Table of Contents

* New to this edition

 
Introduction: Writing for Your Life 

1. Writing to Understand Experience 
Levi’s, Marilyn Schiel 
Grub, Scott Russell Sanders
Life with Father, Itabari Njeri
"Mommy, What Does ‘Nigger’ Mean?" Gloria Naylor 
Earth’s Eye, Edward Hoagland 
Living Like Weasels, Annie Dillard
Sweet Chariot, Mark Doty 

2. Writing to Report Information 
As Feezing Persons Recollect the Snow, Peter Stark 
* The New Gold Ruch, Rebecca Solnit 
* Why McDonald’s Fries Taste So Good, Eric Schlosser 
Tough Break, Tim Rogers 
* Uncharted Territory, Elizabeth Kolbert 
The Thin Red Line, Jennifer Egan 
* The Nanking Safety Zone, Iris Chang 

3. Writing to Interpret Information 
In Japan, Nice Guys (and Girls) Finish Together, Nicholas D. Kristof 
Shouting "Fire!" Alan M. Dershowitz 
* What Does the Bible Say about Women, Peter Gomes 
Women’s Brains, Stephen Jay Gould 
What Happened to the Anasazi? Catherine Dold 
* The Joys of Perils of Victimhood, Ian Burma 
* Hitler and the Occult: The Magical Thinking 
of Adolf Hitler, Raymond L. Sickinger 

4. Writing to Evaluate Something 
* It’s Only Water, Right? Consumer Reports 
The Sad Comedy of Really Bad Food, Dara Moskowitz 
* Bing Crosby, The Unsung King of Song, Gary Giddens
* Reach Out and Annoy Someone, Johnathan Rowe 
* She: Portrait of the Essay as a Warm Body, Cynthia Ozick 
My Diagnosis, Sysanna Kaysen 
Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses, Mark Twain

5. Writing to Analyze Images 
* NeXT: Understanding a Corporate Logo, Steven Heller and Karen Pomerov 
* Designing a Web Page, Patrick J. Lynch and Sarah Horton 
* Images of Women in European Art, John Berger 
* Beauty (Re)discovers the Male Body, Susan Bordo 
* Falling in Love with Food, Jean Kilbourne 
* Conveying Atrocity in Image, Barbie Zelizer 

6. Writing to Move Others 
You Are Me, Larry Carlat 
I Have a Dream, Martin Luther King, Jr. 
A Hanging, George Orwell 
Am I Blue? Alice Walker 
On Behalf of the Insane Poor, Dorothea Dix 
* The State of the Union, George W. Bush 
A Modest Proposal, Johnathan Swift

7. Writing to Persuade Others 
Clean Up or Pay Up, Louis Barbash 
* Flunk the Electoral College, Pass Instant Runoffs, John B. Anderson 
* Racial Profiling: The Liberals are Right, Stuart Taylor, Jr. 
Why You Can Hate Drugs and Still Want to Legalize Them, Joshua Wolf Shenk 
* Privacy, the Workplace and the Internet, Seumas Miller and John Weckert 
The Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson 
Letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King, Jr. 

8. Writing to Amuse Others 
Technology Makes Me Mad, Patricia Volk 
It’s Nice Work, If You Can Avoid It, Jeff Foxworthy 
Breakfast at the FDA Cafe, John R. Alden 
* How I’m Doing, David Own 
* Eleventh Hour Bride, Sandra Tsing Loh 
* The Young Man and the Sea, Henry Alford 
* The Learning Curve, David Sedaris 

9. Writing to Experiment with Form
Monologue to the Maestro, Ernest Hemingway 
The Deer at Providencia, Annie Dillard 
Marrakech, George Orwell 
* If You Are What You Eat, Then What Am I? Geeta Kothari 
I Was Born, Luc Sante 
Oranges and Sweet Sister Boy, Judy Ruiz 

10. Writing to Understand Reading 
Abalone, Abalone, Abalone, Toshio Mori 
Winners, Lon Otto 
Daystar, Rita Dove 
The Driving Range, Leslie Adrienne Miller 
* If This is Paradise, Dorianne Laux 
* Big Black Car, Lynn Emanuel 
* Wearing Indian Jewelry, Heid Erdrich 
Defining Us, Rafael Campo 
* Sherbet, Cornelius Eddy 
Power, Audre Lorde 
Off from Swing Shift, Garret Hongo 
* Execution, Edward Hirsch 
40 Days and 40 Nights, Henri Cole 
Reclaiming the Walk, John F. O’Brien 
* Visitation, Mark Doty 
Trifles, Susan Glaspell