra Cisneros, Amy Tan, Brent Staples, Phyllis Schneider, Lois Smith Brady, Mary Roach, Bronwyn Jones, and Diane Russo Cody.

This edition includes a new set of writing assignments at the end of each chapter.

These assignments are divided into two categories, offering (1) more practice in a specific rhetorical mode and (2) a focus on interesting contemporary topics regardless of rhetorical mode. In this way, you have a variety of prompts to choose from if you want your students to have further writing experience at any time.

We have completely renovated our popular "Thinking, Reading, and Writing" section (Chapter 11).

This chapter now includes essays on one writer's passion for his craft, listening, reading fiction, writing in the professional world, the death of reading, writing as a moral act, and writing and technology. In addition to demonstrating all the rhetorical modes at work, these essays provide a strong conclusion to the theoretical framework of this text by focusing intently on the interrelationships among thinking, reading, and writing.

WHAT SUPPLEMENTS ARE AVAILABLE?

Available with The Prose Reader is a thorough Annotated Instructor's Edition designed to help make your life in the classroom a little easier. We have filled the margins of the AIE with many different kinds of supplementary material, including instructor comments on teaching the different rhetorical modes, provocative quotations, background information about each essay, definitions of terms that may be unfamiliar to your students, a list of related readings from this text that can profitably be taught together, innovative teaching ideas, detailed answers to the questions that follow each selection, additional essay topics, and various revising strategies.

In addition to the Annotated Instructor's Edition, we have created the Instructor's Resource Manual with Quiz Book. In it, we identify and discuss some of the most widely used theoretical approaches to the teaching of composition; we then other innovative options for organizing your course, specific suggestions for the first day of class, a summary of the advantages and disadvantages of using different teaching strategies, and several successful techniques for responding to student writing. Next, we provide two objective quizzes for each essay to help you monitor your students' mastery of the selection's vocabulary and content. This supplement ends with three additional professional essays (two opposing-viewpoint essays and one documented essay), a series of student essays (one for each rhetorical strategy featured in the text) followed by the student writer's comments, and an annotated bibliography of books and articles about thinking, reading, and writing.

Also available with The Prose Reader is a companion website that offers an extensive collection of additional resources for every essay in the text for both the student and the instructor. This website allows students to get additional reinforcement for the text material and provides an easy way for the instructors to integrate the World Wide Web into their courses. The site includes

author biographies with contextual links,
online vocabulary comprehension quizzes for every selection, with instant scoring,
pre-reading and post-reading assignments that foster critical thinking for every essay,
dynamic web links that provide a valuable source of additional information about the essay topics,
communication tools such as chat rooms and message boards to facilitate online collaboration and communication,
built-in routing that gives students the ability to forward essay responses and graded quizzes to their instructors, and
a faculty module that includes an Instructor's Resource Manual with additional Quizzes

Finally, we offer an online service. This online service makes it easy for instructors to find out if students are copying their assignments from the Internet and is now free to instructors using The Prose Reader. In addition to helping educators easily identify instances of Web-based student plagiarism, Turnitin.com also offers a digital archiving system and an online peer review service. To use this service, instructors simply set up a "drop box" at the Turnitin.com website where their students submit papers. Turnitin.com then checks each submission against millions of possible online sources. Within 24 hours, teachers receive a customized, color-coded "Originality Report," complete with live links to suspect Internet locations, for each submitted paper. To access the site for free, instructors must visit the site via the faculty resources section of the Flachmann website.

This entire instructional package, available to you free of charge, is intended to help your students discover what they want to say and to assist them in shaping their ideas into a coherent form, thereby encouraging their intelligent involvement in the complex and exciting world around them.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are pleased to acknowledge the kind assistance and support of a number of people who have helped us put together this sixth edition of The Prose Reader. For creative encouragement and editorial guidance at Prentice Hall, we thank Phil Miller, President of Humanities and Social Sciences; Leah Jewell, AVP/Editor in Chief; Corey Good, Acquisitions Editor; Jennifer Collins, Editorial Assistant; Beth Gillett Mejia, AVP/Director of Marketing; Brandy Dawson, Senior Marketing Manager; Christine Moodie, Marketing Assistant; Senior Managing Editor, Mary Rottino; and Maureen Richardson, Senior Project Manager.

For reviews of the manuscript at various stages of completion, we are grateful to Janice Jones, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio; Lyle W. Morgan II, Pittsburgh State University,, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Carolyn D. Coward, Shelby State Community College, Memphis, Tennessee; Teresa Purvis, Lansing Community College, Lansing, Michigan; Gena E. Christopher, Jacksonville State University, Jacksonville, Florida; Donnie Yeilding, Central Texas College, Killeen, Texas; Steve Katz, State Technical Institute, Memphis, Tennessee; Craig Howard White, University of Houston, Clear Lake, Houston, Texas; Judith Dan, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts; Arlie R. Peck, University of Rio Grande, Rio Grande, Ohio; Barbara Smith, Iona College, New Rochelle, New York; Vermell Blanding, Hostos Community College, Bronx, New York; Nancy G. Wright, Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, Tennessee; Paula Miller, Azusa Pacific University, Azusa, California; Paul Kistel, Pierce College, Tacoma, Washington; Christopher Belcher, Community College of Allegheny County, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Helen F. Maxon, Southwestern Oklahoma State University, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Geoffrey C. Goodale, University of Massachusetts at Boston, Boston, Massachusetts; Martha Bergeron, Vance-Granville Community College, Henderson, North Carolina; Jan LaFever, Friends University, Wichita, Kansas; Virginia Leonard, West Liberty State College, Wichita, Kansas; Melissa A. Bruner, Southwestern Oklahoma State University, West Liberty, Virginia; James Zarzana, Southwest State University, Marshall, Minnesota; Terrence Burke, Cuyahoga Community College, Cleveland, Ohio; Ellen Dugan-Barrette, Brescia College, Owensboro, Kentucky; Lewis Emond, Dean Junior College, Franklin, Massachusetts; Jay Jernigan, Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, Michigan; Nellie McCrory, Gaston College, Dallas, North Carolina; Leslie Shipp, Clark County Community College, Henderson, Nevada; William F. Sutlife, Community College of Allegheny County, Monroeville, Pennsylvania; Maureen Aitkn, University of Michigan; Mickie R. Braswell, Lenoir Community College; Judith Burnham, Tulsa Community College; Charles H. Cole, Carl Albert State College; Todd Lieber, Simpson College; Bill Marsh, National University; Felicia S. Pattison, Sterling College; Dianne Peich, Delaware County Community College; K. Siobhan Wright, Carroll Community College; and Melody Ziff, Northern Virginia Community College Annandale.

Several writing instructors across the United States have been kind enough to help shape The Prose Reader over the course of its development by responding to specific questions about their teaching experiences with the book: Charles Bordogna, Bergen Community College, Paramus, New Jersey; Mary G. Marshall and Eileen M. Ward, College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, Illinois; Michael J. Huntington and Judith C. Kohl, Dutchess Community College, Poughkeepsie, New York; Ted Johnston, El Paso County Community College, El Paso, Texas; Koala C. Hartnett, Rick James Mazza, and William H. Sherman, Fairmont State College, Fairmont, West Virginia; Miriam Dick and Betty Krasne, Mercy College, Dobbs Ferry, New York; Elvis Clark, Mineral Area College, Flat River, Missouri; Dayna Spencer, Pittsburgh State University, Pittsburgh, Kansas; James A. Zarzana, Southwest State University, Marshall, Minnesota; Susan Reinhart Schneling and Trudy Vanderback, Vincennes University, Vincennes, Indiana; Carmen Wong, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia; John W. Hattman and Virginia E. Leonard, West Liberty State College, West Liberty, West Virginia; Jonathan Alexander, Widener University, Chester, Pennsylvania; Jo Ann Pevoto, College of the Mainland, Texas; Anita Pandey, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois; Leaf Seligman, University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire; Arminta Baldwin, West Virginia Wesleyan College, Buckhannon, West Virginia; Joaquim Mendes, New York Institute of Technology, Old Westbury, New York; and Sandra R. Woods, Fairmont State College, Fairmont, West Virginia.

For student essays and writing samples, we thank Rosa Marie Augustine, Donel Crow, Dawn Dobie, Gloria Duniler, Jeff Hicks, Julie Anne Judd, Judi Koch, Dawn McKee, Paul Newberry, Joanne Silva-Newberry, JoAnn Slate, Peggy Stuckey, and Jan Titus.

We also want to thank four very special colleagues for serving as consultants and research assistants throughout the creation of this edition: Monique Idoux, Matt Woodman, Brad Ruff and Elizabeth Baldridge. And for coordinating our department responsibilities in such a way that The Prose Reader, sixth edition, could become a reality, we are grateful to our chair, Victor Lasseter.

In preparing our Annotated Instructor's Edition, we owe special gratitude to Cheryl Smith, who revised and recast instructional material for this edition, and to the following writing instructors who have contributed their favorite techniques for teaching various rhetorical strategies: Mary P. Boyles, Pembroke State University; Terrence W. Burke, Cuyahoga Community College; Mary Lou Conlin, Cuyahoga Community College; Ellen Dugan-Barrette, Brescia College; Janet Eber, County College of Morns; Louis Emond, Dean Junior College; Peter Harris, West Virginia Institute of Technology, Montgomery; Jay Jernigan, Eastern Michigan University; Judith C. Kohl, Dutchess Community College; Joanne H. McCarthy, Tacoma Community College; Anthony McCrann, Peru State College; Nellie McCrory, Gaston College; Alan Price, Pennsylvania State University-Hazelton; Patricia A. Ross, Moorpark College; Leslie Shipp, Clark County Community College; Rodney Simard (deceased), California State University, San Bernardino; Elizabeth Wahlquist, Brigham Young University; John White, California State University, Fullerton; and Ted Wise, Porterville College.

We are also grateful to Kathryn Benander, who revised the Instructor's Resource Manual with Quiz Book. For this edition, however, she had the company of a new baby to help her stay awake and meet the difficult deadlines.

Cheryl Smith and Kathryn Benander not only helped revise our supplements for The Prose Reader, but they also served as research and editorial consultants throughout the entire project. Their work and opinions were invaluable.

Our final and most important debt is to our children, Christopher and Laura, who have always inspired us to be good teachers.

RAY BRADBURY Summer Rituals
The description of a simple, comforting ritual—the putting up of a front-porch swing in early summer—confirms the value of ceremony in the life of a small town.
KIMBERLY WOZENCRAFT Notes from the Country Club
Have you ever wondered what being in prison is like? Kimberly Wozencraft takes us for a no-nonsense tour of the “correctional institution” in Kentucky that was her home for more than a year.
GARRISON KEILLOR Hoppers
Do you enjoy watching people? Prairie Home Companion creator Garrison Keillor draws some hilarious conclusions about pedestrians on a busy New York City street as they jump over a small stream of water.
MALCOLM COWLEY The View from 80
In this humorous, touching, and ultimately optimistic essay, the author introduces us to the unfamiliar “country” of old age.
NASA Mars
Do you think we will walk on Mars during your lifetime? This description of the planet will prepare you for the next phase in our exploration of space.

Chapter Writing Assignments

5. Narration: Telling a Story

Defining Narration
Thinking Critically Through Narration
Reading and Writing Narrative Essays
Student Essay: Narration at Work
Some Final Thoughts on Narration

LEWIS SAWAQUAT For My Indian Daughter
A Native American author responds to prejudice with a search for ethnic and cultural pride.
MAYA ANGELOU New Directions
Deserted by her husband, a proud and determined Annie Johnson decides to “step off the road and cut . . . a new path” for herself.
KENNETH MILLER Class Act
This fascinating essay describes how Brenda Combs, a homeless crack addict, rose out of the gutter to become an award-winning schoolteacher in Phoenix.
SANDRA CISNEROS Only Daughter
The only daughter in a large family, Sandra Cisneros feels overwhelming pride when her father praises her skill as a writer.
RUSSELL BAKER The Saturday Evening Post
In this autobiographical essay, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Russell Baker offers a nostalgic look at his childhood days in the small town of Morrisonville, Virginia.

Chapter Writing Assignments

6. Example: Illustrating Ideas

Defining Examples
Thinking Critically Through Examples
Reading and Writing Example Essays
Student Essay: Examples at Work
Some Final Thoughts on Examples

CHRISTOPHER NELSON Why We Are Looking at the “Value” of College All Wrong
How can we measure the value of education? Christopher Nelson has some answers that do not involve economics.
RICHARD RODRIGUEZ Public and Private Language
Do you speak the same language in public that you do in private with your family and friends? Richard Rodriguez argues for the importance of both forms of communication.
HAROLD KRENTS Darkness at Noon
How should we treat the handicapped? Blind author Harold Krents gives us a few lessons in judging people on their abilities rather than their disabilities.
RONI JACOBSON A Digital Safety Net
Can social media help detect mental illness? And if it can, how should we respond? Jacobson offers some thoughts on both of these issues.
BRENT STAPLES A Brother’s Murder
Brent Staples’s horrifying description of his brother’s inner-city killing lays bare the decay of urban America and its effect on the young African-American men who are imprisoned there.

Chapter Writing Assignments

7. Process Analysis: Explaining Step by Step

Defining Process Analysis
Thinking Critically Through Process Analysis
Reading and Writing Process Analysis Essays
Student Essay: Process Analysis at Work
Some Final Thoughts on Process Analysis

JAY WALLJASPER Our Schedules, Our Selves
Are you bound to your Blackberry, enslaved to your daily routine? Jay Walljasper argues that we’ve booked ourselves so tightly that “there’s no time left for those magic, spontaneous moments that make us feel most alive.”
JESSICA MITFORD Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain
In this chilling and macabre essay, celebrated “muckraker” Jessica Mitford exposes the greed and hypocrisy of the American mortuary business.
CAROLE KANCHIER Dare to Change Your Job and Your Life in 7 Steps
Change is always difficult. But Kanchier offers several ways to handle change sensibly, based on interviews with others who have made positive changes in their lives.
BARBARA EHRENREICH Nickel and Dimed
In this excerpt from her best-selling book, the author explains how training as a domestic worker taught her that dusting furniture had an “undeniable logic and a certain kind of austere beauty.”
STEPHANIE VOZZA How to Make Friends as an Adult
Making new friends as an adult is not like our childhood relationships. But Vozza has some effective suggestions for navigating this new terrain.

Chapter Writing Assignments

8. Division/Classification: Finding Categories

Defining Division/Classification
Thinking Critically Through Division/Classification
Reading and Writing Division/Classification Essays
Student Essay: Division/Classification at Work
Some Final Thoughts on Division/Classification

KAREN LACHTANSKI Match the Right Communication Type to the Occasion
According to this author, good communication follows one important rule: The type of communication must fit the situation.
SARA GILBERT The Different Ways of Being Smart
People can be smart in different ways, which Gilbert explains in this essay with examples to support her classification system.
SARAH TOLER Understanding the Birth Order Relationship
Are you an only child? A middle child? Or the youngest in your family? According to the author, our birth order can have a powerful effect on the way we live our lives.
AMY TAN Mother Tongue
In this provocative and intriguing article, author Amy Tan examines the relationship between her mother’s “fractured” English and her own talent as a writer.
STEPHANIE ERICSSON The Ways We Lie
Ever stretched the truth? Stephanie Ericsson catalogs the ten worst kinds of falsehoods, from “white lies” to “delusion.” Which is your favorite?

Chapter Writing Assignments

9. Comparison/Contrast: Discovering Similarities and Differences

Defining Comparison/Contrast
Thinking Critically Through Comparison/Contrast
Reading and Writing Comparison/Contrast Essays
Student Essay: Comparison/Contrast at Work
Some Final Thoughts on Comparison/Contrast

AMY CHUA Excerpt from Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
Why do so many Asian students excel in school? According to Amy Chua, it’s because their mothers are much more demanding than their Western counterparts.
ADAM GOPNIK How Lincoln and Darwin Shaped the Modern World
What drives certain individuals to be leaders? This study of two historical figures helps us identify the characteristics of those who naturally take charge.
MOTOKO RICH Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?
Is surfing the Net ruining our minds? New York Times reporter Motoko Rich presents a balanced and intriguing analysis of the dangers and rewards of spending too much time online.
GLORIA STEINEM The Politics of Muscle
Feminist Gloria Steinem examines the extent to which strength means sexual power.
JOHN TIERNEY A Generation’s Vanity, Heard Through Lyrics
Can music really characterize a generation? Tierney says it can and set out to prove it in this essay.

Chapter Writing Assignments

10. Definition: Limiting the Frame of Reference

Defining Definition
Thinking Critically Through Definition
Reading and Writing Definition Essays
Student Essay: Definition at Work
Some Final Thoughts on Definition

WAYNE NORMAN When Is a Sport Not a Sport?
What makes an activity a sport? What about an Olympic sport? Norman has strong opinions to share on this topic.
ROBERT RAMIREZ The Barrio
Robert Ramirez lovingly describes the “feeling of family” in a typical inner-city barrio.
ELIZABETH SVOBODA Virtual Assault
Everyone agrees that all bullying must be stopped, but very few have any concrete suggestions for doing so. However, Svoboda offers some guidelines we need to consider for addressing virtual assault.
MARY PIPHER Beliefs About Families
What is a “family”? Psychologist Mary Pipher attempts to answer this intriguing question by examining the effect that different categories of family members have on our ability to function in the world around us.
DAVID HANSON Binge Drinking
Binge drinking is a dangerous type of drinking that Hanson claims is on the decline among current college students. Do you think society deals with drinking and youth responsibly?

Chapter Writing Assignments

11. Cause/Effect: Tracing Reasons and Results

Defining Cause/Effect
Thinking Critically Through Cause/Effect
Reading and Writing Cause/Effect Essays
Student Essay: Cause/Effect at Work
Some Final Thoughts on Cause/Effect

STEPHEN KING Why We Crave Horror Movies
Seen any good horror movies lately? Best-selling author Stephen King explains why we are so fascinated by films that appeal to our darker instincts.
MICHAEL DORRIS The Broken Cord
An angry and frustrated Michael Dorris describes the long-term damage done to his adopted son, Adam, by the ravages of fetal alcohol syndrome.
DANA GIOIA On the Importance of Reading
Why should we read literature? “Let me count the ways,” says former National Endowment for the Arts chair Dana Gioia, as he details the intellectual and spiritual nourishment conferred on us by imaginative works of art.
JOE KEOHANE How Facts Backfire
Are you sure you’re right about that? According to Joe Keohane, the more certain we are about our opinions, the more likely it is that we are relying on “beliefs” rather than “facts.”
ART MARKMAN Can Video Games Make You Smart (Or At Least More Flexible)?
Can video games increase your ability to learn? Markman has some evidence that demonstrates some of the positive results of these games.

Chapter Writing Assignments

12. Argument and Persuasion: Inciting People to Thought or Action

Defining Argument and Persuasion
Thinking Critically Through Argument and Persuasion
Reading and Writing Argument/Persuasion Essays
Student Essay: Argument and Persuasion at Work
Some Final Thoughts on Argument and Persuasion

FRANK FUREDI Our Unhealthy Obsession with Sickness
Are you so worried about your health that it’s making you sick? Sociologist Frank Furedi explains why the concept of “illness” is increasingly important in our modern world.
NICHOLAS CARR How the Internet Is Making Us Stupid
How do you think the Internet is affecting your brain? Carr provides some startling evidence in this essay to prove that the Internet is dramatically changing the ways we think.
DAVE GROSSMAN We Are Training Our Kids to Kill
Retired Col. Dave Grossman questions the role models we are creating for our kids through violence on TV. In this essay, he challenges us to regain control of child abuse, racism, and poverty in American society.
SAMANTHA PUGSLEY How Language Impacts the Stigma Against Mental Health (And What We Must Do to Change It)
Are you aware of how people refer to mental health issues in their everyday lives? Are they always respectful of different mental illnesses in their references? Through this essay, Pugsley helps us build a sensitivity to these issues.

Opposing Viewpoints: Social Media
JOSH ROSE How Social Media Is Having a Positive Impact on Our Culture
SUSAN TARDANICO Is Social Media Sabotaging Real Communication?
When is social media constructive? When is it destructive? Being aware of its advantages and disadvantages is part of improving our ability to communicate in society.

Opposing Viewpoints: Postconviction DNA Testing
TIM O’BRIEN Postconviction DNA Testing Should Be Encouraged
JAMES DAO In Same Case, DNA Clears Convict and Finds Suspect
PETER ROFF Postconviction DNA Testing Should Not Be Encouraged
How reliable is DNA evidence in the courtroom? Tim O’Brien, James Dao, and
Peter Roff debate the issue from three different sides.

Chapter Writing Assignments

13. Writing in Different Genres: Combining Rhetorical Modes

Autobiography

RICHARD WRIGHT The Library Card
Set in the segregationist South, Wright’s short story illustrates the triumph of one brave man’s lust for learning over a society that seeks to keep him “in his place.”

Speech

EMMA WATSON Gender Equality Is Your Issue Too
In this speech, Watson suggests that we all share the responsibility of gender equity. Doing so will benefit us all.

Poetry

BILLY COLLINS Marginalia
U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins praises the art of scribbled comments in the margins of books, which often reveal volumes about the people who write them.
WILLIAM STAFFORD When I Met My Muse
William Stafford describes through brilliant and evocative metaphors the very moment he realized he had to be a poet.

Fiction

JESSICA ANYA BLAU Red-Headed
During a hot summer in Oakland, surrounded by drug dealers and social misfits, author Jessica Anya Blau investigates the mysterious relationship between art and life.

Photography

JIM BRYANT The Gate
Where does this gate lead? Let your imagination be your guide.

PART III: REFERENCE: READING AND WRITING FROM SOURCES

R-1. Introducing the Documented Essay

Defining Documented Essays
Sample Documented Paragraph
Documented Essay Reference Chart

R-2. Reading a Documented Essay

Preparing to Read a Documented Essay
Reading a Documented Essay
Rereading a Documented Essay
A Checklist for Reading Documented Essays
Reading an Annotated Essay
ALLAN GOLDSTEIN “Our Brains Are Evolving to Multitask,” Not! The Illusion of Multitasking

R-3. Preparing to Write Your Own Documented Essay

Choosing a Topic
Writing a Good, Clear Thesis Statement

R-4. Finding Sources

Sources That Are Relevant, Reliable, and Recent
Consulting Academic Databases
Searching for Websites
Using the Library

R-5. Avoiding Plagiarism

Types of Material
Acknowledging Your Sources
Direct Quotation, Paraphrase, and Summary

R-6. Staying Organized

Taking Notes on Sources
Making a Working Outline

R-7. Writing a Documented Essay

Writing the Introduction
Writing the Supporting Paragraphs
Using Your Sources
Writing Your Conclusion
Creating Your Title
A Checklist for Writing Documented Essays

R-8. Documenting

Introducing Your Sources
Documentation Format
MLA versus APA
Sample Student References

R-9. Revising and Editing a Documented Essay

Revising
Editing
Student Essay: Documentation at Work

Glossary of Useful Terms

Credits

Index of Authors and Titles

Preface

The Prose Reader is based on the assumption that lucid writing follows lucid thinking, whereas poor written work is almost inevitably the product of foggy, irrational thought processes. As a result, our primary purpose in this book, as in the first five editions, is to help students think more clearly and logically—both in their minds and on paper.

Furthermore, we believe that college students should be able to think, read, and write on three increasingly difficult levels:

Literal—characterized by a basic understanding of words and their meanings;
Interpretive—consisting of a knowledge of linear connections between ideas and an ability to make valid inferences based on those ideas; and
Critical—the highest level, distinguished by the systematic investigation of complex ideas and by the analysis of their relationship to the world around us.

To demonstrate the vital interrelationship between reader and writer, our text provides your students with prose models intended to inspire their own thinking and writing. Although studying rhetorical strategies is certainly not the only way to approach writing, it is a productive means of helping students become better writers. These essays are intended to encourage your students to improve their writing through a partnership with some of the best examples of professional prose available today. Just as musicians and athletes richly benefit from studying the techniques of the foremost people in their fields, your students will grow in spirit and language use from their collaborative work with the excellent writers in this collection.

HOW THE TEXT WORKS

Each chapter of The Prose Reader begins with an explanation of a single rhetorical technique. These explanations are divided into six sections that progress from the effect of this technique on our daily lives to its integral role in the writing process. Also in each introduction, we include a student paragraph and a student essay featuring each particular rhetorical strategy under discussion. The essay is highlighted by annotations and underlining to illustrate how to write that type of essay and to help bridge the gap between student writing and the professional selections that follow. After each essay, the student writer has drafted a personal note with some useful advice for other student writers.

The essays that follow each chapter introduction are selected from a wide variety of well-known contemporary authors. Needless to say, "pure" rhetorical types rarely exist, of course, and when they do, the result often seems artificial. Therefore, although each essay in this collection focuses on a single rhetorical mode as its primary strategy, other strategies are always simultaneously at work. These selections concentrate on one primary technique at a time in much the same way a well-arranged photograph highlights a certain visual detail, though many other elements function in the background to make the picture an organic whole.

Before each reading selection, we offer some material to focus your students' attention on a particular writer and topic before they begin reading the essay. This "prereading" segment begins with biographical information about the author and ends with a number of questions to whet the reader's appetite for the essay that follows. This section is intended to help your students discover interesting relationships among ideas in their reading and then anticipate various ways of thinking about and analyzing the essay. The prereading questions forecast not only the content of the essay, but also the questions and writing assignments that follow.

The questions after each reading selection are designed as guides for thinking about the essay. These questions are at the heart of the relationship represented in this book among thinking, reading, and writing. They are divided into four interrelated sections that move your students smoothly from a literal understanding of what they have just read, to interpretation, and finally to analysis.

After your students have studied the different techniques at work in a reading selection, a specific essay assignment lets them practice all these skills in unison and encourages them to discover even more secrets about the intricate and exciting details of effective communication. Three "Ideas for Discussion/Writing" topics are preceded by "prewriting" questions to help your students generate new ideas. Most of these topics specify a purpose and an audience so that your students can focus their writing as precisely as possible. The word essay (which comes from the Old French essai, meaning a "try" or an "attempt") is an appropriate label for these writing assignments, because they all ask your students to wrestle with an idea or problem and then attempt to give shape to their conclusions in some effective manner. Such "exercises" can be equated with the development of athletic ability: The essay itself demonstrates that your students can put together all the various skills they have learned; it proves they can actually play the "sport" of writing.

WHAT REMAINS THE SAME?

The Prose Reader is still organized according to the belief that our mental abilities are logically sequential.

In other words, students cannot read or write analytically before they are able to perform well on the literal and interpretive levels. Accordingly, the book progresses from selections that require predominantly literal skills (Description, Narration, and Example) through readings involving more interpretation (Process Analysis, Division/Classication, Comparison/Contrast, and Definition) to essays that demand a high degree of analytical thought (Cause/Effect and Argument/Persuasion). Depending on your curriculum and the caliber of your students, these rhetorical modes can, of course, be studied in any order.

The Prose Reader provides two Tables of Contents.

First, the book contains a Rhetorical Table of Contents, which includes a one- or two-sentence synopsis of the selection so you can peruse the list quickly and decide which essays to assign. An alternate Thematic Table of Contents lists selections by academic discipline.

The chapter introductions are filled with several types of useful information about each rhetorical mode.

Each of the nine rhetorical divisions in the text is introduced by an explanation of how to think, read, and write in that particular mode. Although each chapter focuses on one rhetorical strategy, students are continually encouraged to examine ways in which other modes help support each essay's main intentions.

Two separate student writing samples are featured in each chapter introduction.

The chapter introductions contain a sample student paragraph and a complete student essay that illustrate each rhetorical pattern. After each essay, the student writer has provided a thorough analysis, explaining the most enjoyable, exasperating, or noteworthy aspects of writing that particular essay. We have found that this combination of student essays and commentaries makes the professional selections easier for students to read and more accessible as models of thinking and writing.

This edition includes user-friendly checklists at the end of each chapter introduction.

These checklists summarize the information in the chapter introduction and serve as references for the students in their own writing tasks. Students should be directed to these fists as early in the course as possible.

We precede each reading selection with thorough biographical information on the author and provocative prereading questions on the subject of the essay.

Because our own experience suggests that students often produce their best writing when they are personally involved in the topics of the essays they read and in the human drama surrounding the creation of those essays, the biographies explain the real experiences from which each essay emerged, and the prereading questions ("Preparing to Read") help students focus on the purpose, audience, and subject of the essay. The prereading material also foreshadows the questions and writing assignments that follow each selection. Personalizing this preliminary material encourages students to identify with both the author of an essay and its subject matter, thereby engaging the students' attention and energizing their responses to the selections they read.

The essays in The Prose Reader continue to represent a wide range of topics.

As in the past, the essays in this edition were selected on the basis of five important criteria: (1) high interest level, (2) currency in the field, (3) moderate length, (4) readability, and (5) broad subject variety. Together, they 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. The essay topics in this volume include such provocative subjects as discrimination, ethnic identity, job opportunities, aging, war, the media, women's roles, prison life, time management, euthanasia, romantic relationships, family values, immigration, physical handicaps, reading, and the writing process itself.

The Argument and Persuasion section (Chapter 9) includes three essays on a variety of topics and two sets of opposing-viewpoint essays.

The essays in Chapter 9 are particularly useful for helping your students refine their critical thinking skills in preparation for longer, more sustained papers on a single topic. The first three essays in this chapter encourage students to grapple with provocative issues that make a crucial difference in how we all live. Then the two sets of opposing viewpoint essays help the students see coherent arguments at work from two different perspectives on a single issue. The argumentative essays cover such timely topics as gun control, affirmative action, and immigration; the opposing viewpoint essays are on the relationship between computers and books and on freedom of the press.

"Documented Essays: Reading and Writing from Sources" (Chapter 10) features research papers throughout the college curriculum.

These essays demonstrate the two most common documentation styles—Modern Language Association (MLA) and American Psychological Association (APA). By including documented essays, we intend to clarify some of the mysteries connected with research and documentation and to provide interesting material for creating longer and more elaborate writing assignments. These essays cover the history of war and the relationship between personal appearance and delinquency. We offer a full range of apparatus for these selections, and we provide at the end of each selection a list of Further Reading on each subject and suggested topics for longer, more sophisticated essays and research papers.

This edition offers four progressively more sophisticated types of questions at the end of each selection.

These questions are designed to help students move sequentially from various literal-level responses to interpretation and analysis; they also help reveal both the form and content of the essays so your students can cultivate a similar balance in their own writing.

Understanding Details—questions that test the students' literal and interpretive understanding of what they have read;
Analyzing Meaning—questions that require students to analyze various aspects of the essay;
Discovering Rhetorical Strategies—questions that investigate the author's rhetorical strategies in constructing the essay;
Making Connections—questions that ask students to find thematic and rhetorical connections among essays they have read.

The writing assignments ("Ideas for Discussion/Writing") are preceded by Preparing to Write questions.

These questions are designed to encourage students to express their feelings, thoughts, observations, and opinions on various topics. Questions about their own ideas and experiences help students produce writing that corresponds as closely as possible to the way they think.

The writing assignments seek to involve students in realistic situations.

They often provide a specific purpose and audience for the essay topic. In this manner, student writers are drawn into rhetorical scenes that carefully focus their responses to a variety of questions or problems. These prompts are designed for use inside or outside the classroom.

The book concludes with a glossary of composition terms (along with examples and page references from the text) and an index of authors and titles.

The glossary provides not only definitions of composition terms but also examples of these terms from this book and their page numbers. The index lists both the author and title of each essay in the book. Both the glossary and the index serve as excellent reference tools for your students as they progress through the material in the text.

WHAT IS NEW?

We have made several changes in the sixth edition of The Prose Reader that represent the responses of instructors from many different types of colleges and universities throughout the United States:

The sixth edition of The Prose Reader contains fifteen new essays.

We have updated some of the selections, added new authors, and introduced many new topics, such as nature, self-esteem, language, gang violence, e-mail, memory, romantic love, guidelines for arguing, gun control, books and computers, writing, and technology.

This edition makes an even stronger commitment to cultural and gender diversity.

Although multicultural and women's issues have always been well represented in The Prose Reader, in this edition we have included even more essays by women and ethnic-minority authors, among them Susan Austin, Sandra Cisneros, Amy Tan, Brent Staples, Phyllis Schneider, Lois Smith Brady, Mary Roach, Bronwyn Jones, and Diane Russo Cody.

This edition includes a new set of writing assignments at the end of each chapter.

These assignments are divided into two categories, offering (1) more practice in a specific rhetorical mode and (2) a focus on interesting contemporary topics regardless of rhetorical mode. In this way, you have a variety of prompts to choose from if you want your students to have further writing experience at any time.

We have completely renovated our popular "Thinking, Reading, and Writing" section (Chapter 11).

This chapter now includes essays on one writer's passion for his craft, listening, reading fiction, writing in the professional world, the death of reading, writing as a moral act, and writing and technology. In addition to demonstrating all the rhetorical modes at work, these essays provide a strong conclusion to the theoretical framework of this text by focusing intently on the interrelationships among thinking, reading, and writing.

WHAT SUPPLEMENTS ARE AVAILABLE?

Available with The Prose Reader is a thorough Annotated Instructor's Edition designed to help make your life in the classroom a little easier. We have filled the margins of the AIE with many different kinds of supplementary material, including instructor comments on teaching the different rhetorical modes, provocative quotations, background information about each essay, definitions of terms that may be unfamiliar to your students, a list of related readings from this text that can profitably be taught together, innovative teaching ideas, detailed answers to the questions that follow each selection, additional essay topics, and various revising strategies.

In addition to the Annotated Instructor's Edition, we have created the Instructor's Resource Manual with Quiz Book. In it, we identify and discuss some of the most widely used theoretical approaches to the teaching of composition; we then other innovative options for organizing your course, specific suggestions for the first day of class, a summary of the advantages and disadvantages of using different teaching strategies, and several successful techniques for responding to student writing. Next, we provide two objective quizzes for each essay to help you monitor your students' mastery of the selection's vocabulary and content. This supplement ends with three additional professional essays (two opposing-viewpoint essays and one documented essay), a series of student essays (one for each rhetorical strategy featured in the text) followed by the student writer's comments, and an annotated bibliography of books and articles about thinking, reading, and writing.

Also available with The Prose Reader is a companion website (www.prenhall.com/flachmann) that offers an extensive collection of additional resources for every essay in the text for both the student and the instructor. This website allows students to get additional reinforcement for the text material and provides an easy way for the instructors to integrate the World Wide Web into their courses. The site includes

author biographies with contextual links,
online vocabulary comprehension quizzes for every selection, with instant scoring,
pre-reading and post-reading assignments that foster critical thinking for every essay,
dynamic web links that provide a valuable source of additional information about the essay topics,
communication tools such as chat rooms and message boards to facilitate online collaboration and communication,
built-in routing that gives students the ability to forward essay responses and graded quizzes to their instructors, and
a faculty module that includes an Instructor's Resource Manual with additional Quizzes

Finally, we offer an online service called www.turnitin.com. This online service makes it easy for instructors to find out if students are copying their assignments from the Internet and is now free to instructors using The Prose Reader. In addition to helping educators easily identify instances of Web-based student plagiarism, Turnitin.com also offers a digital archiving system and an online peer review service. To use this service, instructors simply set up a "drop box" at the Turnitin.com website where their students submit papers. Turnitin.com then checks each submission against millions of possible online sources. Within 24 hours, teachers receive a customized, color-coded "Originality Report," complete with live links to suspect Internet locations, for each submitted paper. To access the site for free, instructors must visit the site via the faculty resources section of the Flachmann website at www.prenhall.com/flachmann.