The Writer's Presence

982 Pages·2018·14.786 MB·English

by  Donald McQuade, Robert Atwan

2
The Writer’s Presence
A Pool of Readings
3
The Writer’s Presence
A Pool of Readings
NINTH EDITION
EDITED BY
DONALD MCQUADE
University of California, Berkeley
ROBERT ATWAN
Series Editor, The Best American Essays
4
For Bedford/St. Martin’s
Vice President, Editorial, Macmillan Learning Humanities: Edwin Hill
Senior Program Director for English: Leasa Burton
Program Manager: John E. Sullivan III
Marketing Manager: Joy Fisher Williams
Director of Content Development: Jane Knetzger
Senior Development Editor: Rachel Goldberg
Editorial Assistant: William Hwang
Content Project Manager: Louis C. Bruno Jr.
Senior Workflow Project Supervisor: Joe Ford
Production Supervisor: Robin Besofsky
Media Project Manager: Rand Thomas
Senior Manager of Publishing Services: Andrea Cava
Project Management: Lumina Datamatics, Inc.
Composition: Lumina Datamatics, Inc.
Director of Rights and Permissions: Hilary Newman
Photo Researcher: Kerri Wilson/Lumina Datamatics, Inc.
Permissions Editor: Angela Boehler
Senior Art Director: Anna Palchik
Text Design: Tom Carling/Books by Design, Inc.
Cover Design: John Callahan
Cover Image: Lisa Occhipinti
Copyright © 2018, 2015, 2012, 2009 by Bedford/St. Martin’s.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise, except as may be expressly permitted by the applicable copyright statutes or in
writing by the Publisher.
2 1 0 9 8 7
f e d c b a
For information, write: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 75 Arlington Street, Boston, MA 02116
ISBN 978-1-319-11816-7 (epub)
5
Preface for Instructors
As with previous editions of The Writer’s Presence, we began work on this ninth
edition by consulting with people who know the book best — the teachers and
students who use it. Their thoughtful responses and imaginative suggestions helped
us develop an even more effective teaching tool. From them we discovered a great
deal about the pedagogical strategies most useful to students interested in learning
how to read, think, and write with more critical and imaginative intelligence. Most
importantly, students wished to establish a presence in their writing that reflects
their interests, values, and distinctive intellectual imagination.
We designed The Writer’s Presence to achieve three fundamental objectives: to
introduce students to a wide range of prose genres emphasizing a clear and strong
presence and voice; to provide writing instructors maximum flexibility in assigning
reading materials and writing models; and to support composition teachers and
student writers as effectively as possible with helpful, though unobtrusive, editorial
and pedagogical features. The reading materials we selected, the ways we arranged
them, and the instructional resources we provided both in the book and in the
comprehensive instructor’s manual make this a uniquely useful collection to satisfy
the interests and expectations of student writers as well as the institutional
requirements of most first-year writing programs.
The Writer’s Presence combines eminently readable — and teachable —
writing with a simple organization and minimal editorial apparatus. Each selection
showcases a writer’s unique voice and provides students with accessible models
designed to help them develop their own distinctive voices in the writing they
produce. In arranging engaging readings both alphabetically by author and by three
types of writing — personal, expository, and argumentative — this text offers
instructors the freedom to explore a wide range of pedagogical options, readily
adaptable to the specific abilities and needs of particular students.
ENDURING FEATURES OF THE WRITER’S PRESENCE
Memorable Selections with a Strong Writer’s Presence
6
Each selection in The Writer’s Presence displays the distinctive signature that
characterizes memorable prose: the presence of a lively individual imagination. As
the writers collected here attempt to explore the self, shape information into
meaning, or wrestle with challenging issues, their ninety-three essays offer an array
of voices, genres, and styles. Rising stars like Roxane Gay, Yiyun Li, and Eula
Biss join classic authors like Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, and George Orwell
for a grand tour of masterful writing.
Flexible Organization
Divided into three parts — personal writing, expository writing, and argumentative
writing — The Writer’s Presence offers selections that span genres, topics, and
disciplines, for the greatest flexibility in the classroom. Two alternate tables of
contents list the selections by rhetorical mode and by common themes, making the
book easy to use for every type of course structure.
Thought-Provoking, Not Prescriptive, Apparatus
Clear, informative introductions to each part of the book discuss the conventions of
personal, expository, and argumentative essays and provide examples of the
rhetorical strategies common to each type of writing. “On Writing: Practical
Advice from Successful Writers” offers a wealth of engaging quotations that
illustrate how students can establish their own writer’s presence. Instructive
headnotes and stimulating discussion questions (“The Reader’s Presence”) frame
each selection, fostering open-ended connections among the readings. We kept
gloss notes to a judicious minimum — to explain obscure references, biblical and
classical allusions, foreign words and phrases, and words or phrases having special
or archaic meaning. Overall, we made a deliberate effort to create circumstances
for reading and writing to enable students to discover and develop the integrity of
their own reading and writing with the support of their instructors.
Intriguing “Writer at Work” Selections
“The Writer at Work” commentaries provide an intimate glimpse of how writers
view their craft. From Virginia Woolf’s take on freewriting to Rebecca Solnit’s
perspective on the cultural impact of essays, brief supplemental selections draw on
interviews and published work to give insight into the motivations, challenges, and
surprises of the writing life.
7
Exceptional Instructor’s Manual
Penetrating and perceptive, the instructor’s manual draws on decades of classroom
experience and offers superlative pedagogical materials for every selection in The
Writer’s Presence. “Approaching the Essay” commentary helps position and
introduce each piece, and “The Reader’s Presence” explores potential answers to
the critical reading questions in the book. Finally, “Generating Writing” prompts
suggest creative and stimulating ideas for student assignments.
Six Student Essay Examples
Two student essays in each part of the book, including a new annotated student
essay on climate change, model rhetorical strategies for student writers, with plenty
of citation examples.
NEW TO THIS EDITION
Twenty-Nine Timely New Selections on Issues That Matter
Powerful new selections by today’s most important writers invite reading and
rereading. Journalist and National Book Award winner Ta-Nehisi Coates reflects
on how race shaped his Baltimore youth. Writer and activist Rebecca Solnit
explores gender dynamics as she observes the phenomenon of men explaining
things to women. Columnist Greg Lukianoff and social psychologist Jonathan
Haidt caution that campus concerns with “microaggressions” and “trigger
warnings” do a disservice both to free speech and to college students.
Unparalleled Diversity of Authors
The Writer’s Presence boasts the most diverse collection of readings in a college
reader, representing authors from across the spectrum of ethnicities, sexual
orientations, nationalities, religions, and political ideologies. The ninth edition
features thirty-nine women writers and thirty-seven writers of color — more than
in any previous edition. New selections focus on immigration, racial injustice,
sexual violence, transgender identity, political correctness, and gun ownership,
reflecting the diversity of American college campuses today.
A Streamlined Organization
Based on user feedback, we trimmed the contents to focus only on nonfiction
8
essays, with more brief, teachable selections. The result is a slimmer, more
portable collection.
A New “Classic” Callout in the Table of Contents
Classic selections, such as those by E. B. White, Maya Angelou, Joan Didion, and
Frederick Douglass, are called out in the table of contents, drawing attention to
beloved favorites from the past.
WE’RE ALL IN. AS ALWAYS.
Bedford/St. Martin’s is as passionately committed to the discipline of English as
ever, working hard to provide support and services that make it easier for you to
teach your course your way.
Find community support at the Bedford/St. Martin’s English Community
(community.macmillan.com), where you can follow our Bits blog for new teaching
ideas, download titles from our professional resource series, and review projects in
the pipeline.
Choose curriculum solutions that offer flexible custom options, combining
our carefully developed print and digital resources, acclaimed works from
Macmillan’s trade imprints, and your own course or program materials to provide
the exact resources your students need.
Rely on outstanding service from your Bedford/St. Martin’s sales
representative and editorial team. Contact us or visit macmillanlearning.com to
learn more about any of the options below.
Choose from Alternative Formats of The Writer’s Presence
Bedford/St. Martin’s offers a range of formats. Choose what works best for you
and your students:
Paperback To order the paperback edition, use ISBN 978-1-319-05660-5.
Popular e-Book formats For details of our e-Book partners, visit
macmillanlearning.com/ebooks.
Select Value Packages
Add value to your text by packaging any Bedford/St. Martin’s, such as Writer’s
Help 2.0 or LaunchPad Solo for Readers and Writers, with The Writer’s Presence
9
at a significant discount. Contact your sales representative for more information.
LaunchPad Solo for Readers and Writers allows students to work on what
they need help with most. At home or in class, students learn at their own pace,
with instruction tailored to each student’s unique needs. LaunchPad Solo for
Readers and Writers features:
Pre-built units that support a learning arc. Each easy-to-assign unit is
composed of a pre-test check, multimedia instruction and assessment, and a
post-test that assesses what students learned about critical reading, writing
process, using sources, grammar, style, and mechanics. Dedicated units also
offer help for multilingual writers.
Diagnostics that help establish a baseline for instruction. Assign
diagnostics to identify areas of strength and improvement, and to help
students plan a course of study. Use visual reports to track performance by
topic, class, and student as well as improvement over time.
A video introduction to many topics. Introductions offer an overview of
the unit’s topic, and many include a brief, accessible video to illustrate the
concepts at hand.
Twenty-five reading selections with comprehension quizzes. Assign a
range of classic and contemporary essays, each of which includes a label
indicating Lexile level, to help you scaffold instruction in critical reading.
Adaptive quizzing for targeted learning. Most units include
LearningCurve, game-like adaptive quizzing that focuses on areas in which
each student needs the most help.
Order ISBN 978-1-319-19303-4 to package LaunchPad Solo for Readers and
Writers with The Writer’s Presence at a significant discount. Students who rent or
buy a used book can purchase access, and instructors may request free access, at
macmillanlearning.com/readwrite.
Writer’s Help 2.0 is a powerful online writing resource that helps students find
answers, whether they are searching for writing advice on their own or as part of an
assignment.
Smart search. Built on research with more than 1,600 student writers, the
smart search in Writer’s Help provides reliable results even when students
use novice terms, such as flow and unstuck.
Trusted content from our best-selling handbooks. Choose Writer’s Help
2.0, Hacker Version, or Writer’s Help 2.0, Lunsford Version, and ensure that
students have clear advice and examples for all their writing questions.
10