Table of Contents

Chapter 1 WHY READ LITERATURE?
EXERCISE
Why Do You Read Literature?
Why Do We Read Literature?
Bridging the Gap
Responding to What You Read
EXERCISE
Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken"
Sample Student Responses to "The Road Not Taken"
COMMENTARY
EXERCISE
A Word About "Right" and "Wrong" Answers
Close Active Reading
Sample Oral Response to "The Road Not Taken"
COMMENTARY
EXERCISE
Keeping a Reading Journal
GUIDELINES: KEEPING A READING JOURNAL

Chapter 2 JOINING THE CONVERSATION: WAYS OF TALKING ABOUT LITERATURE
Patricia Grace, "Butterflies"
Langston Hughes, "Theme for English B"
Responding to "Theme for English B"
Wendy Wasserstein, "The Man in a Case"
Responding to "The Man in a Case"
E. B. White,"Education"
Responding to "Education"
The Vocabulary of Literature
Actions and Events
Plot
Structure
Conflict
Irony of Situation
TERMS RELATED TO ACTIONS AND EVENTS
EXERCISES: ACTIONS AND EVENTS
People
Characters: Listening and Observing
Listening
Observing
Characters: Growing and Changing
Characters: Point of View
Author and Speaker
Narrator
People in Nonfiction
TERMS RELATED TO PEOPLE
EXERCISES: PEOPLE
Places and Times
Time and Place: The Cultures of the Work, the Writer,
and the Reader
Place
Time
TERMS RELATED TO PLACES AND TIMES
EXERCISES: PLACES AND TIMES
Words and Images, Sounds and Patterns
Style
Tone
Diction
Syntax
Rhythm and Rhyme
Figurative Language
Verbal Irony
Allusions
TERMS RELATED TO WORDS AND IMAGES,
SOUNDS AND PATTERNS
EXERCISES: WORDS AND IMAGES, SOUNDS
AND PATTERNS
Ideas

Chapter 3 CONTINUING THE CONVERSATION: CONSIDERING GENRE AND LISTENING TO OTHER VOICES
Expectations: Short Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and
Nonfiction
Distinctions: Short Fiction and Drama
Distinctions: Poetry
Margaret Atwood, "You Fit into me"
Distinctions: Nonfiction
An Introduction to Short Fiction
Early Forms of Fiction
Allegory
Myth
Legend
Fairy Tale
Fable
Parable
Modern Short Fiction
The Realistic Short Story
The Nonrealistic Short Story
A Word about Fiction and Truth
GUIDELINES: SHORT FICTION
An Introduction to Poetry
Suggestions for Reading Poetry
Enjambment
Syntax
Structure
Types of Poetry
Narrative Poetry
Lyric Poetry
GUIDELINES: POETRY
An Introduction to Drama
Suggestions for reading drama
Dialogue
Stage Directions
List of Characters
Traditional Forms of Drama
Greek Drama
Elizabethan Drama
Modern Forms of Drama
Realistic Drama
Theater of the Absurd
Types of Drama
Tragedy
Comedy
Tragicomedy
GUIDELINES: DRAMA
An Introduction to Nonfiction
Suggestions for Reading Speeches
Suggestions for Reading Letters
Suggestions for Reading Documents
Suggestions for Reading Journals and Diaries
Suggestions for Reading Essays
GUIDELINES: NONFICTION
Considering Other Voices
Authors' Commentaries and Interviews
Reviews
Scholarly Criticism

Formalist Criticism
Reader-Response Criticism
Sociological Criticism
Psychoanalytic Criticism
New Historicism

Chapter 4 WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE
Dylan Thomas, "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night "
Responding to "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night"
Joan Aleshire, "Slipping"
Responding to "Slipping"
Preparing to Write about Literature
Understanding the Assignment
Thinking about the Assignment
ASSIGNMENT TOPICS
Writing to Respond
TOPIC 1
Discovering Ideas: Journal Entries
Considering Audience
Narrowing the Topic
Devising a Preliminary Thesis Statement
Planning and Organizing
Drafting
Revising Focus: Titles, Openings, Conclusions
Editing Focus: "To Be," Expletives, Passive Voice
Proofreading Focus: Fragments and Comma Splices
EXERCISE
Final Copy: Writing to Respond
EXERCISE
GUIDELINES: WRITING A RESPONSE
Writing to Compare
TOPIC 2
Discovering Ideas: Discussion
Considering Audience, Narrowing the Topic, and Devising a Preliminary
Thesis
Planning and Organizing
Drafting
Revising Focus: Transitions, Development of Ideas
Editing Focus: Nominalizations, Parallel Structure
Proofreading Focus: Subject-Verb Agreement, Tense Agreement
EXERCISE
Final Copy: Writing to Compare
EXERCISE
GUIDELINES: WRITING A COMPARISON
Writing to Analyze
TOPIC 3
Discovering Ideas: Listing and Grouping
Considering Audience, Narrowing the Topic, and Devising a Preliminary
Thesis
Planning, Organizing, and Drafting
Revising Focus: Using and Explaining Examples
EXERCISE
Editing Focus: Word Choice
EXERCISE
Proofreading Focus: Misplaced Modifiers
EXERCISE
Final Copy: Writing to Analyze
GUIDELINES: WRITING AN ANALYSIS
Writing to Explicate
TOPIC 4
Discovering Ideas: Paraphrasing
Considering Audience, Narrowing the Topic, and Devising a Preliminary
Thesis
Planning and Organizing
Drafting
Revising Focus: Summarizing versus Analyzing
GUIDELINES: WRITING AN EXPLICATION
Writing to Evaluate
TOPIC 5
Discovering Ideas: Interviewing
Considering Audience, Narrowing the Topic, and Devising a Preliminary
Thesis
Planning and Organizing
Drafting
Revising Focus: Logic
Editing Focus: Integrating and Punctuating Quotations
Proofreading Focus: Pronoun Reference, Pronoun Agreement
Final Copy: Writing to Evaluate
EXERCISE
GUIDELINES: WRITING AN EVALUATION OF BELIEFS AND VALUES
Writing a Research Paper
TOPIC 6
Discovering Ideas: Researching
Considering Audience, Narrowing the Topic, and Devising a Preliminary
Thesis
Planning and Organizing
Drafting
Revising Focus: Using Quotations Effectively
Editing Focus: Combining Sentences
EXERCISE
Proofreading Focus: Spelling
EXERCISES
Final Copy: Research Paper
GUIDELINES: WRITING A RESEARCH PAPER
Summary
Strategies for Discovering and Exploring Ideas
Strategies for Evaluating Your Audience
Strategies for Revising
Strategies for Editing
Strategies for Proofreading

Chapter 5 INNOCENCE AND EXPERIENCE
Fiction:
James Joyce," Araby"
Wakako Yamauchi, "And the Soul Shall Dance"
Louise Erdrich, "The Red Convertible"
Doris Lessing, "Through the Tunnel"
Jean Stafford, "Bad Characters"
Poetry:
E. Housman, "When I Was One- and- Twenty"
Countee Cullen, "Incident"
Gary Soto, "Oranges"
Bettie Sellers, "In the Counselor's Waiting Room"
Rosemary Catacalos, 'La Casa '
May Swenson, "The Centaur"
William Blake," London"
Gerard Manley Hopkins, "Spring and Fall"
Seamus Heaney,"Mid-Term Break"
Muriel Stuart, "n the Orchard"
Drama:
William Shakespeare, "Hamlet"
Commentary: Carolyn Heilburn, "The Character of Hamlet's Mother"
Essays:
Langston Hughes, "Salvation"
Maya Angelou, "Graduation in Stamps"
Connections: Innocence and Experience

Chapter 6 CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
Fiction:
Edgar Allen Poe, "The Black Cat"
Flannery O'Connor, "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"
Nadine Gordimer, "Town and Country Lovers"
Richard Wright, "The Man Who Was Almost a Man"
Isabel Allende, "The Judge's Wife"
Poetry:
Richard Lovelace, "To Althea, From Prison"
Seamus Heaney," Punishment"
Robert Browning, "My Last Duchess"
Bruce Dawe," A Victorian Hangman Tells His Love"
Anne Sexton, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs"
Etheridge Knight, "Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the
Criminally Insane"
Gregory Corso, "The Last Gangster"
Tess Gallagher, "Kidnapper"
Jiang He, "To the Execution Ground"
Judith Clark," After My Arrest "
Drama:
Sophocles, "Oedipus Rex"
Susan Glaspell, "Trifles"
Essays:
Harry Dolan," I Remember Papa"
André Dubus, "Giving Up the Gun"
Connections: Crime and Punishment

Chapter 7 ROOTS, IDENTITY, AND CULTURE
Fiction:
James Baldwin, "Sonny's Blues"
Alice Walker, "Everyday Use"
Raymond Carver, "Cathedral"
José Armas, "El Tonto del Barrio"
Bharati Mukherjee, "Orbiting"
Poetry:
Paul Laurence Dunbar," We wear the mask"
T. S. Eliot, Journey of the Magi
Lucille Clifton," Quilting"
Wold Soyinka, "Telephone Conversation"
William Butler Yeats, "The Lake Isle of Innisfree"
Martin Espada," Coca-Cola and Coco Frío"
Cathy Song, "The Youngest Daughter"
Wendy Rose,"I Expected My Skin and My Blood to Ripen"
Judith Ortiz Cofer," Latin Women Pray "
Drama:
Sophocles," Antigone"
Athol Fugard, "Master Harold and the Boys"
Commentary: Frank Rich, Review of the Yale Repertory Theatre Production
of Master Harold and the Boys, 1982
Essays:
Chief Seattle," My People"
Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston," Shikata Ga Nai from
Farewell to Manzanar"
Connections: Roots, Identity, and Culture

Chapter 8 MEN AND WOMEN
Fiction:
Nathaniel Hawthorne," Young Goodman Brown"
Kate Chopin, "The Storm"
María Luisa Bombal, "New Islands"
Tobias Wolff," Lady's Dream"
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "The Yellow Wallpaper "
Poetry:
Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress"
Aphra Behn, "The Willing Mistress"
Tess Gallagher, "The Hug"
Anne Sexton, "For My Lover, Returning to His Wife"
Kristine Batey," Lot's Wife"
Stevie Smith, "The Frog Prince"
Amy Lowell," Patterns"
Sappho, 'To me he seems like a god"
Christopher Marlowe, "The Passionate Shepherd To His Love"
Sir Walter Raleigh, "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd"
William Shapespeare,' Let me not to the marriage of true minds'
Drama:
" Henrik Ibsen, A Doll House"
Essays:
Virginia Woolf," Professions for Women"
Paul Theroux," Being A Man"
Connections: Men and Women

Chapter 9 PARENTS AND CHILDREN
Fiction:
Philip Roth, "The Conversion of the Jews"
Jamaica Kincaid, "The Circling Hand'
Tillie Olsen," I Stand Here Ironing"
Eudora Welty," A Worn Path"
Joyce Carol Oates, "Shopping"
Poetry:
Theodore Roethke, "My Papa's Waltz"
Maxine Kumin," Making the Jam without You"
Sharon Olds, "The Possessive"
Robert Mezey, "My Mother"
Ellen Wolfe," Amniocentesis"
Anonymous, "Lord Randal"
Sylvia Piath," Metaphors"
Donald Hall," My son, my executioner"
James Masao Mitsui, "Allowance"
Drama:
Wakako Yamauchi, "And the Soul Shall Dance"
Essays:
Doris Kearns Goodwin," From Father, with Love"
Andrew Merton, "When Father Doesn't Know Best"
Connections: Parents and Children

Chapter 10 LEARNING AND TEACHING
Fiction:
Charles Baxter, Gryphon
Toni Cade Bambara, The Lesson
Grace Paley, The Loudest Voice
Clark Blaise, A Class of New Canadians
Danny Santiago, Famous All Over Town
Poetry:
Henry Reed, Naming of Parts
Walt Whitman, There Was a Child Went Forth
Marianne Moore, The Student
Louise Glück, The School Children
Judy Page Heitzman, The Schoolroom on the Second Floor of the Knitting
Mill
Neal Bowers, Driving Lessons
Anna Lee Walters, A Teacher Taught Me
Linda Pastan, Ethics
Gary Gildner, First Practice
Tom Romano, The Teacher
Francis E. W. Harper, Learning To Read
Drama:
David Mamet, Oleanna
Commentaries: Susan BrownMiller, Enrique Fernandez, Deborah Tanner,
"On the Orpheum Theater Production of Oleanna, 1992"
Essays:
Frederick Douglass, Learning to Read and Write
Maxine Hong Kingston, Learning to Speak Like an American Girl
Connections: Learning and Teaching

Chapter 11 WAR AND POWER
Fiction:
Frank O'Connor, Guests of the Nation
Cynthis Ozick, The Shawl
Luisa Valenzuela, I'm Your Horse in the Night
Elizabeth Gordon, On the Other Side of the War: A Story
Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried
Jorge Luis Borges, The End of the Duel
Poetry:
Thomas Hardy, The Man He Killed
Colleen J. McElroy, My Father's Wars
Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est
Karl Shapiro, The Conscientious Objector
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Mother and Poet
Ariel Dorfman, Hope
W alt Whitman, The Dying Veteran
Denise Levertov, What Were They Like?
Yusef Komunyakaa, Facing It
Randall Jarrell, Gunner
Drama:
Fernando Arrabal, Picnic on the Battlefield
Essays:
Donald Hall, War Cards, Purpose, and Blame
Ernest Hemingway, A New Kind of War
Connections: War and Power

Chapter 12 DEATH
Fiction:
Edgar Allan Poe, The Cask of Amontillado
Ernest Hemingway, A Clean, Well-Lighted Place
Katherine Anne Porter, The Jilting of Granny Weatherall
William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily
Alice Walker, To Hell With Dying
Lynn Sharon Schwartz, The Wrath-bearing Tree
Poetry: John Donne, Death, be not proud
e. e. cummings, buffalo bill's
Ruth Whitman, Castoff Skin
Marianne Burke, Funeral Home
Emily Dickinson, Apparently with no surprise
Emily Dickinson, I heard a fly buzz when I died
Emily Dickinson, The Bustle in a House
E. Housman, To an Athlete Dying Young
Edwin Arlington Robinson, Richard Cory
Theodore Roethke, Elegy for Jane
William Stafford, Travelling through the Dark
Drama:
Harvey Fierstein, On Tidy Endings
Essays:
Melvin I. Urofsky, Two Scenes from a Hospital
Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, On the Fear of Death
Connections: Death

Chapter 13 THREE AMERICAN POETS
Timeline: Key Events in the Lives of Three American Poets
Robert Frost
Mending Wall
Home Burial
"Out, Out-"
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Acquainted with the Night
Desert Places
Langston Hughes
The Negro Speaks of Rivers
Dream Variations
Summer Night
Dreamer
Café: 3 a.m.
Deferred
Harlem (2)
Same in Blues
Island (2)
Nightmare Boogie
Night Funeral in Harlem
Blues at Dawn
Elizabeth Bishop
The Man-Moth
The Fish
First Death in Nova Scotia
Sestina
In the Waiting Room
One Art
Connections: Three American Poets

CONNECTIONS: ART AND POETRY
Randall Jarrell, The Knight, Death, and the Devil
Anne Sexton, The Starry Night
William Carlos Williams, The Dance
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Lady of Shalott
W. H. Auden, Musée des Beaux Arts
William Carlos Williams, The Great Figure
Sandra Nelson, When a Woman Holds a Letter
David Ray, A Midnight Diner by Edward Hopper
Samuel Yellen, Nighthawks
Richard Wilbur, Giacometti
Donald Hall, The Scream
Cathy Song, Girl Powdering Her Neck
Rosanna Warren, Renoir
Thom Gunn, Something approaches...
Natalie Safir, Matisse's Dance
Wallace Stevens, The Man with the Blue Guitar
Appendix: MLA Documentation
Credits
Index of First Lines
Index of Authors, Titles, and Subjects