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An Introduction to Literature

LITERATURE FOR COMPOSITION

ELEVENTH EDITION

SYLVAN BARNET WILLIAM BURTO WILLIAM E. CAIN CHERYL NIXON

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LITERATURE FOR COM POSITION

A n Introduction to Literature

ELEVENTH EDITION

BARNET BURTO CAIN

NIXON

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E L E V E N T H E D I T I O N

Literature for Composition An Introduction to Literature

Sylvan Barnet Tufts University

William Burto University of Massachusetts at Lowell

William E. Cain Wellesley College

Cheryl L. Nixon University of Massachusetts at Boston

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Names: Barnet, Sylvan, editor. | Burto, William, editor. | Cain, William E., date-editor. | Pearson, Cheryl L. Nixon, editor. Title: Literature for composition : an introduction to literature / [edited by] Sylvan Barnet, William Burto, William E. Cain, Cheryl L. Nixon Pearson. Description: Eleventh edition. | Boston : Pearson, 2016. | Previous editions had other title information: essays, stories, poems, and plays. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015048640| ISBN 9780134099149 (student edition) | ISBN 0134099141 (student edition) | ISBN 9780134101774 (exam copy) | ISBN 0134101774 (exam copy) Subjects: LCSH: College readers. | English language—Rhetoric—Problems, exercises, etc. | Criticism—Authorship—Problems, exercises, etc. | Academic writing—Problems, exercises, etc. Classification: LCC PE1417 .L633 2016 | DDC 808/.0427—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015048640

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Contents

Contents by Genre xxiii Preface xxvii

P A R T I

Thinking Critically about Literature

C H A P T E R 1 How to Write an Effective Essay about Literature: A Crash Course 1

The Basic Strategy 1 Reading Closely: Approaching a First Draft 2

✔ Checklist: Generating Ideas for a Draft 5 Writing and Revising: Achieving a Readable Draft 6

✔ Checklist: Writing and Revising a Draft 9 Revising: Working with Peer Review 9 Preparing the Final Draft 10

C H A P T E R 2 How to Engage in Critical Thinking about Literature: A Crash Course 11

The Basic Strategy 11 What Is Critical Thinking? 12 How Do We Engage in Critical Thinking? 13 Close Reading 14

✔ Checklist: Close Reading 15 Analysis: Inquiry, Interpretation, Argument 15

Inquiry 16 ✔ Checklist: Inquiry and Question-Asking 17 Interpretation 18 ✔ Checklist: Interpretation 19 Argument 19 ✔ Checklist: Argument 20

Comparison and Synthesis 21 ✔ Checklist: Comparison and Synthesis 22

Revision and Self-Awareness 22 Standing Back: Kinds of Writing 23 Nonanalytical versus Analytical Writing 23

v

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C H A P T E R 3 The Writer as Reader 25 Reading and Responding 25

KATE CHOPIN • Ripe Figs 25 Reading as Re-creation 26 Reading for Understanding: Collecting Evidence and Making Reasonable

Inferences 27 Reading with Pen in Hand: Close Reading and Annotation 28 Reading for Response: Recording First Reactions 29 Reading for Inquiry: Ask Questions and Brainstorm Ideas 30 Reading in Context: Identifying Your Audience and Purpose 31

From Reading to Writing: Developing an Analytical Essay with an Argumentative Thesis 32

Student Analytical Essay: “Images of Ripening in Kate Chopin’s ‘Ripe Figs’” 32 The Analytical Essay: Argument and Structure Analyzed 34 The Writing Process: From First Responses to Final Essay 35 Other Possibilities for Writing 37

From Reading to Writing: Moving from Brainstorming to Analytical Essay 37 BRUCE HOLLAND ROGERS • Three Soldiers 37 The Writing Process: From Response Writing to Final Essay 38 Student Analytical Essay: “Thinking about Three Soldiers Thinking” 39 The Analytical Essay: The Development of Ideas Analyzed 42

From Reading to Writing: Moving from Preliminary Outline to Analytical Essay 43 RAY BRADBURY • August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains 43 The Writing Process: From Outlining to Final Essay 47 Student Analytical Essay: “The Lesson of ‘August 2026’” 48

Your Turn: Additional Stories for Analysis 51 MICHELE SERROS • Senior Picture Day 51 HARUKI MURAKAMI • On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful

April Morning 56 JOHN UPDIKE • A & P 59

C H A P T E R 4 The Reader as Writer 64 Developing Ideas through Close Reading and Inquiry 64

Getting Ideas 64 Annotating a Text 64 KATE CHOPIN • The Story of an Hour 65 Brainstorming Ideas 66 Focused Freewriting 67 Listing Ideas, Details, and Quotations 67 Asking Questions 68 Keeping a Journal 69

Developing a Thesis through Critical Thinking 70 Arguing with Yourself 70 Arguing a Thesis 71 ✔ Checklist: The Thesis Sentence 72

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From Reading to Writing to Revising: Drafting an Argument in an Analytical Essay 72 Student Analytical Essay: “Ironies in an Hour” (Preliminary Draft) 73 Revising an Argument 75 Outlining an Argument 75 Soliciting Peer Review, Thinking about Counterarguments 76

From Reading to Writing to Revising: Finalizing an Analytical Essay 77 Student Analytical Essay: “Ironies of Life in Kate Chopin’s ‘The Story of an

Hour’” (Final Draft) 77 The Analytical Essay: The Final Draft Analyzed 80

From Reading to Writing to Revising: Drafting an Analytical Essay 80 KATE CHOPIN • Désirée’s Baby 80 Student Analytical Essay: “Race and Identity in ‘Désirée’s Baby’” 84

From Reading to Writing to Revising: Drafting a Comparison Essay 87 KATE CHOPIN • The Storm 87 Student Comparison Essay: “Two New Women” 91 The Comparison Essay: Organization Analyzed 94

Your Turn: Additional Stories for Analysis 95 DAGOBERTO GILB • Love in L.A. 95 ELIZABETH TALLENT • No One’s a Mystery 97 JUNOT DíAZ • How to Date a Brown Girl (Black Girl, White Girl, or Halfie) 100 T. CORAGHESSAN BOYLE • Greasy Lake 103 MARY HOOD • How Far She Went 110

C H A P T E R 5 The Pleasures of Reading, Writing, and Thinking about Literature 116

The Pleasures of Literature 116 ALLEN WOODMAN • Wallet 117

The Pleasures of Analyzing the Texts That Surround Us 118 The Pleasures of Authoring Texts 119 The Pleasures of Interacting with Texts 120 Interacting with Fiction: Literature as Connection 121

JAMAICA KINCAID • Girl 122 Personal Response Essay 123

Student Personal Response Essay: “The Narrator in Jamaica Kincaid’s ‘Girl’: Questioning the Power of Voice” 123

Interacting with Graphic Fiction: Literature as (Making and Breaking) Rules 127 LYNDA BARRY • Before You Write 128

Interacting with Poetry: Literature as Language 129 JULIA BIRD • 14: a txt msg poM 130 BILLY COLLINS • Twitter Poem 131

Interacting with Drama: Literature as Performance 131 OSCAR WILDE • Excerpt from The Importance of Being Earnest 132

Interacting with Essays: Literature as Discovery 134 ANNA LISA RAYA • It’s Hard Enough Being Me 135

Your Turn: Additional Poems, Stories, and Essay for Pleasurable Analysis 138

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Poems JIMMY SANTIAGO BACA • Green Chile 138 ALBERTO RIOS • Nani 140 WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS • This Is Just to Say 141 HELEN CHASIN • The Word Plum 142 GARY SOTO • Oranges 143 SARAH N. CLEGHORN • The Golf Links 145 STEVIE SMITH • Not Waving but Drowning 145

Stories AMBROSE BIERCE • An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge 146 MARGARET ATWOOD • Happy Endings 153

Essay GEORGE SAUNDERS • Commencement Speech on Kindness 156

P A R T I I

Writing Arguments about Literature

C H A P T E R 6 Close Reading: Paraphrase, Summary, and Explication 165

What Is Literature? 165 Literature and Form 165 Form and Meaning 167 ROBERT FROST • The Span of Life 167

Close Reading: Reading in Slow Motion 169 Exploring a Poem and Its Meaning 170

LANGSTON HUGHES • Harlem 170 Paraphrase 171 Summary 173 Explication 175

Working toward an Explication 176 Student Explication Essay: “Langston Hughes’s ‘Harlem’” 178

Explication as Argument 180 ✔ Checklist: Drafting an Explication 182 Student Argumentative Explication Essay: “Giving Stamps Personality in

‘Stamp Collecting’” 182 CATHY SONG • Stamp Collecting 183

Your Turn: Additional Poems for Explication 187 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE • Sonnet 73 188 JOHN DONNE • Holy Sonnet XIV 189 EMILY BRONTË • Spellbound 189 LI-YOUNG LEE • I Ask My Mother to Sing 190 RANDALL JARRELL • The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner 191

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C H A P T E R 7 Analysis: Inquiry, Interpretation, and Argument 192

Analysis 192 Understanding Analysis as a Process of Inquiry, Interpretation, and Argument 193 Analyzing a Story from the Hebrew Bible: The Judgment of Solomon 194

The Judgment of Solomon 194 Developing an Analysis of the Story 195 Opening Up Additional Ways to Analyze the Story 196

Analyzing a Story from the New Testament: The Parable of the Prodigal Son 197 The Parable of the Prodigal Son 198 Asking Questions that Trigger an Analysis of the Story 198

From Inquiry to Interpretation to Argument: Developing an Analytical Paper 199 ERNEST HEMINGWAY • Cat in the Rain 200 Close Reading 202 Inquiry Questions 203 Interpretation Brainstorming 204 The Argument-Centered Paper 205 Student Argument Essay: “Hemingway’s American Wife” 206 From Inquiry to an Analytical Paper: A Second Example 208 Student Analytical Essay: “Hemingway’s Unhappy Lovers” 210

Breaking Down the Analytical Essay 213 Choosing a Topic and Developing a Thesis 213 Developing an Argument 215

Introductory Paragraphs 215 Middle Paragraphs 217 Concluding Paragraphs 218 Coherence in Paragraphs: Using Transitions 219 ✔ Checklist: Revising Paragraphs 219

From Inquiry to Interpretation to Argument: Organizing Ideas in an Analytical Paper 220

JAMES JOYCE • Araby 220 Finding and Organizing an Interpretation 224 Student Analytical Essay: “Everyday and Imagined Settings in ‘Araby’” 226

From Inquiry to Interpretation to Argument: Maintaining an Interpretation in an Analytical Paper 231

APHRA BEHN • Song: Love Armed 231 Maintaining Interpretive Interest Notes 231 Student Analytical Essay: “The Double Nature of Love” 233 ✔ Checklist: Editing a Draft 235

Your Turn: Additional Short Stories and Poems for Analysis 236 Stories

EDGAR ALLAN POE • The Cask of Amontillado 236 LESLIE MARMON SILKO • The Man to Send Rain Clouds 242

Poems BILLY COLLINS • Introduction to Poetry 245 ROBERT FROST • The Road Not Taken 246

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JOHN KEATS • Ode on a Grecian Urn 247 MARTÍN ESPADA • Bully 249

C H A P T E R 8 Pushing Analysis Further: Reinterpreting and Revising 251

Interpretation and Meaning 251 Is the Author’s Intention a Guide to Meaning? 252 What Characterizes a Sound Interpretation? 252 Interpreting Pat Mora’s “Immigrants” 253 PAT MORA • Immigrants 254 ✔ Checklist: Developing an Interpretation 255

Strategy #1: Pushing Analysis by Rethinking First Responses 255 JEFFREY WHITMORE • Bedtime Story 257 DOUGLAS L. HASKINS • Hide and Seek 258 MARK PLANTS • Equal Rites 258

Strategy #2: Pushing Analysis by Exploring Literary Form 259 ✔ Checklist: Using Formal Evidence in an Analytical Essay 260 LANGSTON HUGHES • Mother to Son 261 Student Analytical Essay: “Accepting the Challenge of a Difficult Climb in

Langston Hughes’s ‘Mother to Son’” 264 Strategy # 3: Pushing Analysis by Emphasizing Concepts and Insights 268

ROBERT FROST • Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening 269 Student Analytical Essay: “Stopping by Woods—and Going On” 270 Analyzing the Analytical Essay’s Development of a Conceptual

Interpretation 273 Student Analytical Essay: “‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’ as a

Short Story” 274 Strategy #4: Pushing Analysis through Revision 278

Revising for Ideas versus Mechanics 278 Revising Using Instructor Feedback, Peer Feedback, and Self-Critique 278 Examining a Preliminary Draft with Revision in Mind 279 HA JIN • Saboteur 280 Student Analytical Essay: “Morals in Ha Jin’s ‘Saboteur’” (Preliminary Draft) 287 Developing a Revision Strategy: Thesis, Ideas, Evidence, Organization, and

Correctness 288 ✔ Revision Checklist 289 Student Analytical Essay: “Individual and Social Morals in Ha Jin’s ‘Saboteur’”

(Final Draft) 291 Your Turn: Additional Poems and Story for Interpretation 297 Poems

T. S. ELIOT • The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock 297 THOMAS HARDY • The Man He Killed 301 ANNE BRADSTREET • Before the Birth of One of Her Children 302 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI • After Death 303 FRED CHAPPELL • Narcissus and Echo 304

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Story JOYCE CAROL OATES • Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? 305

C H A P T E R 9 Comparison and Synthesis 317 Comparison and Critical Thinking 317 Organizing a Comparison Essay 318 Comparison and Close Reading 320 Comparison and Asking Questions 322 Comparison and Analyzing Evidence 323 Comparison and Arguing with Yourself 323

E. E. CUMMINGS • Buffalo Bill ’s 324 ✔ Checklist: Developing a Comparison 328

Synthesis through Close Reading: Analyzing a Revised Short Story 328 RAYMOND CARVER • Mine 329 RAYMOND CARVER • Little Things 330

Synthesis through Building a Concept Bridge: Connecting Two Poems 332 THYLIAS MOSS • Tornados 333 KWAME DAWES • Tornado Child 333

Synthesis Using Theme 336 SANDRA CISNEROS • Barbie-Q 337 MARYANNE O’HARA • Diverging Paths and All That 338 JAYNE ANNE PHILLIPS • Sweethearts 339

Synthesis Using Form 341 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE • Sonnet 18: Shall I Compare Thee to a

Summer’s Day? 342 HOWARD MOSS • Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day? 342 Student Comparison Essay: “Condensing Shakespeare: A Comic Re-writing of a

Shakespeare Sonnet” 342 ✔ Checklist: Revising a Comparison 348

Your Turn: Additional Poems and Stories for Comparison and Synthesis 348 Carpe Diem (“Seize The Day”) Poems

ROBERT HERRICK • To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time 348 CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE • The Passionate Shepherd to His Love 349 SIR WALTER RALEIGH • The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd 350 ANDREW MARVELL • To His Coy Mistress 351 JOHN DONNE • The Bait 353

Poems about Blackberries GALWAY KINNELL • Blackberry Eating 354 SYLVIA PLATH • Blackberrying 355 SEAMUS HEANEY • Blackberry-Picking 356 YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA • Blackberries 357

Poems about America WALT WHITMAN • I Hear America Singing 359 LANGSTON HUGHES • I, Too [Sing America] 359

Stories about Reading and Writing

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JULIO CORTÁZAR • The Continuity of Parks 361 A. M. HOMES • Things You Should Know 362

Stories about Grandmothers LAN SAMANTHA CHANG • Water Names 364 KATHERINE ANNE PORTER • The Jilting of Granny Weatherall 368

C H A P T E R 10 Research: Writing with Sources 374 Creating a Successful Research Plan 374

Enter Research with a Plan of Action 374 What Resources Does Your Institution Offer? 375 What Type of Research Do You Want to Do? 376

Selecting a Research Topic and Generating Research Questions 376 Use Close Reading as Your Starting Point 376 Select Your Topic 377 Skim Resources through Preliminary Research 377 Narrow Your Topic, and Form a Working Thesis 377 Generate Key Concepts as Keywords 380 Create Inquiry Questions 380

Locating Materials through Productive Searches 381 Generate Meaningful Keywords 382 ✔ Checklist: Creating Meaningful Keywords for a Successful Search 382

Using Academic Databases to Locate Materials 382 Search the MLA Database 382 Search Full-Text Academic Databases 383 Perform Advanced Keyword Searches 383 Evaluate the Results List, and Revise Your Search 384 Evaluate the Individual Titles 384

Using the Library Catalog to Locate Materials 385 Locate Books and Additional Resources 386 Use a Catalog Entry to Locate More Sources 386

Using the Internet to Perform Meaningful Research 387 Locate Academic Sites on the Internet 388 Locate Information-Rich Sites on the Internet 389 Avoid Commercial Sites on the Internet 389 Locate Well-known Literary Sites on the Internet 389 Locate Primary Sources on the Internet 389

Evaluating Sources for Academic Quality 390 ✔ Checklist: Evaluating Web Sites for Quality 390

Evaluating Sources for Topic “Fit” 392 ✔ Checklist: Evaluating Sources for Topic “Fit” 393

Taking Notes on Secondary Sources 395 A Guide to Note Taking 395

Drafting the Research Paper 399 Focus on Primary Sources 400

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Integrate Secondary Sources 400 Create a Relationship between Your Writing and the Source 400 Surround the Source with Your Writing 401 Agree with a Source in Order to Develop Your Ideas 401 Apply a Source in Order to Develop Your Ideas 401 Disagree with a Source in Order to Develop Your Ideas 402 Synthesize Critics’ Ideas to Show Scholarly Debate 403

Avoiding Plagiarism 403 Student Research Essay: “Dickinson’s Representation of Changing Seasons and

Changing Emotions” 404

P A R T I I I

Analyzing Literary Forms and Elements

C H A P T E R 11 Reading and Writing about Essays 415 Types of Essays 415 Elements of Essays 416

The Essayist’s Persona 416 Voice 417 Tone 417 Topic and Thesis 418 BRENT STAPLES • Black Men and Public Space 419 ✔ Checklist: Getting Ideas for Writing about Essays 421

Student Writing Portfolio Summary Paper 422 Writing a Summary Paper 422 Annotation: Reading for Information 424 Note Taking: Using Inquiry Notes to Summarize Information 425

Inquiry: Paragraph-by-Paragraph Notes 425 Crafting a Thesis and Creating a Concise Summary 426

Drafting: Crafting a Strong Thesis 426 Drafting: Creating a Concise Summary 428 Student Summary Paragraph: Summary Paragraph on Staples

(Preliminary Draft) 429 Revision: Using a Revision Strategy 430

✔ Revision Checklist 430 Revision: Revising to Integrate Evidence 430 Student Summary Paragraph: “Exploring Racial Fear: A Summary of Brent

Staples’ ‘Black Men and Public Spaces’” (Final Draft) 431 Your Turn: Additional Essays for Analysis 431

LANGSTON HUGHES • Salvation 432 LAURA VANDERKAM • Hookups Starve the Soul 433 STEVEN DOLOFF • The Opposite Sex 435 GRETEL EHRLICH • About Men 437

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C H A P T E R 12 Reading and Writing about Stories 440 Stories True and False 440

GRACE PALEY • Samuel 441 Elements of Fiction 443

Character 443 Plot 444 Foreshadowing 445 Setting and Atmosphere 446 Symbolism 446 Narrative Point of View 448 Style and Point of View 449 Theme 450 WILLIAM FAULKNER • A Rose for Emily 451 ✔ Checklist: Getting Ideas for Writing about Stories 457

Student Writing Portfolio Analytical Paper 460 Writing an Analytical Paper 460 Annotation: Reading for Form and Content 461 Note Taking: Using Inquiry Notes to Generate Ideas 462

Inquiry: Double- (or Triple-) Entry Notes 462 Inquiry: Listing Notes 463 Inquiry: Journal Writing 464

Drafting: Creating an Argument and Explaining Your Interpretation 465 Student Analytical Essay: “Homer’s Murder in ‘A Rose for Emily’”

(Preliminary Draft) 466 Revision: Using a Revision Strategy 469

✔ Revision Checklist 470 Revision: Revising to Strengthen the Thesis 470 Revision: Revising to Develop Ideas 471 Revision: Revising to Improve Organization 472 Student Analytical Essay: “The Townspeople’s Responsibility for

Homer’s Murder in ‘A Rose for Emily’” (Final Draft) 474 Your Turn: Additional Stories for Analysis 480

KATHERINE MANSFIELD • Miss Brill 481 TIM O’BRIEN • The Things They Carried 484 GABRIEL GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ • A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings:

A Tale for Children 495 An Author in Depth: Flannery O’Connor 500

FLANNERY O’CONNOR • A Good Man Is Hard to Find 500 Remarks from Essays and Letters 511

From “The Fiction Writer and His Country” 511 From “Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction” 512 From “The Nature and Aim of Fiction” 512 From “Writing Short Stories” 513 On Interpreting “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” 513 “A Reasonable Use of the Unreasonable” 514

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C H A P T E R 13 Reading and Writing about Graphic Fiction 517

Letters and Pictures, Words and Images 517 Reading an Image: A Short Story Told in One Panel 520

TONY CARRILLO • F Minus 520 Elements of Graphic Fiction 522

Visual Elements 522 Narrative and Graphic Jumps 523 Graphic Style 523

Reading a Series of Images: A Story Told in Sequential Panels 524 ART SPIEGELMAN • Nature vs. Nurture 525 ✔ Checklist: Getting Ideas for Writing Arguments about Graphic Fiction 527

Your Turn: Additional Graphic Fiction for Analysis 529 WILL EISNER • Hamlet on a Rooftop 529 R. CRUMB and DAVID ZANE MAIROWITZ • A Hunger Artist 541

C H A P T E R 14 Reading and Writing about Plays 547 Types of Plays 547

Tragedy 547 Comedy 549

Elements of Drama 550 Theme 550 Plot 550 Gestures 552 Setting 552 Characterization and Motivation 553 ✔ Checklist: Getting Ideas for Writing Arguments about Plays 554

Thinking about a Film Version of a Play 555 Getting Ready to Write about a Filmed Play 556 ✔ Checklist: Writing about a Filmed Play 556

Student Writing Portfolio Comparison Paper 557 Writing a Comparison Paper 557

SUSAN GLASPELL • Trifles 558 SUSAN GLASPELL • A Jury of Her Peers 567

Annotation: Marginal Notes 582 Comparison as a Form of Critical Thinking 584 Inquiry Notes: Comparison Grid 584 Inquiry Notes: Journal Writing 585 Drafting and Revision: Using Comparison to Create Interpretation and Argument 587

Student Analytical Essay: “Trifles, the Play, versus ‘A Jury of Her Peers,’ the Short Story” (Preliminary Draft) 587

Revision: Using a Revision Strategy 593 ✔ Revision Checklist 593

Revision: Revising to Develop Ideas 594

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Revision: Revising to Clarify Style 595 ✔ Writing Style Checklist 595 Student Analytical Essay: “The Dramatic Action of Trifles: Making the

Audience into Detectives” (Final Draft) 597 Your Turn: Additional Plays for Analysis 605 A Modern Comedy 605

DAVID IVES • Sure Thing 606 A Note on Greek Tragedy 614 A Greek Tragedy 616

SOPHOCLES • Antigone 616 An Author in Depth: William Shakespeare 640

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 640 A Note on the Elizabethan Theater 641 A Note on Hamlet on the Stage 642 A Note on the Text of Hamlet 646 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE • The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark 652 ANNE BARTON • The Promulgation of Confusion 756 STANLEY WELLS • On the First Soliloquy 759 ELAINE SHOWALTER • Representing Ophelia 761 BERNICE W. KLIMAN • The BBC Hamlet: A Television Production 762 WILL SARETTA • Branagh’s Film of Hamlet 764

C H A P T E R 15 Reading and Writing about Poems 766 Elements of Poetry 766

The Speaker and the Poet 766 EMILY DICKINSON • I’m Nobody! Who are you? 766 EMILY DICKINSON • Wild Nights—Wild Nights 768 The Language of Poetry: Diction and Tone 769 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE • Sonnet 146 769 Figurative Language 770 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE • Sonnet 130 772 Imagery and Symbolism 773 EDMUND WALLER • Song 773 WILLIAM BLAKE • The Sick Rose 774 Verbal Irony and Paradox 775 Structure 775

Rhythm and Versification: A Glossary for Reference 776 Meter 777 Patterns of Sound 780 Stanzaic Patterns 781 BILLY COLLINS • Sonnet 782 Blank Verse and Free Verse 783 ✔ Checklist: Getting Ideas for Writing Arguments about Poems 783

Student Writing Portfolio Explication Paper 785 Writing an Explication Paper 785

✔ Checklist: Explication 786 GWENDOLYN BROOKS • kitchenette building 787

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Annotation: Highlighting First Reactions 788 Explication as a Form of Critical Thinking 789 Annotation: Rereading and Adding Inquiry Questions 790 Inquiry: Mapping, Clustering, and Creating Graphic Notes 791 Inquiry: Journal Writing 793 Drafting and Revision: Explaining a Close Reading 794

Student Explication Essay: “Life in a ‘kitchenette building’” (Preliminary Draft) 795

Revision: Using a Revision Strategy 798 ✔ Revision Checklist 798

Revision: Revising to Strengthen the Thesis 799 Revision: Revising to Integrate and Explain Evidence 800

Student Analytical Essay: “The Contest between Dreams and Everyday Life in Brooks’s ‘kitchenette building’” (Final Draft) 802

Your Turn: Additional Poems for Analysis 807 ROBERT BROWNING • My Last Duchess 807 E. E. CUMMINGS • Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town 809 SYLVIA PLATH • Daddy 811 GWENDOLYN BROOKS • We Real Cool 813 ETHERIDGE KNIGHT • For Malcolm, a Year After 814 ANNE SEXTON • Her Kind 815 JAMES WRIGHT • Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine

Island, Minnesota 816 An Author in Depth: Robert Frost 817 Robert Frost on Poetry 818

ROBERT FROST • The Figure a Poem Makes 818 ROBERT FROST • The Pasture 819 ROBERT FROST • Mowing 820 ROBERT FROST • The Wood-Pile 820 ROBERT FROST • The Oven Bird 821 ROBERT FROST • The Need of Being Versed in Country Things 822 ROBERT FROST • The Most of It 823 ROBERT FROST • Design 824

P A R T I V

Enjoying Literary Themes: A Thematic Anthology

C H A P T E R 16 The World around Us 825 Essays

HENRY DAVID THOREAU • Where I Lived, and What I Lived For 825 HENRY DAVID THOREAU • The Ponds 825 BILL MCKIBBEN • Now or Never 828

Stories AESOP • The Ant and the Grasshopper 832 AESOP • The North Wind and the Sun 833

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xviii Contents

JACK LONDON • To Build a Fire 833 SARAH ORNE JEWETT • A White Heron 844 PATRICIA GRACE • Butterflies 850

Poems MATTHEW ARNOLD • In Harmony with Nature 852 THOMAS HARDY • Transformations 853 GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS • God’s Grandeur 854 WALT WHITMAN • A Noiseless Patient Spider 855 EMILY DICKINSON • A Narrow Fellow in the Grass 856 EMILY DICKINSON • There’s a certain Slant of light 857 EMILY DICKINSON • The name—of it—is ‘Autumn’ 857 JOY HARJO • Vision 858 MARY OLIVER • The Black Walnut Tree 859 KAY RYAN • Turtle 860

Chapter Overview: Looking Backward/Looking Forward 861

C H A P T E R 17 Technology and Human Identity 862 Essay

NICHOLAS CARR • Is Google Making Us Stupid? 862 Stories

KURT VONNEGUT, JR. • Harrison Bergeron 870 AMY STERLING CASIL • Perfect Stranger 874 MARK TWAIN • A Telephonic Conversation 884 MARIA SEMPLE • Dear Mountain Room Parents 887 ROBIN HEMLEY • Reply All 890 JOHN CHEEVER • The Enormous Radio 895 RAY BRADBURY • The Veldt 902 STEPHEN KING • Word Processor of the Gods 912 KIT REED • The New You 924

Poems WALT WHITMAN • To a Locomotive in Winter 931 EMILY DICKINSON • I Like to See it Lap the Miles 932 DANIEL NYIKOS • Potato Soup 933 A. E. STALLINGS • Sestina: Like 934 MARCUS WICKER • Ode to Browsing the Web 935

Play LUIS VALDEZ • Los Vendidos 937

Chapter Overview: Looking Backward/Looking Forward 946

C H A P T E R 18 Love and Hate, Men and Women 948 Essay

JUDITH ORTIZ COFER • I Fell in Love, or My Hormones Awakened 948 Stories

ZORA NEALE HURSTON • Sweat 953 JHUMPA LAHIRI • This Blessed House 961

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Contents xix

Poems ANONYMOUS • Western Wind 972 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE • Sonnet 116 972 JOHN DONNE • A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning 973 EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY • Love Is Not All: It Is Not Meat

nor Drink 975 ROBERT BROWNING • Porphyria’s Lover 976 NIKKI GIOVANNI • Love in Place 978 ANONYMOUS • Higamus, Hogamus 979 DOROTHY PARKER • General Review of the Sex Situation 979 FRANK O’HARA • Homosexuality 980 MARGE PIERCY • Barbie Doll 981

Play TERRENCE MCNALLY • Andre’s Mother 982

Chapter Overview: Looking Backward/Looking Forward 985

C H A P T E R 19 Innocence and Experience 986 Essay

GEORGE ORWELL • Shooting an Elephant 986 Stories

CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN • The Yellow Wallpaper 991 JOHN STEINBECK • The Chrysanthemums 1002 ALICE WALKER • Everyday Use 1010

Poems WILLIAM BLAKE • Infant Joy 1016 WILLIAM BLAKE • Infant Sorrow 1017 WILLIAM BLAKE • The Lamb 1018 WILLIAM BLAKE • The Tyger 1018 THOMAS HARDY • The Ruined Maid 1019 E. E. CUMMINGS • in Just- 1020 LOUISE GLÜCK • The School Children 1021 LINDA PASTAN • Ethics 1022 THEODORE ROETHKE • My Papa’s Waltz 1023 SHARON OLDS • Rites of Passage 1024 NATASHA TRETHEWEY • White Lies 1025

Chapter Overview: Looking Backward/Looking Forward 1026

C H A P T E R 20 All in a Day’s Work 1028 Essay

BARBARA EHRENREICH • Wal-Mart Orientation Program 1028 Stories

JACOB GRIMM AND WILHELM GRIMM • Mother Holle 1031 WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS • The Use of Force 1034 WILL EISNER • The Day I Became a Professional 1037 DANIEL OROZCO • Orientation 1041

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xx Contents

Poems WILLIAM WORDSWORTH • The Solitary Reaper 1045 CARL SANDBURG • Chicago 1046 GARY SNYDER • Hay for the Horses 1048 ROBERT HAYDEN • Those Winter Sundays 1049 SEAMUS HEANEY • Digging 1049 JULIA ALVAREZ • Woman’s Work 1050 MARGE PIERCY • To be of use 1051 JIMMY SANTIAGO BACA • So Mexicans Are Taking Jobs from

Americans 1052 Plays

JANE MARTIN • Rodeo 1054 ARTHUR MILLER • Death of a Salesman 1057

Chapter Overview: Looking Backward/Looking Forward 1123

C H A P T E R 21 American Dreams and Nightmares 1125 Essays

CHIEF SEATTLE • My People 1125 ELIZABETH CADY STANTON • Declaration of Sentiments and

Resolutions 1128 ABRAHAM LINCOLN • Address at the Dedication of the Gettysburg

National Cemetery 1132 STUDS TERKEL • Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Dream 1133 ANDREW LAM • Who Will Light Incense When Mother’s Gone? 1135

Stories SHERMAN ALEXIE • The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven 1137 RALPH ELLISON • Battle Royal 1142 TONI CADE BAMBARA • The Lesson 1152 AMY TAN • Two Kinds 1158

Poems ROBERT HAYDEN • Frederick Douglass 1166 LORNA DEE CERVANTES • Refugee Ship 1167 EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON • Richard Cory 1168 W. H. AUDEN • The Unknown Citizen 1169 EMMA LAZARUS • The New Colossus 1170 THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH • The Unguarded Gates 1171 JOSEPH BRUCHAC III • Ellis Island 1172 AURORA LEVINS MORALES • Child of the Americas 1174 GLORIA ANZALDÚA • To Live in the Borderlands Means You 1175 MITSUYE YAMADA • To the Lady 1177 nila northSUN • Moving Camp Too Far 1179 YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA • Facing It 1180 BILLY COLLINS • The Names 1182

Play LORRAINE HANSBERRY • A Raisin in the Sun 1185

Chapter Overview: Looking Backward/Looking Forward 1240

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Contents xxi

C H A P T E R 22 Law and Disorder 1241 Essay

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. • Letter from Birmingham Jail 1242 Stories

ELIZABETH BISHOP • The Hanging of the Mouse 1254 URSULA K. LE GUIN • The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas 1257 SHIRLEY JACKSON • The Lottery 1261 WILLIAM FAULKNER • Barn Burning 1267 TOBIAS WOLFF • Powder 1279

Poems ANONYMOUS • Birmingham Jail 1282 A. E. HOUSMAN • The Carpenter’s Son 1284 A. E. HOUSMAN • Oh who is that young sinner 1285 DOROTHY PARKER • Résumé 1286 CLAUDE MCKAY • If We Must Die 1287 JIMMY SANTIAGO BACA • Cloudy Day 1287 CAROLYN FORCHÉ • The Colonel 1289 HAKI MADHUBUTI • The B Network 1290 JILL MCDONOUGH • Three a.m. 1291

Play BILLY GODA • No Crime 1292

Chapter Overview: Looking Backward/Looking Forward 1296

C H A P T E R 23 Journeys 1297 Essay

JOAN DIDION • On Going Home 1297 Stories

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE • Young Goodman Brown 1299 EUDORA WELTY • A Worn Path 1308 JAMES JOYCE • Eveline 1313 RAYMOND CARVER • Cathedral 1317

Poems JOHN KEATS • On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer 1326 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY • Ozymandias 1327 ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON • Ulysses 1328 COUNTEE CULLEN • Incident 1330 WILLIAM STAFFORD • Traveling through the Dark 1331 ADRIENNE RICH • Diving into the Wreck 1332 DEREK WALCOTT • A Far Cry from Africa 1335 SHERMAN ALEXIE • On the Amtrak from Boston to New York City 1336 WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS • Sailing to Byzantium 1338 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI • Uphill 1339

Play HENRIK IBSEN • A Doll’s House 1340

Chapter Overview: Looking Backward/Looking Forward 1390

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xxii Contents

A P P E N D I X A Writing about Literature: an Overview of Critical Strategies 1391

The Nature of Critical Writing 1391 Criticism as Argument: Assumptions and Evidence 1391 Some Critical Strategies 1392

Formalist Criticism (New Criticism) 1393 Deconstruction 1394 Reader-Response Criticism 1394 Archetypal Criticism (Myth Criticism) 1395 Historical Criticism 1396 Biographical Criticism 1397 Marxist Criticism 1397 New Historicist Criticism 1398 Psychological or Psychoanalytic Criticism 1398 Gender Criticism (Feminist, and Lesbian and Gay Criticism) 1399

Your Turn: Putting Critical Strategies to Work 1401

A P P E N D I X B The Basics of Manuscript Form 1403 Basic Manuscript Form 1403 Quotations and Quotation Marks 1404

Quotation Marks or Italics? 1406 A Note on the Possessive 1406

Documentation: Internal Parenthetical Citations and a List of Works Cited (MLA Format) 1406

Internal Parenthetical Citations 1407 Parenthetical Citations and List of Works Cited 1407 Forms of Citation in Works Cited 1409

Citing Internet Sources 1415 ✔ Checklist: Citing Sources on the Web 1415

Credits 1417 Index of Authors, Titles, First Lines 1427 Index of Terms 1435

A01_BARN9149_11_SE_FM.indd 22 03/02/16 1:44 pm

xxiii

Contents by Genre Essays Anne Barton The Promulgation of

Confusion 756 Nicholas Carr Is Google Making Us

Stupid? 862 Judith Ortiz Cofer I Fell in Love, or My

Hormones Awakened 948 Joan Didion On Going Home 1297 Steven Doloff The Opposite Sex 435 Barbara Ehrenreich Wal-Mart

Orientation Program 1028 Gretel Ehrlich About Men 437 Langston Hughes Salvation 431 Martin Luther King Jr. Letter from

Birmingham Jail 1241 Bernice W. Kliman The BBC Hamlet:

A Television Production 762 Andrew Lam Who Will Light Incense

When Mother’s Gone? 1135 Abraham Lincoln Address at the

Dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery 1132

Bill McKibben Now or Never 828

George Orwell Shooting an Elephant 986

Anna Lisa Raya It’s Hard Enough Being Me 135

George Saunders Commencement Speech on Kindness 156

Will Saretta Branagh’s Film of Hamlet 764

Chief Seattle My People 1125 Elizabeth Cady Stanton Declaration of

Sentiments and Resolutions 1128 Brent Staples Black Men and Public

Space 419 Elaine Showalter Representing

Ophelia 761 Studs Terkel Arnold Schwarzenegger’s

Dream 1133 Henry David Thoreau From

Walden 825 Laura Vanderkam Hookups Starve the

Soul 433 Stanley Wells On the First Soliloquy 759

Short Stories Aesop The Ant and the Grasshopper 832

The North Wind and the Sun 833 Sherman Alexie The Lone Ranger and

Tonto Fistfight in Heaven 1137 Anonymous The Judgment of

Solomon 194 The Parable of the Prodigal Son 198

Margaret Atwood Happy Endings 152 Toni Cade Bambara The Lesson 1152 Ambrose Bierce An Occurrence at Owl

Creek Bridge 146 Elizabeth Bishop The Hanging of the

Mouse 1254 T. Coraghessan Boyle Greasy Lake 103 Ray Bradbury August 2026: There Will

Come Soft Rains 43 The Veldt 902

Raymond Carver Cathedral 1317 Mine 329 Little Things 330

Lan Samantha Chang Water Names 364 John Cheever The Enormous Radio 894 Kate Chopin Ripe Figs 25

The Story of an Hour 65 Désirée’s Baby 80 The Storm 87

Sandra Cisneros Barbie-Q 336 Julio Cortázar The Continuity of

Parks 360 Junot Diaz How to Date a Brown Girl,

Black Girl, White Girl, or Halfie 100 Will Eisner The Day I Became a

Professional 1037 Ralph Ellison Battle Royal 1142

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xxiv Contents by Genre

William Faulkner A Rose for Emily 451 Barn Burning 1267

Amy Sterling Casil Perfect Stranger 874 Dagoberto Gilb Love in L.A. 95 Charlotte Perkins Gilman The Yellow

Wallpaper 991 Susan Glaspell A Jury of Her Peers 567 Patricia Grace Butterflies 850 Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm

Grimm Mother Holle 1031 Ursula K. Le Guin The Ones Who Walk

Away from Omelas 1256 Douglas L. Haskins Hide and Seek 258 Nathaniel Hawthorne Young Goodman

Brown 1299 Ernest Hemingway Cat in the Rain 199 Robin Hemley Reply All 890 A.M. Homes Things You Should

Know 362 Mary Hood How Far She Went 110 Zora Neale Hurston Sweat 952 Shirley Jackson The Lottery 1261 Sarah Orne Jewett A White Heron 843 Ha Jin Saboteur 280 James Joyce Araby 220

Eveline 1313 Jamaica Kincaid Girl 121 Stephen King Word Processor of the

Gods 911 Jhumpa Lahiri This Blessed House 960 Jack London To Build a Fire 833 Katherine Mansfield Miss Brill 480 Gabriel García Márquez A Very

Old Man with Enormous Wings: A Tale for Children 495

Haruki Murakami On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning 55

Joyce Carol Oates Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? 305

Tim O’Brien The Things They Carried 484

Flannery O’Connor A Good Man Is Hard to Find 500

Maryanne O’Hara Diverging Paths and All That 338

Daniel Orozco Orientation 1041 Grace Paley Samuel 440 Dorothy Parker A Telephone Call Edgar Allan Poe The Cask of

Amontillado 236 Mark Plants Equal Rites 258 Jayne Anne Phillips Sweethearts 338 Katherine Anne Porter The Jilting of

Granny Weatherall 367 Kit Reed The New You 924 Bruce Holland Rogers Three Soldiers 37 Maria Semple Dear Mountain Room

Parents 887 Michele Serros Senior Picture Day 51 Leslie Marmon Silko The Man to Send

Rain Clouds 241 John Steinbeck The

Chrysanthemums 1002 Elizabeth Tallent No One’s a Mystery 97 Amy Tan Two Kinds 1158 Mark Twain A Telephonic

Conversation 884 John Updike A & P 58 Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Harrison

Bergeron 869 Alice Walker Everyday Use 1009 Eudora Welty A Worn Path 1308 Jeffrey Whitmore Bedtime Story 257 William Carlos Williams The Use of

Force 1033 Tobias Wolff Powder 1279 Allen Woodman Wallet 117

Drama Susan Glaspell Trifles 558 Billy Goda No Crime 1292 Lorraine Hansberry A Raisin in the

Sun 1184 Henrik Ibsen A Doll’s House 1340 David Ives Sure Thing 605 Jane Martin Rodeo 1054 Terrence McNally Andre’s Mother 982

Arthur Miller Death of a Salesman 1056 William Shakespeare The Tragedy of

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark 652 Sophocles Antigone 616 Luis Valdez Los Vendidos 937 Oscar Wilde Excerpt from The Importance

of Being Ernest 132

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Contents by Genre xxv

Thomas Bailey Aldrich The Unguarded Gates 1171

Sherman Alexie On the Amtrak from Boston to New York City 1336

Julia Alvarez Woman’s Work 1050 Anonymous Higamus, Hogamus 979

Western Wind 972 Birmingham Jail 1282

Gloria Anzaldúa To Live in the Borderlands Means You 1175

W. H. Auden The Unknown Citizen 1169

Matthew Arnold In Harmony with Nature 851

Aphra Behn Song: Love Armed 231 Julia Bird 14: a txt msg pom 130 William Blake The Sick Rose 774

Infant Joy 1016 Infant Sorrow 1017 The Lamb 1018 The Tyger 1018

Jimmy Santiago Baca Green Chili 138 So Mexicans Are Taking Jobs from

Americans 1052 Cloudy Day 1287

Anne Bradstreet Before the Birth of One of Her Children 302

Emily Brontë Spellbound 189 Gwendolyn Brooks kitchenette

building 787 We Real Cool 813

Robert Browning My Last Duchess 807

Porphyria’s Lover 976 Joseph Bruchac III Ellis Island 1172 Lorna Dee Cervantes Refugee

Ship 1167 Fred Chapelle Narcissus and

Echo 304 Helen Chasin The Word Plum 142 Sarah N. Cleghorn The Golf Links 144 Billy Collins Introduction to Poetry 245

Twitter Poem 131 Sonnet 782 The Names 1181

Countee Cullen Incident 1330 E. E. Cummings Buffalo Bill ’s 324

anyone lived in a pretty how town 809 in Just- 1020

Kwame Dawes Tornado Child 333

Emily Dickinson I’m Nobody! Who are you? 766

Wild Nights—Wild Nights 768 A Narrow Fellow in the Grass 856 I Like to see it lap the Miles 932 There’s a certain Slant of light 857 The name—of it—is “Autumn” 857

John Donne Holy Sonnet XIV 188 The Bait 352 A Valediction: Forbidding

Mourning 973 T. S. Eliot The Love Song of J. Alfred

Prufrock 297 Martin Espada Bully 249 Carolyn Forché The Colonel 1289 Robert Frost The Span of Life 167

The Road Not Taken 246 Stopping by Woods on a Snowy

Evening 269 The Pasture 819 Mowing 820 The Wood-Pile 820 The Oven Bird 821 The Need of Being Versed in Country

Things 822 The Most of It 823 Design 824

Nikki Giovanni Love in Place 978 Louise Glück The School Children 1021 Thomas Hardy The Man He Killed 301

Transformations 853 The Ruined Maid 1019

Joy Harjo Vision 858 Robert Hayden Those Winter

Sundays 1048 Frederick Douglass 1166

Seamus Heaney Blackeberry-Picking 356 Digging 1049

Robert Herrick To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time 348

Gerard Manley Hopkins God’s Grandeur 853

A. E. Housman The Carpenter’s Son 1283

Oh who is that young sinner 1285 Langston Hughes Harlem 170

Mother to Son 261 I, Too [Sing America] 359

Randall Jarrell The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner 191

Poetry

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xxvi Contents by Genre

John Keats Ode on a Grecian Urn 247 On First Looking into Chapman’s

Homer 1326 Galway Kinell Blackberry Eating 354 Etheridge Knight For Malcolm, a Year

After 814 Yusef Komunyakaa Blackberries 357

Facing It 1180 Emma Lazarus The New Colossus 1170 Li-Young Lee I Ask My Mother to Sing 190 Christopher Marlowe The Passionate

Shepherd to His Love 349 Andrew Marvell To His Coy Mistress 351 Haki Madhubuti The B Network 1290 Jill McDonough Three a.m. 1291 Claude McKay If We Must Die 1286 Edna St. Vincent Millay Love Is Not All: It

Is Not Meat nor Drink 975 Pat Mora Immigrants 253 Aurora Levins Morales Child of the

Americas 1174 Thylias Moss Tornados 332 Howard Moss Shall I Compare Thee to a

Summer’s Day 342 nila northSun Moving Camp Too

Far 1179 Daniel Nyikos Potato Soup 933 Frank O’hara Homosexuality 980 Sharon Olds Rites of Passage 1024 Mary Oliver The Black Walnut Tree 859 Dorothy Parker General Review of the Sex

Situation 979 Résumé 1286

Linda Pastan Ethics 1022 Marge Piercy Barbie Doll 981

To be of use 1051 Sylvia Plath Blackberrying 355

Daddy 810 Sir Walter Raleigh The Nymph’s Reply to

the Shepherd 350 Alberto Rios Nani 139

Edwin Arlington Robinson Richard Cory 1168

Theodore Roethke My Papa’s Waltz 1023 Christina Rossetti After Death 303

Uphill 1339 Kay Ryan Turtle 860 Carl Sandburg Chicago 1046 Anne Sexton Her Kind 815 William Shakespeare Sonnet 73 187

Sonnet 18: Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day? 342

Sonnet 146 769 Sonnet 130 772 Sonnet 116 (Let me not to the marriage of

true minds) 972 Percy Bysshe Shelley Ozymandias 1327 Stevie Smith Not Waving but Drowning 145 Gary Snyder Hay for the Horses 1047 Cathy Song Stamp Collecting 183 Gary Soto Oranges 143 William Stafford Traveling through the

Dark 1331 A. E. Stallings Sestina: Like 934 Alfred, Lord Tennyson Ulysses 1328 Natasha Trethewey White Lies 1025 Derek Walcott A Far Cry from Africa 1335 Edmund Waller Song (Go, lovely rose) 773 Walt Whitman I Hear America Singing 358

A Noiseless Patient Spider 855 To a Locomotive in Winter (from Leaves of

Grass) 931 Marcus Wicker Ode to Browsing the

Web 935 James Wright Lying in a Hammock at

William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota 816

William Carlos Williams This Is Just to Say 141

Mitsuye Yamada To the Lady 1177 William Butler Yeats Sailing to

Byzantium 1337

Graphic Fiction Lynda Barry Before You Write 128 Tony Carrillo F Minus 520 R. Crumb and David Zane Mairowitz

A Hunger Artist 540

Will Eisner Hamlet on a Rooftop 529 Art Spiegelman Nature vs. Nurture 524 Grant Wood Death on the Ridge Road 518

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Preface to Instructors Literature for Composition is based on the assumption that students in composition or literature courses should encounter first-rate writing—not simply competent prose, but the powerful reports of experience that have been recorded by highly skilled writers of the past and present, reports of experiences that must be shared.

We assume that you share our belief that the study of such writing offers plea- sure and insight into life and also leads to increased skill in communicating. Here, at the beginning, we want to point out that the skills we emphasize in our discus- sions of communication are relevant not only to literature courses but to all courses in which students analyze texts or write arguments.

What Is New in the Eleventh Edition? Instructors who are familiar with earlier editions will notice that we retain our em- phasis on critical thinking and argument. For the convenience of instructors who have used an earlier edition, we briefly summarize here the major changes:

New Essays, Short Stories, Poems

• Essays by Nicholas Carr (“Is Google Making Us Stupid?) and George Saunders (“Commencement Speech on Kindness”).

• Short stories by Haruki Murakami (“On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl…”), Junot Diaz (“How to Date a Brown Girl, Black Girl, White Girl, or Halfie”), Jhumpa Lahiri (“This Blessed House”), Dagoberto Gilb (“Love in L.A.”), and Lan Samantha Chang (“Water Names”), among others.

• Poems by Billy Collins (“Twitter Poem”), Walt Whitman (“To a Locomotive in Winter”), Thylias Moss (“Tornados”), Sylvia Plath (“Blackberrying”), Seamus Heaney (“Blackberry-Picking”), Alberto Rios (“Nani”), and Helen Chasin (“The Word Plum”), among others.

New Thematic Chapter on Technology and Human Identity

• A new Chapter 17 in Part 4, comprised of selections from a mix of classic and contemporary authors, provides a lens through which students can see how technology both informs and impedes our lives. Several stories use sci- ence fiction elements to imagine utopian and dystopian futures. Authors in this chapter include Mark Twain, Stephen King, Maria Semple, Ray Brad- bury, John Cheever, and Amy Sterling Casil.

Reimagined Thematic Chapters

• Thematic chapters have been collapsed and combined to promote ease of use and to avoid repetition. Each theme has been carefully cultivated to feature the most representative selections for that theme.

xxvii

A01_BARN9149_11_SE_FM.indd 27 03/02/16 1:44 pm

xxviii Preface

New Chapter on Research

• An extensive new Chapter 10 on research walks students step-by-step through the process, from creating a research plan and selecting a topic to locating and evaluating sources and avoiding plagiarism. Woven throughout the chapter is one student’s writing process, culminating with a paper on Emily Dickinson’s use of nature imagery.

New Chapter on Critical Thinking about Literature

• A streamlined Chapter 2 provides an overview of critical thinking early in the text, defining the term and discussing the importance of close reading, analysis, and synthesis.

New Chapter on Close Reading

• A revised Chapter 6 on close reading now includes discussions of both para- phrasing and summarizing, complete with new student samples.

New Chapter on the Pleasures of Reading, Writing, and Thinking about Literature

• A revised Chapter 5 designed to help students think productively about their writing, this material has been updated to reflect contemporary writing (such as blogging and texting) and now contains examples from each of the genres represented in the text, complete with a new personal response essay and new selections.

New Chapter on Comparison and Synthesis

• A new Chapter 9 on comparison walks students through drafting and revis- ing to final production of this type of paper, with student samples through- out.

New Student Writing Portfolios

• Part 3 contains four unique, genre-specific student writing portfolios. These self-contained portfolios (located in Chapters 11, 12, 14, and 15) each pres- ent one student’s writing process step-by-step, from assignment to finished product. Every portfolio is framed with a brief description of the paper “type,” a short assignment that defines the writing, and helpful marginal an- notations next to each step of the student’s writing process, which highlight notable structures and provide guidance for readers to emulate in their own writing.

New Checklists

• Designed to help students produce successful writing, even more checklists are now included in the text at key points in the writing process, including ideas for generating a draft, revising a comparison essay, and evaluating sources for topic “fit.”

A01_BARN9149_11_SE_FM.indd 28 03/02/16 1:44 pm

Preface xxix

More Student Samples of Works-in-Progress

• Throughout the text, every part of the writing process is demonstrated through student models. In addition, Part 3 contains four self-contained, genre-specific student writing portfolios that each showcase one student’s writing process for a particular assignment.

Key Features Here are the key features of the eleventh edition of Literature for Composition.

Extensive instruction in composition: Students are guided through the entire process of writing (especially writing arguments), beginning with generating ideas (for instance, by listing or by annotating a text), developing a thesis, supporting the thesis with evidence, and on through the final stages of documenting and editing. Twenty-four sample student essays are included; most are prefaced with the stu- dents’ preliminary notes, some include first and revised drafts, and some are annotated or otherwise analyzed. Each literary genre chapter includes a new “Student Writing Portfolio” that collects sample materials generated by each step of the writing process, demonstrating how a paper evolves from initial note taking to a final draft.

Strategies for writing effective arguments: The eleventh edition focuses on argument and evaluation, not only in the case studies, but also in the discussion topics that follow every reading (headed “Joining the Conversation: Critical Thinking and Writing”). We emphasize the importance of questioning one’s own assumptions— a key principle in critical thinking—and we also emphasize the importance of pro- viding evidence in the course of setting forth coherent, readable arguments.

Wide range of literary selections: The book includes some three hundred selections, ranging from ancient classics such as Sophocles’s Antigone to works written in the twenty-first century by authors such as Junot Diaz and Jhumpa Lahiri.

Abundant visual material, with suggestions about visual analysis: The book is rich in photographs. The images are chosen to enhance the student’s understanding of particular works of literature. For example, we include photos of Buffalo Bill and a facsimile of a draft of E. E. Cummings’s poem about Buffalo Bill. This edition also remains strong in its representation of graphic fiction.

Introductory genre anthology: After preliminary chapters on generating ideas and thinking critically, students encounter chapters devoted to essays, fiction, drama, and poetry.

Thematic anthology: The chapters in Part 4 are arranged under eight themes: The World around Us; Technology and Human Identity; Love and Hate, Men and Women; Innocence and Experience; All in a Day’s Work; American Dreams and Nightmares; Law and Disorder; and Journeys.

Case studies: The three case studies presented in this book (“An Author in Depth”) give a variety of perspectives for writing arguments and organizing research: Flan- nery O’Connor (page 500), William Shakespeare (page 640), and Robert Frost (page 817).

A01_BARN9149_11_SE_FM.indd 29 03/02/16 1:44 pm

xxx Preface

Extensive material on research and the Internet: Because instructors are in- creasingly assigning research papers, the eleventh edition includes material on implementing a productive research plan that incorporates electronic resources, provides up-to-date instruction on evaluating, using, and citing electronic sources, and features a new student research paper that uses electronic resources.

Checklists: Twenty-two checklists focus on topics such as revising paragraphs, editing a draft, and using the Internet. Students can use these checklists to become peer readers of their writing.

Resources for Instructors Instructor’s Manual with detailed comments and suggestions for teaching each selection. This important resource also contains references to critical articles and books that we have found to be the most useful. ISBN 0134101642

REVEL™ is Pearson’s newest way of delivering our respected content. Fully digital and highly engaging, REVEL™ offers an immersive learning experience designed for the way today’s students read, think, and learn. Enlivening course content with media interactives and assessments, REVEL™ empowers educators to increase engagement with the course, and to better connect with students.

With an emphasis on critical thinking and argument, REVEL™ for Literature for Composition offers superior coverage of reading, writing, and arguing about literature enhanced by an array of multimedia interactives that prompt student engagement. Throughout REVEL’s™ flexible online environment, the authors dem- onstrate that the skills emphasized in their discussions of communication are rel- evant not only to literature courses, but to all courses in which students analyze texts or write arguments.

Acknowledgments We would like to thank the following reviewers, who provided their feedback during the revision of the eleventh edition: Karen Guerin, Bossier Parish Commu- nity College; Mary Hubbard, Northwest Arkansas Community College; Jennifer Laufenberg, Bossier Parish Community College; Megan Looney, Northwest Arkan- sas Community College; Joanna Mann, Northwest Arkansas Community College; Timothy McGinn, Northwest Arkansas Community College; Tabitha Miller, Pitt Community College; Stephanie Noll, Texas State University—San Marcos; John Padgett, Brevard College; and Jennifer Wiley, Pima Community College.

In preparing the first eleven editions of Literature for Composition, we were indebted to Cieltia Adams, Elizabeth Addison, Jonathan Alexander, James Allen, Alexander Ames, Kathleen Anderson-Wyman, Larry Armstrong, William D. Atwill, Patricia Baldwin, Mary J. Balkun, Daniel Barwick, David Beach, Daniel Bender, Billie Bennet, Mary Anne Bernal, Phyllis Betz, Kenneth R. Bishop, Margaret Blayney, Bertha Norman Booker, John P. Boots, Paul Keith Boran, Pam Bourgeois, Noelle Brada- Williams, Carol Ann Britt, Jennifer Bruer, Robin W. Bryant, Sharon Buzzard, Kathleen Shine Cain, Diana Cardenas, William Carpenter, Evelyn Cartright, Allan Chavkin, Mike Chu, Alan P. Church, Melinda Cianos, Dennis Ciesielski, Arlene Clift-Pellow,

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Preface xxxi

Walter B. Connolly, Stanley Corkin, Linda Cravens, Morgan Cutterini, Donald A. Daiker, Bruce Danner, Phebe Davidson, Thomas Deans, Beth DeMeo, John Desjar- lais, Emily Dial-Driver, John Dobelbower, Ren Draya, James Dubinsky, Gail Duffy, Bill Elliott, Leonard W. Engel, William Epperson, Gareth Euridge, Martin J. Fertig, Shelley Fischer, Elinor C. Flewellen, Kay Fortson, Marie Foster, Donna Friedman, Larry Frost, Loris Galford, Charlene Gill, Esther Godfrey, Dwonna Goldstone, Jes- sica Beth Gordon, Kim Greenfield, Chris Grieco, Susan Grimland, Debbie Hanson, Dorothy Hardman, Sandra H. Harris, Syndey Harrison, Sally Harrold, Tom Hayes, Keith Haynes, Michael Hennessey, Mary Herbert, Ana B. Hernandez, Maureen Hoag, Allen Hoey, Diane Houston, Elizabeth Howells, Clayton Hudnall, Joyce A. Ingram, Craig Johnson, Michael Johnson, Angela Jones, Kristianne Kalata, Rodney Keller, Beth Kemper, Glenn Klopfenstein, Alison Kuehner, Donya Lancaster, The- resa René LeBlanc, Regina Lebowitz, Margaret Lindgren, John Loftis, Robert Lynch, Maria Makowiecka, Twister Marquiss, Phil Martin, Kate Massengale, Dennis McDon- ald, Sara McKnight Boone, Delma McLeod-Porter, Linda McPherson, Bill McWil- liams, Martin Meszaros, Zack Miller, JoAnna S. Mink, Dorothy Minor, Owen Mon- roe, Wayne Moore, Charles Moran, Patricia G. Morgan, Nancy Morris, Jonathan Morrow, Christina Murphy, Richard Nielson, Sean Nighbert, David Norlin, Torria Norman, Marsha Nourse, Shanna O’Berry, John O’Connor, Chris Orchard, Phyllis Orlicek, Eric Otto, Suzanne Owens, Janet Palmer, James R. Payne, Stephanie Pel- kowski, Elizabeth Gassel Perkins, Don K. Pierstorff, Gerald Pike, Kenneth Poff, Louis H. Pratt, John Prince, Sharon Prince, Michael Punches, David Raymond, Samantha Regan, Bruce A. Reid, Thomas Reynolds, Linda Robertson, Lois Sampson, Terry Santos, Daniel Schierenbeck, Jim Schwartz, Sigmar J. Schwarz, Robert Schwe- gler, Linda Scott, Herbert Shapiro, William Shelley, David Slater, Janice Slaughter, Martha Ann Smith, Tiga Spitsberg, Judith Stanford, Pam Stinson, Darlene Strawser, Geri Strecker, Jim Streeter, Timothy Stuart, Anthony Stubbs, David Sudol, Beverly Swan, Leesther Thomas, Raymond L. Thomas, Susan D. Tilka, Mary Trachsel, Dorothy Trusock, Billie Varnum, John H. Venne, Mickey Wadia, Nancy Walker, Betty Weldon, Patrick White, Jonathon Wild, Bertha Wise, Arthur Wohlgemuth, Cary Wolfe, Linda Woodson, Sallie Woolf, Kathy J. Wright, Rebecca Wright, Carlson Yost, Dennis Young, and Gary Zacharias.

No book of this kind gets done without a great deal of assistance from the publisher. We received insightful editorial guidance from Joe Terry and Anne Brunell Ehrenworth. Donna Campion (project manager at Pearson) kept things moving smoothly, and Donna Conte expertly copyedited the manuscript. Lois Lombardo (project manager at Cenveo) efficiently solved innumerable last-minute problems, and Gina Cheselka handled the difficult job of securing text permissions.

Sylvan Barnet William Burto

William e. Cain Cheryl l. Nixon

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1

C h a p t e r 1

How to Write an Effective Essay about Literature: A Crash

Course

Chapter Preview

After reading this chapter, you will be able to

• Approach the first draft of an essay purposefully

• Revise a draft effectively

• Participate in the peer review process

• Prepare a final draft of an essay

The Basic Strategy Students have assured us that the following suggestions for writing analytical essays are helpful.

• Choose a topic and a tentative thesis, generating an argument. Aim to explore concepts that can be interpreted and developed rather than to sum- marize information.

• Generate ideas through analysis, engaging in a process of inquiry, inter- pretation, and argument. For instance, ask yourself inquiring questions such as “Why did the author—a woman—tell the story from the point of view of this male character rather than that female character?” and “Does this story give me some insight into family relationships?” Formulate interpretations based on your best questions and answers.

• Select and evaluate evidence, using specific details from the text to develop and support your ideas.

• Make a tentative outline of points that you plan to make. • Rough out a first draft, working from your outline (don’t worry about

spelling, punctuation, etc.), but don’t hesitate to depart from the outline when new ideas come to you in the process of writing.

• Make large-scale revisions in your draft by reorganizing, adding details to clarify and support assertions, or deleting or combining paragraphs.

• Make small-scale revisions by revising and editing sentences, and check- ing spelling and grammar.

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2 Chapter 1 How to Write an Effective Essay about Literature: A Crash Course

• Revise your opening and concluding paragraphs. Be certain that they are interesting, not mere throat-clearing and not a mere summary.

• Have someone read your revised draft and comment on it. • Revise again, taking into account the reader’s suggestions. Read this latest

version and make further revisions as needed so that your thesis—your argument—is evident.

• Proofread your final version.

All writers must work out their own procedures and rituals, but the following basic suggestions will help you write effective essays. They assume that you have made annotations in the margins of the literary text and have jotted notes in a journal, on index cards, or in a file of documents on your computer. If your paper involves using sources, consult also Chapter 10, “Research: Writing with Sources.”

Reading Closely: Approaching a First Draft

1. Carefully read and reread the work or works you will write about, annotating as you read. Read with a pen in hand, and take notes in the margins of the text. Do not hesitate to reread the sections of the work that are most relevant to your subject, jotting down new notes and brainstorm- ing new interpretations.

2. Keep your purpose in mind. Although your instructor may ask you, per- haps as a preliminary writing assignment, to jot down your early responses— your initial experience of the work—it is more likely that he or she will ask you to write an analysis in which you will connect details, draw inferences, and argue that such and such is the case. That is, almost surely you will be asked to do more than write a summary or to report your responses; you will be asked to engage with the conceptual ideas raised by the work. You prob- ably will be expected to support a thesis, to make a claim, and offer an argu- ment, for example: “The metaphors are chiefly drawn from nature and, broad- ly speaking, they move from sky and sea to the earth and to human beings, which is to say that they become closer at hand, more immediate, more personal.”

3. Choose a worthwhile and interesting subject, and work to generate a thesis argument about that subject. As you determine what you will write about, choose something that interests you and is not so big that your handling of it must be superficial. As you work, shape your topic, narrow- ing it, for example, from “Characterization in Updike’s ‘A & P’” to “Updike’s Use of Contrasting Characters in ‘A & P.’”

Don’t expect to have a sound thesis at the very beginning of your working on an essay. The thesis will probably come to you only after you have done some close reading and have stimulated ideas by asking yourself questions. Almost surely you will see that the initial thesis needs to be modified in the light of evi- dence that you encounter. It might be helpful to think of this writing as creating a working thesis, knowing that you will modify, expand, contract, and change the focus of your thesis as your ideas develop. In short, your thesis will evolve in the course of thinking about what you are reading.

An essay that analyzes a work will not only offer an argument but will also support the argument with evidence. Even an explication—a sort of line-by-line

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Reading Closely: Approaching a First Draft 3

paraphrase (see Chapter 6)—presents an argument, holding that the work conveys a certain meaning. Your analysis will break down the whole of the work into parts and investigate the relationships among those parts. Your argument will show off your critical thinking about the literary work, demonstrating how you engage in original interpretation by highlighting meaningful aspects of the text, drawing inferences, connecting details, and extrapolating larger concepts.

In thinking about your purpose, remember, too, that your audience will, in effect, determine the amount of detail that you must give. Although your instructor may, in reality, be your only reader, probably you should imagine that your audi- ence consists of people like your classmates—intelligent but not especially familiar with the topic on which you have recently become a specialist. In putting yourself into the shoes of your imagined readers, think of reasonable objections the readers might raise, and respond appropriately to these objections.

4. Keep looking at the literary work you are writing about, jotting down brainstorming notes on all relevant matters.

• You can generate ideas for writing about the issues raised by essays, stories, plays, and poems by asking yourself questions such as those given in the Checklists on pages 419–20, 455–57, 525–27, 554–55, and 783–85.

• As you look and think, reflect on your observations, and record them. • As you look and think, move beyond plot summary and information-

based reading. Move toward engagement with the concepts—the most compelling ideas, issues, and concerns—raised by the literary work.

• When you have an idea, jot it down as a marginal annotation on the book or on a Post-it note attached to the margin of the book page. Don’t assume that you will remember your ideas when you begin writing. Develop a strategy for collecting ideas that move beyond marginal anno- tations, allowing your notes to becoming more detailed and interpretive. Many people will keep a journal to jot down brainstorming ideas, develop a system of using 4-by-6-inch index cards, or take notes in electronic files on a laptop or iPad or similar tablet device.

• As you develop your note-taking and brainstorming record, embed orga- nizational techniques within it. For example, if you use index cards, put only one point on each card, and write a brief caption on the card (e.g., “Significance of title,” or “Night = death???” Later you can arrange the cards so that relevant notes are grouped together. Similarly, if you take brain- storming notes in a journal, leave room to label each page or document; if you take notes on a computer, create a system of clearly labeled files and folders.

• Become comfortable rereading your own notes and marking them up. Circle or highlight your best ideas. Jot down more notes next to your original notes, continuing to develop your thinking.

5. When you are taking notes from secondary sources, do not simply highlight or photocopy.

• Take brief notes, summarizing important points and jotting down your own critiques of the material.

• Read the material analytically, thoughtfully, and with an open mind and a questioning spirit.

• When you read in this attentive and tentatively skeptical way, you will find that the material is valuable not only for what it tells you but also for the ideas that you yourself produce in responding to it.

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4 Chapter 1 How to Write an Effective Essay about Literature: A Crash Course

6. Sort out your notes, putting together what belongs together. The process of rereading and rethinking your own ideas allows you to hone and strengthen your ideas as you organize them. As a first step, create groupings of like ideas. Three notes about the texture of the materials of a building, for instance, probably belong together. Note cards can easily be rearranged to bring connected ideas together. If you are working on a com- puter, cut and paste similar ideas into one document or one subsection of a document. If you are taking notes in a journal, skim through your earlier notes, and rewrite connected ideas on a fresh page. As you select your best ideas, set aside your weakest ideas. Don’t hesitate to delete ideas, moving them into a different file, knowing that you can always return to them later. Reject notes that are irrelevant to your topic.

7. Organize your notes into a reasonable sequence. Your notes contain ideas (or at least facts that you can think about); now the notes have to be put into a coherent sequence. Think of the relationships among your ideas: Is one idea the overarching idea and must come first? Does one idea lead to the next, creating a sequence? Does one idea offer a minor observation and might best become a subpoint presented “under” a more important argument? Does one idea rely on information that is presented in another section and thus could come later in the argument? When you have made a tentative arrangement, review it; you may discover a better way to group your notes, and you may even want to add to them. If so, start reorganizing.

A tripartite organization for your analytical essay usually works. For this struc- ture, tentatively plan to devote your opening paragraph(s) to a statement of the topic or problem and a proposal of your hypothesis or thesis. The essay can then be shaped into three parts:

• a beginning, in which you identify the work(s) that you will discuss, giving the necessary background and, in a sentence or two, setting forth your un- derlying argument, your thesis;

• a middle, in which you develop your thesis in a series of well-organized para- graphs, chiefly by explaining the ideas central to your argument, by offering evidence, and by taking account of possible objections to your argument; and

• a conclusion, in which you wrap things up, perhaps by giving a more gen- eral interpretation or by setting your findings in a larger context.

In general, organize the material from the simple to the complex in order to ensure intelligibility. For instance, if you are discussing the structure of a poem, it will probably be best to begin with the most obvious points and then to turn to the subtler but perhaps equally important ones. Similarly, if you are comparing two characters, it may be best to move from the most obvious contrasts to the least obvious. When you have arranged your notes into a meaningful sequence, you have begun a key step: dividing your material into paragraphs.

8. Get it down on paper. Most essayists find it useful to jot down some sort of outline, a map indicating the main idea of each paragraph and, under each main idea, supporting details that give it substance. An outline will help you to overcome the paralysis called “writer’s block” that commonly afflicts professional as well as student writers. It does not necessarily have to be anything formal, with capital and lowercase letters and Roman and Arabic numerals, but merely key phrases jotted down in some sort of order. We provide numerous examples of jotted notes and outlines that lead to a rough draft and then a polished essay.

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A page of paper with ideas listed in some sort of sequence, however rough, ought to encourage you. You will discover that you do have something to say. And so, despite the temptation to sharpen another pencil, surf the Internet, or have another cup of coffee, follow the advice of Isaac Asimov, author of 225 books: “Sit down and start writing.”

If you do not feel that you can work from notes and a rough outline, try another method: Get something down on paper, writing (in a journal or on a com- puter) freely, sloppily, automatically, or whatever, but allowing your ideas about what the work means to you and how it conveys its meaning—rough as your ideas may be—to begin to take visible form. If you are like most people, you cannot do much precise thinking until you have committed to paper at least a rough sketch of your initial ideas. At this stage, you are trying to find out what your ideas are, and in the course of getting them down on paper, you will find yourself generating new ideas. We think with words. Capture your ideas in words, and then turn them into phrases and sentences. Later you can push and polish your ideas into shape, per- haps even deleting all of them and starting over, but it is a lot easier to improve your ideas once you see them in front of you than it is to do the job in your head. On paper, one word leads to another; in your head, one word often blocks another.

You may realize, as you near the end of a sentence, that you no longer believe it. Okay; be glad that your first idea led you to a better one, and pick up your better one and keep going with it. What you are doing, by trial and error, is moving not only toward clear expression but also toward sharper ideas and richer responses.

✔ C H E C K L I S T : Generating Ideas for a Draft

Have I asked myself the following questions?

Have I double-checked my assignment, knowing what the purpose of my reading and writing is?

Am I engaged in an active reading process? Have I read and reread the liter- ary work that I am writing about?

Have I annotated the literary work and written down brainstorming notes? Have I selected an interesting subject for my paper? Can I start to generate a

working thesis for my paper, knowing that I will continue to revise it? Do my notes move beyond recording information and start to engage with

conceptual ideas? Am I capturing my best ideas in my notes? Have I generated notes that explore

the most compelling issues and concerns raised by the literary work? Are my note-taking techniques efficient? Do my notes allow me to sort and

organize my ideas? Can my notes be organized into a sequence that has a beginning, a middle,

and an end? Can I develop an outline from my notes, mapping the main idea of each para-

graph and the supporting evidence that will be presented in each paragraph? Have I gotten ideas down on paper, no matter how rough they are? Can I

move my ideas from words to phrases to sentences? Can I collect and reflect on my annotations, brainstorming notes, thesis, and

outline, and start drafting my paper?

Reading Closely: Approaching a First Draft 5

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6 Chapter 1 How to Write an Effective Essay about Literature: A Crash Course

Writing and Revising: Achieving a Readable Draft

Good writing is rewriting. The evidence? Heavily annotated drafts by Chekhov, Keats, Hemingway, Tolstoy, Woolf—almost any writer you can name. Of course, it is easy enough to spill out words, but, as the dramatist Richard Sheridan said 200 years ago, “Easy writing’s curst hard reading.” Good writers find writing is dif- ficult because they care; they care about making sense, so they will take time to answer reasonable objections to their arguments and to find the exact words that will enable them to say precisely what they mean so that their readers will under- stand their key ideas in the right way. And they care about holding a reader’s atten- tion; they recognize that part of their job is to be interesting.

1. Keep looking and thinking, asking yourself questions and providing tentative answers, searching for additional material that strengthens or weakens your main point, and taking account of it in your outline or draft. As you return to the literary work and your outline, continue to add more ideas to it. Your draft will grow organically out of these notes.

2. Continue to hone your thesis and develop your argument. Generate a thesis that captures your main argument, making sure that your thesis engages with the most important conceptual ideas that you want to explore and makes a claim about those ideas. Your thesis paragraph should pre- view your development of your argument. Continue to revise your thesis as your paper evolves.

Now is probably the time to think about a title for your essay. It is usually a good idea to let your reader know what your topic is—which works of literature you will discuss—and what your approach will be. For instance, your topic might be Kate Chopin’s “Désirée’s Baby”—a story about the response to a white woman who gives birth to a mixed-race infant—and your approach might be that the story’s theme of racial prejudice is still meaningful today. At this stage, your title is still tentative, but thinking about the title will help you to organize your thoughts and to determine which of your notes are relevant and which are not. Rather than the title “Chopin’s Story about Race,” a title “Chopin’s ‘Désirée’s Baby’ and Lessons about Racial Prejudice and Ignorance” starts to capture your unique ideas about the work. Remember, the title is the first part of the paper that your reader encoun- ters. You will gain the reader’s goodwill by providing a helpful, interesting title.

3. With your outline or draft in front of you, write a more lucid version of your paper, checking your notes for fuller details. If you wrote your draft on a computer, do not revise it on screen. Print a hard copy, and revise it with a pen or pencil. You need to read the essay more or less as your instructor will read it. True, the process of revising by hand takes more time than revising on a computer, but time is exactly what you need to devote to the process of revision. Time spent developing and clarifying your ideas is time well spent; it will save you time in the later stages of finalizing and editing the draft. When you wrote your first draft, you were eager to find out what you thought, what you knew, and what you did not know. Now, in the revising stage, you need to write slowly, thoughtfully. Later, you will type the handwritten revisions into the computer.

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Writing and Revising: Achieving a Readable Draft 7

When you are revising an early draft, it is probably best to start by concentrat- ing on large-scale revisions—reorganization and additions (for instance, you may now see that you need to define a term, or to give an example, or to quote further from the work that you are discussing). You will probably also make substantial deletions because you will now see that some sentences or paragraphs, although interesting, are redundant or irrelevant.

Although it is best to start with large-scale revisions (what teachers of com- position somewhat grandly call “global revision”), the truth is that when most writers revise, whether they are experienced or inexperienced, they do not pro- ceed methodically. Rather, they jump around, paying attention to whatever attracts their attention at the moment, like a dog hunting for fleas—and that is not a bad way to proceed. Still, you might at least plan to work in the following sequence:

• Introductory and concluding sections: Make sure that your title and opening paragraph(s) give your readers an idea of where you will be taking them. Is your thesis evident? Your concluding paragraph should tell them where they’ve been. Is your concluding paragraph conclusive without being merely repetitive?

• Organization: If some of your material now seems to be in the wrong place, move it by cutting and pasting. The Golden Rule is “Put together what belongs together.” Make sure your ideas have a logical sequence or follow a natural flow in which one idea leads to the next.

• Development: Your ideas should not be repetitive and should not remain surface level. Rather, you should be presenting new but related ideas that add layers of depth and insight to your thesis.

• Evidence: Make sure that your assertions are supported by evidence and that the evidence is of varying sorts, ranging from details in the works to quotations from appropriate secondary sources.

• Counterevidence: Consider the objections that a reasonable reader might raise to some or all of your points, and explain why these objections are not substantial.

• Coherence in sentences, in paragraphs, and between paragraphs: Usually, this is a matter of adding transitional words and phrases ( further- more, therefore, for instance, on the other hand ).

• Tone: Your sentences inevitably convey information not only about your topic but also about yourself. Do the sentences suggest stuffiness? Or are they too informal, too inappropriately casual?

• Editorial matters: Check the spelling of any words that you are in doubt about, check the punctuation, check sentence structure, and check the form of footnotes and bibliography (list of works cited).

If you find that some of your earlier notes are no longer relevant, eliminate them, but make sure that your argument flows from one point to the next. It is not enough to keep your thesis in mind; you must keep it in the reader’s mind. As you write, your ideas will doubtless become clearer, and some may prove to be poor ideas. (We rarely know exactly what our ideas are until we write them down on paper or on the computer. As the little girl said, replying to the suggestion that she should think before she speaks, “How do I know what I think until I see what I say?”) Not until you have written a draft do you really have a strong sense of what you feel and know and of how good your essay may be.