Rent 9780321207791 | Short Takes : Model Essays for Composition

Summary Table of Contents

This lively collection of fifty-six short, readable essays by both student and professional writers provides useful models of the rhetorical modes. Features 26 new essays on diverse subjects such as technology and the Internet, the events of September 11 and terrorism, college athletics, and medical research

Thematic Guide

xiii

Preface

xvii

Freeze Frame: Reading and Writing

(310)

1 On Using Description

(34)

... MORE

A Sandwich

Nora Ephron

(4)

"The hot pastrami sandwich served at Langer's delicatessen in down-town Los Angeles is the finest hot pastrami sandwich in the world."

Deep Cold

Verlyn Klinkenborg

(2)

"If deep cold made a sound, it would be the scissoring and gnashing of a skater's blades against hard gray ice, or the screeching the snow sets up when you walk across it in the blue light of the afternoon."

The Bridge

Jason Holland

(4)

"The bridge was county property, but my friends and I felt like we were the owners. It was a mutual relationship. We owned the bridge, and the bridge owned us."

El Hoyo

Mario Suarez

(4)

"From the center of downtown Tucson the ground slopes gently away to Main Street, drops a few feet,-and then rolls to the banks of the Santa Cruz River. Here lies the section of the city known as El Hoyo."

Left Sink

Ellery Akers

(19)

In the world of the bathroom the light shelf was a delicatessen of the highest order. Light Buddha sat there night after glorious night, lazily snapping up moths as they fluttered past. The other two frogs seemed content to stake out the sinks, which weren't quite as depend-able a food source, though they weren't bad."

ADDITIONAL WRITING ASSIGNMENTS

(2)

2 On Using Narration

(30)

Designer of Audio CD Packaging Enters Hell

Steve Martin

(4)

"The burning gates of Hell were opened and the designer of CD pack-aging entered to the Devil's fanfare. 'We've been wanting him down here for a long time,' The One of Pure Evil said to his infernal minions,

Learning, then College

Meg Gifford

(3)

"I acknowledge that postponing college is not easy. Few people sup-ported my decision, telling me that once I stopped my education I'd never get back on track."

The Night of Oranges

Flavius Stan

(4)

"It is Christmas Eve in 1989 in Timisoara and the ice is still dirty from the boots of the Romanian revolution."

Time to Look and Listen

Magdoline Asfahani

(5)

"The America that I love is one that values freedom and the differences of its people."

The Pie

Gary Soto

(12)

"I nearly wept trying to decide which to steal and, forgetting the flowery dust priests give off the shadow of angels and the proximity of God howling in the plumbing underneath the house, sneaked a pie behind my coffee-lid Frisbee and walked to the door, grinning to the bald grocer whose forehead shone with a window of light."

ADDITIONAL WRITING ASSIGNMENTS

(1)

3 On Using Definition

(31)

Chocolate Equals Love

Diane Ackerman

(4)

"What food do you crave? Add a hint of mischief to your desire, and the answer is bound to be chocolate. Dark, divine, sense-bludgeoning chocolate."

I Was a Member of the Kung Fu Crew

Henry Han Xi Lau

(4)

"Chinatown is ghetto, my friends are ghetto, I am ghetto. I went away to college last year, but I still have a long strand of hair that reaches past my chin."

The Handicap of Definition

William Raspberry

(4)

"[I]t occurs to me that one of the heaviest burdens black American-and black children in particular-have to bear is the handicap of definition: the question of what it means to be black."

The Myth of the Matriarch

Gloria Naylor

(6)

"I've seen how this female image has permeated the American consciousness to the point of influencing everything from the selling of pancakes to the structuring of welfare benefits. But the strangest thing is that when I walked around my neighborhood or went into the homes of family and friends, this matriarch was nowhere to be found."

Where Nothing Says Everything

Suzanne Berne

101

(14)

At least, nothing is what it first looked like, the space that is now ground zero. But once your eyes adjust to what you are looking at, 'nothing' becomes something much more potent, which is absence."

ADDITIONAL WRITING ASSIGNMENTS

106

(1)

4 On Using Example

107

(31)

Sweatin' for Nothin'

Michael Barlow

115

(4)

"We have treadmills, rowing machines, stairmasters, stationary bikes, Nordic Tracks, butt busters, and wall climbers and we labor at them while going nowhere. Absolutely nowhere! We do work that is beyond useless; we do work that takes energy and casts it to the wind like lint. And we don't even enjoy the work. Look at people in a health club. See anybody smiling?"

Stop Ordering Me Around

Stacey Wilkins

119

(4)

"Food-service positions are the last bastion of accepted prejudice. People go into a restaurant and openly torment the waiter, leave a small tip and don't think twice about it."

A Black Fan of Country Music Finally Tells All

Lena Williams

123

(5)

"For most of my adult life, I was a closet country music fan. I'd hide my Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson albums between the dusty, pyschedelic rock."

The Joy of Starvation

James Gorman

128

(4)

"I started thinking about the old days, when it was the dishes you had to use detergent on, not the food. I decided that muzzling the health press was a good idea after all."

Bananas for Rent

Michiko Kakutani

132

(14)

"Even bananas have been colonized as billboard space, with stickers promoting the video release of 'Space Jam' and the 'Got Milk?' campaign turning up on the fruit."

ADDITIONAL WRITING ASSIGNMENTS

137

(1)

5 On Using Division and Classification

138

(33)

The New York Walk: Survival of the Fiercest

Caryn James

146

(4)

"I know better than to talk back to guy"; who hassle women on the street. But on one weird August afternoon, I was caught in pedestrian gridlock in Times Square and the humidity turned my common sense to mush."

Always, Always, Always

Bill Rohde

150

(5)

"Tell the metaphor-happy student that commas are like dividers between ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise; fences between dogs, cats, and chickens; or borders between Israel, Syria, and Lebanon. Without them, messes result."

The Search for Human Life in the Maze of Retail Stores

Michelle Higgins

155

(6)

"Attention, shoppers; It is getting even tougher to get help in the aisles."

The Plot Against People

Russell Baker

161

(4)

"Inanimate objects are classified into three major categories-those that don't work, those that break down and those that get lost."

Desert Religions

Richard Rodriguez

165

(14)

"These have been months of shame and violence among the three great desert religions-Judaism, Christianity, and Islam-the religions to which most Americans adhere."

ADDITIONAL WRITING ASSIGNMENTS

170

(1)

6 On Using Comparison and Contrast

171

(33)

Living on Tokyo Time

Lynnika Butler

179

(3)

In Japan, time is measured in the same hours and minutes and days as anywhere else, but it is experienced as a fundamentally different phenomenon."

Playing House

Denise Leight

182

(4)

"With the number of marriages ending in divorce these days, it sounds reasonable that many couples want to give marriage a trial run before making any formal commitment. But do the chances of a successful marriage actually improve by cohabiting?"

World and America Watching Different Wars

Danna Harman

186

(6)

"The gruesome video shown Sunday on Al Jazeera-reaching 35 million Arab-speakers worldwide, including about 20 percent of the Egyptian population-will probably never be seen by the average American TV viewer."

Two Ways to Belong in America

Bharati Mukherjee

192

(5)

"This is a tale of two sisters from Calcutta, Mira and Bharati, who have lived in the United States for some 35 years, but who find themselves on different sides in the current debate over the status of immigrants."

The Raven

Barry Lopez

197

(14)

"I am going to have to start at the other end by telling you this: there are no crows in the desert. What appear to be crows are ravens."

ADDITIONAL WRITING ASSIGNMENTS

203

(1)

7 On Using Process

204

(33)

Runner

Laura Carlson

211

(3)

"My steps are slow to start. I feel my legs tighten and restrain me, not wanting to exert the effort to propel me forward...."

How to Swat a Fly

Will Cuppy

214

(6)

"The Fly who refuses to settle is a problem for advanced swatters, and not an easy one."

A Woman's Place

Naomi wolf

220

(5)

"Next time, ask: What's the worst that will happen? Then push your-self a little further than you dare. Once you start to speak, people will yell at you. They will interrupt, put you down and suggest it's personal. And the world won't end."

Independence Day

Dave Barry

225

(4)

"If Martha Stewart comes anywhere near my picnic, she's risking a barbecue fork to the eyeball' should be your patriotic motto."

Inspiration? Head Down the Back Road, and Stop for the Yard Sales

Annie Proulx

229

(15)

"The Irish singer Christy Moore clips out Don't Forget Your Shovel, 'a song I like not only for its tripping rhythm and sly social commentary but for its advice to the diggers of the world, a group to which I belong."

ADDITIONAL WRITING ASSIGNMENTS

236

(1)

8 On Using Cause and Effect

237

(33)

Tiffany Stephenson-An Apology

Bjorn Skogquist

244

(5)

"I know now that people need each other, and I wish I could tell the fourth grade that we could all be friends, that we could help each other with our problems. I wish that I could go back. But all I can do is apologize."

When Music Heals Body and Soul

Oliver Sacks

249

(5)

"All of us have all sorts of personal experiences with music: We find ourselves calmed by it, excited by it, comforted by it, mystified by it and often haunted by it."

Wrestling with Myself

George Felton

254

(5)

"Wrestling may be a hybrid genre-the epic poem meets Marvel Comics via the soap opera-but its themes, with their medieval tone, could hardly be simpler warrior kings doing battle after battle to see who is worthy, women pushed almost to the very edges of the landscape, Beowulf's heroic ideal expressed in the language of an after-school brawl: 'I wanna do what I wanna do. You gonna try to stop me?"'

Black Men and Public Space

Brent Staples

259

(5)

"After dark, on the warrenlike streets of Brooklyn where I live, I often see women who fear the worst from me."

When Here Sees There

George Packer

264

(19)

"If the world seems to be growing more, rather than less, nasty these days, it might have something to do with the images all of us now carry around in our heads."

ADDITIONAL WRITING ASSIGNMENTS

269

(1)

9 On Using Argument

270

(41)

Last Rites for Indian Dead

Suzan Shown Harjo

283

(8)

"What if museums, universities, and government agencies could put your dead relatives on display or keep them in boxes to be cut up and otherwise studied?"

Gay Marriages: Make Them Legal

Thomas B. Stoddard

287

(4)

"The decision whether or not to marry belongs properly to individuals-not the government."

High School, an Institution Whose Time Has Passed

Leon Botstein

291

(5)

"Beginning with the seventh grade, there should be four years of secondary education that we may call high school. Young people should graduate at 16, not 18."

Don't Impede Medical Progress

Virginia Postrel

296

(4)

"To many biologists, the recently announced creation of a cloned human embryo was no big deal."

One Internet, Two Nations

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

300

(5)

"Today we stand at the brink of becoming two societies, one largely white and plugged in and the other black and unplugged."

Internet Not For Everyone

Robyn Greenspan

305

(6)

"Could there be a population that time forgot? Are there people that don't actually live by the immediacy of the Web?"

ADDITIONAL WRITING ASSIGNMENTS

310

(1)

10 For Further Reading: Multiple Modes, Varied Opinions

311

(1)

ON COLLEGE ATHLETICS

311

(28)

Cutting the Field

Welch Suggs

311

(8)

"But increasingly, colleges in Division I are stripping away 'minor' sports and focusing on 'major' ones."

End the Hypocrisy on College Athletics

Cynthia Tucker

319

(2)

"College athletes are prized university employees who attract money and alumni support. They ought to be paid accordingly."

Show Us the Money

Jeremy Bloom

321

(3)

"[T]he National Collegiate Althletic Association not only rules college athletics, it also limits the opportunities of the 360,000 student athletes it purports to serve."

ON FILMS

323

(1)

Ringing Hollow

Sean Burns

324

(5)

"Even the most vividly rendered battle sequences begin to feel like just more of the same, and after a while you start to wonder if the movie is ever going to end."

Grit and Spectacle Help 'Lord' Ring True

Duane Dudek

326

(3)

"Fellowship of the Ring may or may not mark the birth of a brave new world of fantasy film, but it does set a new standard against which other such films should be compared."

ON TORTURE

328

(1)

Torture Warrants?

Harvey A. Silverglate

329

(6)

"Among the unsettling effects of the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington and the anthrax mailings that followed is their triggering, seemingly overnight, of a national debate over whether the United States should practice torture-as a matter of national policy-to combat terrorism."

Torture Should Not Be Authorized

Philip B. Heymann

335

(2)

Yes, It Should Be on the Books

Alan M. Dershowitz

337

(2)

Credits

339

(4)

Index of Authors, Essays, and Terms