CHAPTER 1. Why Read Literature?

Why Do You Read Literature?

Why Do We Read Literature?

Bridging the Gap

Responding to What You Read

ROBERT FROST, The Road Not Taken

Sample Student Response to “The Road Not Taken”

Commentary

Critical Thinking: Considering Evidence to Support Your Response

Close Active Reading

Sample Oral Response to “The Road Not Taken”

Commentary

Keeping a Reading Journal

Guidelines: Keeping a Reading Journal

CHAPTER 2. Joining the Conversation: Ways of Talking about Literature

PATRICIA GRACE, Butterflies (short story)

Responding to “Butterflies”

LANGSTON HUGHES, Theme for English B (poem)

Responding to “Theme for English B”

WENDY WASSERSTEIN, The Man in a Case (play)

Responding to The Man in a Case

E. B. WHITE, Education (essay)

Responding to “Education”

The Vocabulary of Literature

Actions and Events

Plot

Structure

Conflict

Irony of Situation

People

Characters: Listening and Observing

Characters: Growing and Changing

Characters: Point of View

Places and Times

Time and Place: The Cultures of the Work, the Writer, and the Reader

Words and Images, Sounds and Patterns

Style

Tone

Diction

Syntax

Rhythm and Rhyme

Figurative Language

Verbal Irony

Allusions

Ideas

CHAPTER 3. Continuing the Conversation: Considering Genre and

Listening to Other Voices

Expectations: Short Fiction, Poetry, Drama, Nonfiction

Distinctions: Short Fiction and Drama

Distinctions: Poetry

MARGARET ATWOOD, you fit into me

Distinctions: Nonfiction

An Introduction to Short Fiction

Early Forms of Fiction

Modern Short Fiction

Guidelines: Short Fiction

An Introduction to Poetry

Suggestions for Reading Poetry

Types of Poetry

Guidelines: Poetry

An Introduction to Drama

Suggestions for Reading Drama

Traditional Forms of Drama

Modern Forms of Drama

Types of Drama

Guidelines: Drama

An Introduction to Nonfiction

Suggestions for Reading Speeches

Suggestions for Reading Letters

Suggestions for Reading Documents

Suggestions for Reading Journals and Diaries

Suggestions for Reading Essays

Guidelines: Nonfiction

Considering Other Voices

Authors’ Commentaries and Interviews

Reviews

Scholarly Criticism

CHAPTER 4. Writing About Literature

Writing and Critical Thinking

DYLAN THOMAS, Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night

Responding to “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”

JOAN ALESHIRE, Slipping

Responding to “Slipping”

Preparing to Write About Literature

Understanding the Assignment

Thinking about the Assignment

Assignment Topics

Writing to Respond

Discovering Ideas: Journal Entries

Considering Audience

Narrowing the Topic

Devising a Preliminary Thesis Statement

Planning and Organizing

Drafting

“Changes,” KAREN ANGSTROM (draft student paper)

Revising Focus: Titles, Openings, Conclusions

Karen Angstrom’s Revision List

Editing Focus: “To Be,” Expletives, Passive Voice

Karen Angstrom’s Editing List

Proofreading Focus: Fragments and Comma Splices

Final Copy: Writing to Respond

“Changes: For Better or Worse?” KAREN ANGSTROM (Student Paper)

Guidelines: Writing a Response

Writing to Compare

Discovering Ideas: Discussion and Collaboration

Considering Audience, Narrowing the Topic, and Devising a Preliminary Thesis

Drafting

“Responses: Raging Versus Slipping,” WALTER JOHNSON (draft student paper)

Revising Focus: Transitions, Development of Ideas

Editing Focus: Nominalizations, Parallel Structure

Proofreading Focus: Subject-Verb Agreement, Tense Agreement

Final Copy: Writing to Compare

“Responses: Raging Versus Slipping,” WALTER JOHNSON (student paper)

Guidelines: Writing a Comparison

Writing to Analyze

Discovering Ideas: Listing and Grouping

Considering Audience, Narrowing the Topic, and Devising a Preliminary Thesis

Planning, Organizing, and Drafting

“Love and Loss in ‘Slipping’,” CATHERINE HUPEL (draft student paper)

Revising Focus: Using and Explaining Examples

Editing Focus: Word Choice

Proofreading Focus: Misplaced Modifiers

Final Copy: Writing to Analyze

“Love and Loss in ‘Slipping’,” CATHERINE HUPEL (student paper)

Guidelines: Writing an Analysis

Writing to Explicate

Discovering Ideas: Paraphrasing

Matt Cejak’s Paraphrases (student work)

Considering Audience, Narrowing the Topic, and Devising a Preliminary Thesis

Planning and Organizing

Drafting

Revising Focus: Summarizing Versus Analzying

Guidelines: Preparing for a Writing Conference

Excerpt from Matt Cejak’s Writing Conference

Matt Cejak’s Second Draft

“Explication: ‘Do Not Go Gentle’,” MATTHEW CEJAK (draft student paper)

Editing Focus: Conciseness

Proofreading Focus: Apostrophes, Quotation Marks to Indicate Words Used in a Special Way

Final Copy: Writing to Explicate

“The Power of Sound and Sight in ‘Do Not Go Gentle’,” MATTHEW CEJAK

Guidelines: Writing an Explication

Writing to Evaluate

Discovering Ideas: Interviewing

Joann Epstein’s Journal Entry

Considering Audience, Narrowing the Topic, and Devising a Preliminary Thesis

Planning and Organizing

Drafting

Revising Focus: Logic

Editing Focus: Integrating and Punctuating Quotations

Proofreading Focus: Pronoun Reference, Pronoun Agreement, Treatment of Titles

Final Copy: Writing to Evaluate

“Love and Strength,” JOANN EPSTEIN (student paper)

Guidelines: Writing an Evaluation of Beliefs and Values

Writing a Research Paper: Making a Literary Argument

Discovering Ideas: Researching

Results of Toni Jackmon’s Conversation with Librarian David Bauer

Guidelines: Evaluating Internet Resources

Sample Source

“Thomas’ ‘Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night’,” MICHAEL W. MURPHY, University of Wisconsin, Green Bay

Considering Audience, Narrowing the Topic, and Devising a Preliminary Thesis

Sample Note Cards

Planning and Organizing

Drafting

Revising Focus: Using Quotations Effectively

Rules for Quoting

“We Are All Poets,” TONI JACKMON (student paper)

Editing Focus: Combining Sentences

Rules for Combining Sentences

Proofreading Focus: Spelling

Final Copy: Research Paper

“We Are All Poets,” TONI JACKMON (student paper)

Guidelines: Writing a Research Paper

Summary

Strategies for Discovering and Exploring Ideas

Strategies for Evaluating Your Audience

Strategies for Revising

Strategies for Editing

Strategies for Proofreading

CHAPTER 5. Innocence and Experience

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, Young Goodman Brown

JAMES JOYCE, Araby

WAKAKO YAMAUCHI, And the Soul Shall Dance

LOUISE ERDRICH, The Red Convertible

W.D. WETHERELL, The Bass, The River and Sheila Mant

A.E. HOUSMAN, When I Was One and Twenty

COUNTEE CULLEN, Incident

GARY SOTO, Oranges

BETTIE SELLERS, In the Counselor’s Waiting Room

ROSEMARY CATACALOS, La Casa

MAY SWENSON, The Centaur

WILLIAM BLAKE, London

GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS, Spring and Fall

SEAMUS HEANEY, Mid-Term Break

*JOHN UPDIKE, Ex-Basketball Player

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet

LANGSTON HUGHES, Salvation

MAYA ANGELOU, Graduation in Stamps

Chapter 6. Crime and Punishment

EDGAR ALLAN POE, The Black Cat

NADINE GORDIMER, Town and Country Lovers

RICHARD WRIGHT, The Man Who Was Almost a Man

ISABEL ALLENDE, The Judge’s Wife

*BESSIE HEAD, Looking for a Rain God

RICHARD LOVELACE, To Althea, From Prison

SEAMUS HEANEY, Punishment

ROBERT BROWNING, My Last Duchess

ANNE SEXTON, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

ETHERIDGE KNIGHT, Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminally Insane

GREGORY CORSO, The Last Gangster

JIANG HE, To the Executioner

TESS GALLAGHER, Kidnapper

JUDITH CLARK, After My Arrest

*STEPHEN DUNN, On Hearing the Airlines Will Use a Psychological Profile to Catch Potential Skyjackers

SUSAN GLASPELL, Trifles

ANDRE DUBUS, Giving Up the Gun

*BARBARA HUTTMAN, A Crime of Compassion

Chapter 7. Roots, Identity, and Culture

JAMES BALDWIN, Sonny’s Blues

ALICE WALKER, Everyday Use

RAYMOND CARVER, Cathedral

JOSE ARMAS, El Tonto del Barrio

TONI CADE BAMBARA, The Lesson

PAUL LAWRENCE DUNBAR, We Wear the Mak

LUCILLE CLIFTON, Quilting

WOLE SOYINKA, Telephone Conversation

WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS, The Lake Isle of Innisfree

MARTIN ESPADA, Coca-Cola and Coco Frio

CATHY SONG, The Youngest Daughter

JUDITH ORTIZ COFER, Latin Women Pray

*MARY TALLMOUNTAIN, There Is No Word for Goodbye

*WING TEK LUM, It’s Something Our Family Has Always Done

LANGSTON HUGHES, Dream Variations

ATHOL FUGARD, “Master Harold”…and The Boys

CHIEF SEATTLE, My People

FREDERICK DOUGLASS, Learning to Read and Write

Chapter 8. Men and Women

CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN, The Yellow Wallpaper

*KAY BOYLE, Astronomer’s Wife

*EDITH WHARTON, Roman Fever

*LAURIE COLWIN, A Country Wedding

*RITA DOVE, Second Hand Man

SAPPHO, To Me He Seems Like a God

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Let me not to the marriage of true minds

*JOHN DONNE, The Sun Rising

ANDREW MARVELL, To His Coy Mistress

APHRA BEHN, The Willing Mistress

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

SIR WALTER RALEIGH, The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd

AMY LOWELL, Patterns

TESS GALLAGHER, The Hug

*PAULA GUNN ALLEN, Pocahontas to Her English Husband, John Rolfe

*DONALD HALL, The Wedding Couple

HENRIK IBSEN, A Doll’s House

*ROBERT SOLOMAN, Romantic Love

*C.S. LEWIS, We Have No “Right” to Happiness

Chapter 9. Families

TILLIE OLSON, I Stand Here Ironing

JOYCE CAROL OATES, Shopping

*MARY HOOD, How Far She Went

*ANNE TYLER, The Artificial Family

*RUDY THAUBERGER, Goalie

THEODORE ROETHKE, My Papa’s Waltz

MAXINE KUMIN, Making the Jam Without You

SHARON OLDS, The Possessive

ROBERT MEZEY, My Mother

SYLVIA PLATH, Metaphors

DONALD HALL, My Son, My Executioner

JAMES MASAO MITSUI, Allowance

NEAL BOWERS, Driving Lesson

*ROBERT HAYDEN, Those Winter Sundays

*MOLLY PEACOCK, Say You Love Me

WAKAKO YAMAUCHI, And Soul Shall Dance

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN, From Father With Love

ANDREW MERTON, When Father Doesn’t Know Best*

Chapter 10. Nature

*ERNEST HEMINGWAY, Hills Like White Elephants

*JACK LONDON, To Build a Fire

KATE CHOPIN, The Storm

DORIS LESSING, Through the Tunnel

EUDORA WELTY, A Worn Path

MORITAKE, Fallen Petals Rise So Kan, If Only We Could

MEISETSU, City People

KYOSHI, The Snake

*WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, The World Is Too much With Us

*GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS, God’s Grandeur

*ELIZABETH BISHOP, The Fish

WILLIAM STAFFORD, Traveling Through the Dark

*DENISE LEVERTOV, To the Snake [include?]

*MARY OLIVER, A Certain Sharpness in the Morning

*MAXINE KUMIN, Woodchucks

*MAGGIE ANDERSON, A Place with Promise

*RICHARD WILBUR, The Writer

*PATRICK MEYERS, K-2

*BARRY HOLSTUN LOPEZ, Landscape and Narrative

*DONELLA MEADOWS, Living Lightly and Inconsistently on the Land

Chapter 11. War and Power

*AMBROSE BIERCE, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

FRANK O’CONNOR, Guests of the Nation

CYNTHIA OZICK, The Shawl

ELIZABETH GORDON, On the Other Side of the War

TIM O’BRIEN, The Things They Carried

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, Mother and Poet

THOMAS HARDY, The Man He Killed

WILFRED OWEN, Dulce et Decorum Est

ARIEL DORFMAN, Hope

WALT WHITMAN, The Dying Veteran

DENISE LEVERTOV, What Were They Like

YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA, Facing It

RADALL JARRELL, Gunner

*MARGARET ATWOOD, At First I Was given Centuries

*CAROLYN FORCHE, The Colonel

SOPHOCLES, Antigone

*ANDREW LAM, Goodbye, Saigon, Finally

*JACQUELINE NVARRA RHOADS, Nurses in Vietnam

*BARBARA KINGSOLVER, And Our Flag Was Still There

Chapter 12. Death

*CHEWING BLACKBONES, Old Man and Old Woman

KATHERINE ANNE PORTER, The Jilting of Granny Weatherall

WILLIAM FAULKNER, A Rose for Emily

ALICE WALKER, To Hell with Dying

*GAIL GODWIN, Dream Children

JOHN DONNE, Death Be Not Proud

e.e. cummings, buffalo bill’s

RUTH WHITMAN, Castoff Skin

EMILY DICKINSON, Apparently With No Surprise

EMILY DICKINSON, I heard a fly buzz¿when I died¿

EMILY DICKINSON, The Bustle in a House

A.E. HOUSMAN, To An Athlete Dying Young

THEODORE ROETHKE, Elegy for Jane

*DENISE LEVERTOV, During a Son’s Dangerous Illness

LANGSTON HUGHES, Night Funeral in Harlem

*MICHAEL LASSELL, How to Watch Your Brother Die

HARVEY FIERSTEIN, On Tidy Endings

*LEWIS THOMAS, On Natural Death

ELIZABETH KUBLER-ROSS, On the Fear of Death

Chapter 13. Three American Poets

*EMILY DICKINSON

ROBERT FROST

*A Critical Casebook on Robert Frost

GWENDOLYN BROOKS

Chapter 14. Connections: Art and Poetry

RANDALL JARRELL, The Knight, Death, and the Devil

Albrecht Durer’s Knight, Death, and the Devil

ANNE SEXTON, The Starry Night

Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night

W.H. AUDEN, Musee des Beaux Arts

Pieter Breughel the Elder’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS, The Dance

Pieter Breughel the Elder’s Peasants Dance

WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS, The Great Figure

Charles Henry Demuth’s I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold

DAVID RAY, A Midnight Diner by Edward Hopper

Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks

SAMUEL YELLEN, Nighthawks

DONALD HALL, The Scream

Edvard Munch’s The Scream

THOM GUNN, Something Approaches

Ander Gunn’s Untitled photograph

NATALIE SAFIR, Matisse’s Dance

Henri Matisse’s Dance

WALLACE STEVENS, The Man With the Blue Guitar

Pablo Picasso’s The Old Guitarist

*ELLEN BRYANT VOIGT, Wormwood: The Penitents

Georgia O’Keefe’s Black Cross, New Mexico

*PATRICIA HAMPL, Woman Before an Aquarium

Henri Matisse’s Woman Before an Aquarium

*ADAM ZAGAJEWSKI, Edgar Degas: The Millinery Shop

Edgar Degas’s The Millinery Shop

*JON STALLWORTHY, Toulouse-Lautrec at the Moulin Rouge

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, At the Moulin Rouge