Contents by Genre
Thematic Table of Contents
Preface
PART ONE Composing: An Overview
1 The Prewriting Process
James Joyce, “Eveline”
2 The Writing Process
Sample Student Paper: First Draft
3 Writing a Convincing Argument
Sample Student Paper (annotated)
Dagoberto Gilb, “Love in L.A.”
4 The Rewriting Process
Sample Student Paper: Final Draft
5 Researched Writing
Sample Documented Student Paper
Sample Published Essay
Explanation of the MLA Documentation Style
PART TWO Writing About Short Fiction
6 How Do I Read Short Fiction?
7 Writing About Structure
Tim O’Brien, “The Things They Carried” MLL
8 Writing About Imagery and Symbolism
Shirley Jackson, “The Lottery”
Sample Student Paper: Second and Final Drafts
9 Writing About Point of View
Alice Walker, “Everyday Use” MLL
10 Writing About Setting and Atmosphere
Tobias Wolff, “Hunters in the Snow”
11 Writing About Theme
Flannery O'Connor, “Good Country People”
Casebook: Joyce Carol Oates’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”
The Story’s Origins
Don Moser. “The Pied Piper of Tucson”
Greg Johnson. From Invisible Writer: A Biography of Joyce Carol Oates
Four Critical Interpretations
Greg Johnson. From Understanding Joyce Carol Oates
Larry Rubin. The Explicator
Joyce Wegs. Journal of Narrative Technique
Mike Tierce and John Michael Crafton. “Connie’s Tambourine Man”
Anthology of Short Fiction
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
“The Birthmark”
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
“The Cask of Amontillado”
Kate Chopin (1851-1904)
“Désirée’s Baby” MLL
“The Story of an Hour” MLL
Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941)
“Hands”
Susan Glaspell (1882-1948)
“A Jury of Her Peers”
D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930)
“The Rocking-Horse Winner”
Katherine Anne Porter (1890-1980)
“The Grave”
Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960)
“Spunk”
William Faulkner (1897-1962)
“A Rose for Emily”
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)
“Hills Like White Elephants”
John Steinbeck (1902-1968)
“The Chrysanthemums”
Richard Wright (1908-1960)
“The Man Who Was Almost a Man”
Tillie Olsen (1913-2007)
“I Stand Here Ironing”
Hisaye Yamamoto (1921- )
“Seventeen Syllables”
Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964)
“A Good Man Is Hard to Find” MLL
Rosario Morales (1930- )
“The Day It Happened” NEW
Chinua Achebe (1930- )
“Dead Men’s Path” NEW
Raymond Carver (1938-1988)
“What We Talk about When We Talk about Love”
Toni Cade Bambara (1939-1995)
“The Lesson” MLL
Bharati Mukherjee (1940- )
“A Father”
Octavia E. Butler (1947-2006)
“Speech Sounds”
T. Coraghessan Boyle (1948- )
“The Love of My Life”
Sandra Cisneros (1954- )
“Geraldo No Name”
Louise Erdrich (1954- )
“The Red Convertible “
Ha Jin (1956- )
“The Bridegroom”
Sherman Alexie (1966- )
“This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona”
A Portfolio of Humorous and Satiric Stories
Frank O’Connor (1903-1966)
“My Oedipus Complex”
Eudora Welty (1909-2001)
“Why I Live at the P. O.”
John Updike (1932- )
“A & P” MLL
Margaret Atwood (1939- )
“Happy Endings” NEW
David Sedaris (1956- )
“Nuit of the Living Dead” NEW
Daniel Orozco (1957- )
“Orientation” NEW
PART THREE Writing About Poetry
12 How Do I Read Poetry?
13 Writing About Persona and Tone
Theodore Roethke, “My Papa’s Waltz”
Thomas Hardy, “The Ruined Maid”
W. H. Auden, “The Unknown Citizen”
Edmund Waller, “Go, Lovely Rose”
Dorothy Parker, “One Perfect Rose”
Sample Student Paper
14 Writing About Poetic Language
Walt Whitman, “A Noiseless Patient Spider”
William Shakespeare, “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?”
Kay Ryan, “Turtle”
Hayden Carruth, “In the Long Hall”
Donald Hall, “My Son My Executioner”
Sample Student Paper: Second and Final Drafts
15 Writing About Poetic Form
Gwendolyn Brooks, “We Real Cool” MLL
A. E. Housman, “Eight O’Clock”
E. E. Cummings, “anyone lived in a pretty how town” MLL
Wole Soyinka, “Telephone Conversation”
Robert Frost, “The Silken Tent” NEW
Billy Collins, “Sonnet”
Roger McGough, “40---Love”
Sample Student Paper
Sample Published Essay on Poetic Form: David Huddle, “The ‘Banked Fire’ of Robert Hayden’s ‘Those Winter Sundays’”
Casebook: The Poetry and Prose of Langston Hughes
Poetry
“The Negro Speaks of Rivers”
“Mother to Son”
“The Weary Blues” MLL
“Saturday Night”
“Trumpet Player”
“Harlem (A Dream Deferred)” MLL
“Theme for English B”
Prose
“Salvation”
“On the Road”
“Thank You, M’am”
Critical Commentaries
Onwuchekwa Jemie, “Hughes and the Black Controversy”
Margaret Larkin, “A Poet for the People”
Richard Wright, “Forerunner and Ambassador”
Karen Jackson Ford, “Do Right to Write Right: Langston Hughes’s Aesthetics of Simplicity”
Peter Townsend, “Jazz and Langston Hughes’s Poetry”
Langston Hughes, “Harlem Rent Parties”
The Art of Poetry
Lisel Mueller (1924- )
“American Literature”
IMAGE: Edward Hopper (1882-1967), Nighthawks, 1942
Samuel Yellen (1906-1983)
“Nighthawks”
Susan Ludvigson (1942- )
“Inventing My Parents”
IMAGE: Peter Brueghel the Elder (c. 1525-1569), Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, c. 1554-55
W. H. Auden (1907-1973)
“Musée des Beaux Arts”
IMAGE: Paolo Uccello, St. George and the Dragon (1470)
U. A. Fanthorpe (1929- )
“Not My Best Side”
IMAGE: Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890), The Starry Night, 1889.
Anne Sexton (1928-1974)
“The Starry Night”
IMAGE: Henri Matisse (1869-1954), The Red Studio, 1911
W. D. Snodgrass (1926- )
“Matisse: ‘The Red Studio’ ”
IMAGE: Kitagawa Utamaro (1754-1806), Two Women Dressing Their Hair, 1794-95
Cathy Song (1952- )
“Beauty and Sadness”
Anthology of Poetry
Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542)
“They Flee from Me”
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
“When in Disgrace with Fortune and Men’s Eyes”
“Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds”
“That Time of Year Thou Mayst in Me Behold”
“My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun”
John Donne (1572-1631)
“The Flea”
“A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”
“Death, Be Not Proud” MLL
Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)
“To His Coy Mistress”
William Blake (1757-1827)
“The Lamb”
“The Tyger” MLL
“The Sick Rose”
“London”
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
“The World Is Too Much with Us”
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
“She Walks in Beauty”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
“Ozymandias” MLL
John Keats (1795-1821)
“Ode on a Grecian Urn” MLL
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
“When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer”
“Song of Myself” (Section 11)
Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)
“Dover Beach” MLL
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
“Faith Is a Fine Invention”
“I’m Nobody! Who Are You?”
“He Put the Belt Around My Life”
“Much Madness Is Divinest Sense”
“Because I Could Not Stop for Death” MLL
“Some Keep the Sabbath Going to Church”
“Wild Nights—Wild Nights!” MLL
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)
“Pied Beauty” MLL
“Spring and Fall”
A. E. Housman (1859-1936)
“To an Athlete Dying Young”
“Loveliest of Trees”
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
“The Second Coming”
“Sailing to Byzantium”
Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)
“We Wear the Mask”
Robert Frost (1874-1963)
“Mending Wall” MLL
“Birches” MLL
“ ‘Out, Out—’” MLL
“Fire and Ice”
“Design”
Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
“Fog”
“Chicago”
William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)
“Danse Russe”
“The Red Wheelbarrow”
D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930)
“Piano”
T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
Claude McKay (1890-1948)
“America”
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)
“Oh, Oh, You Will Be Sorry for That Word”
“First Fig”
E. E. Cummings (1894-1962)
“in Just- ”
“pity this busy monster,manunkind”
Jean Toomer (1894-1967)
“Reapers”
Stevie Smith (1902-1971)
“Not Waving but Drowning”
Countee Cullen (1903-1946)
“Incident”
Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)
“Sweetness, Always”
W. H. Auden (1907-1973)
“Funeral Blues”
“Lullaby”
Theodore Roethke (1908-1963)
“I Knew a Woman”
Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)
“One Art” MLL
May Sarton (1912-1995)
“AIDS”
Karl Shapiro (1913-2000)
“Auto Wreck”
Octavio Paz (1914-1998)
“The Street”
Dudley Randall (1914-2000)
“Ballad of Birmingham” NEW
“To the Mercy Killers”
Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
“The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower”
“Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”
Gwendolyn Brooks (1917- 2000)
“Sadie and Maud”
“The Bean Eaters”
Richard Wilbur (1921- )
“Love Calls Us to the Things of This World”
Philip (1922-1985)
“Home Is So Sad”
James Dickey (1923-1997)
“The Leap”
Maxine Kumin (1925- )
“Woodchucks”
Anne Sexton (1928-1974)
“You All Know the Story of the Other Woman”
Adrienne Rich (1929- )
“Aunt Jennifer's Tigers”
“Living in Sin”
Ruth Fainlight (1931- )
“Flower Feet”
Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)
“Mirror”
John Updike (1932- )
“Ex-Basketball Player”
Imamu Amiri Baraka (1934- )
“Biography”
Audre Lorde (1934-1992)
“Hanging Fire”
Marge Piercy (1936- )
“Barbie Doll” NEW
Seamus Heaney (1939- )
“Digging” MLL
Sharon Olds (1942- )
“The Death of Marilyn Monroe” NEW
“Sex Without Love”
Nikki Giovanni (1943- )
“Dreams”
Gina Valdes (1943- )
“My Mother Sews Blouses”
Edward Hirsch (1950- )
“Execution” NEW
Rita Dove (1952- )
“Daystar”
Alberto Ríos (1952- )
“In Second Grade Miss Lee I Promised Never to Forget You and I Never Did”
Jimmy Santiago Baca (1952- )
“There Are Black”
Judith Ortiz Cofer (1952- )
“Latin Women Pray”
Dorianne Laux (1952- )
“What I Wouldn’t Do”
Tony Hoagland (1953- )
“The Change”
Cornelius Eady (1954- )
“The Supremes”
Louise Erdrich (1954- )
“Indian Boarding School: The Runaways”
Martín Espada (1957- )
“Bully” NEW
Essex Hemphill (1957-1995)
“Commitments” NEW
Nancy A. Henry (1961- )
“People Who Take Care” NEW
Christopher Murray (1967- )
“I Got Beat Up a Lot in High School”
Paired Poems for Comparison
Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)
“The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”
Sir Walter Raleigh (1552?-1618)
“The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd”
Robert Browning (1812-1889)
“My Last Duchess” MLL
Gabriel Spera (1966- )
“My Ex-Husband”
Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
“The Convergence of the Twain”
David R. Slavitt (1935- )
“Titanic”
Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935)
“Richard Cory” MLL
Paul Simon (1942- )
“Richard Cory”
Robert Frost (1874-1963)
“The Road Not Taken”
Blanche Farley (1937- )
“The Lover Not Taken”
William Stafford (1914-1993)
“Traveling through the Dark”
Mary Oliver (1935- )
“The Black Snake”
Robert Hayden (1913-1980)
“Those Winter Sundays”
George Bilgere (1951- )
“Like Riding a Bicycle” NEW
A Portfolio of War Poetry
Richard Lovelace (1618-1657)
“To Lucasta, on Going to the Wars”
Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
“Channel Firing”
Stephen Crane (1871-1900)
“War Is Kind”
Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
“Grass”
Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)
“Dulce et Decorum Est” MLL
E. E. Cummings (1894-1962)
“next to of course god america i”
Wislawa Szymborska (1923- )
“End and Beginning”
Peg Lauber (1938- )
“Six National Guardsmen Blown Up Together” NEW
Yusef Komunyakaa (1947- )
“Facing It”
Dwight Okita (1958- )
“In Response to Executive Order 9066” NEW
A Portfolio of Humorous and Satirical Poems
Don Marquis (1878-1937)
“the lesson of the moth”
Linda Pastan (1932- )
“Marks”
Lucille Clifton (1936- )
“homage to my hips” NEW
Ron Koertge (1940- )
“Cinderella’s Diary” NEW
Billy Collins (1941- )
“Introduction to Poetry” NEW
Craig Raine (1944- )
“A Martian Sends a Postcard Home” NEW
Jan Beatty (1952- )
“A Waitress’s Instructions on Tipping” NEW
Jeanne Marie Beaumont (1954- )
“Afraid So” NEW
Peter Pereira (1959- )
“Reconsidering the Seven” NEW
Jay Leeming (1969- )
“Man Writes Poem” NEW
PART FOUR Writing About Drama
16 How Do I Read a Play?
17 Writing About Dramatic Structure
Sophocles, Antigone MLL
Sample Student Paper
18 Writing About Character
August Wilson, Fences MLL
Casebook Fences: Interpreting Troy Maxson
Frank Rich, “Family Ties in Wilson’s Fences”
Brent Staples, “Fences: No Barrier to Emotion”
August Wilson, “Talking About Fences”
Christine Birdwell, “Death as a Fastball on the Outside Corner”
Carla J. McDonough, “August Wilson: Performing Black Masculinity”
Mary Ellen Snodgrass, “Fences”
19 Writing About Culture
David Henry Hwang, M. Butterfly
Sample Documented Student Paper
Anthology of Drama
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Othello, the Moor of Venice MLL
Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906)
A Doll's House MLL
Susan Glaspell (1882-1948)
Trifles MLL
Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965)
NEW A Raisin in the Sun MLL
A Portfolio of Humorous and Satirical Plays
Fernando Arrabal (1933- )
Picnic on the Battlefield NEW
Jane Martin (1938?- )
Beauty NEW
Luis Valdez (1940- )
Los Vendidos
David Ives (1950- )
Sure Thing
Handbook for Correcting Errors
Critical Approaches for Interpreting Literature
Glossary of Literary and Rhetorical Terms
Other versions by this Author
