For courses in first-year composition.

This version of The Prose Reader: Essays for Thinking, Reading and Writing has been updated to reflect the 8th Edition of the MLA Handbook (April 2016)*

Organized by rhetorical modes to showcase contemporary works by diverse authors

Lucid writing follows lucid thinking – and The Prose Reader, Eleventh Edition helps students think more clearly and logically in their minds and on paper. Organized by rhetorical pattern, this reader builds upon critical thinking as the foundation for close reading and effective writing. Numerous discussion questions and writing assignments for each selection lead students from literal-level responses to interpretation and analysis. These questions, and the essays they frame, immerse students in some of the best examples of professional prose available today.

* The 8th Edition introduces sweeping changes to the philosophy and details of MLA works cited entries. Responding to the “increasing mobility of texts,” MLA now encourages writers to focus on the process of crafting the citation, beginning with the same questions for any source. These changes, then, align with current best practices in the teaching of writing which privilege inquiry and critical thinking over rote recall and rule-following.

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  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 , and  Nexus: A Rhetorical Reader for Writers , which combines traditional rhetorical modes with students’ interest in technology.