Students often regard the nine classic rhetorical methods as artificial and static, types of writing to study and imitate only in order to meet an academic requirement. Drawing on her expertise in literacy theory and current writing pedagogy, however, Cheryl Glenn takes the time-tested rhetorical reader genre in exciting new directions, revealing how these familiar methods underlie a surprising range of daily discourse -- from restaurant menus to online catalogs to cartoon strips. While including a solid sampling of selections that have long served as excellent models in the classroom, Making Sense offers an adventurous choice of new readings -- many of them visual texts -- to show how the rhetorical methods continue to serve the needs of today's student writers both inside and outside the classroom.
n. b. Chapters 3 through 10 follow the same general structure shown in Chapter 2. For the sake of brevity, the recurring structure is not repeated in this table of contents.
1. Introduction
What's Reading Got to Do with Writing?
Reading Actively and Critically
Practical Reading Strategies
Making Sense of Visuals
The Readings and Visuals in Making Sense
Writing Well
What's Rhetoric Got to Do With Writing?
Understanding the Writing Task
Focusing on Your Purpose, Audience, and Subject
Practical Writing Strategies
Generating Ideas
Deciding on a Tentative Thesis
Organizing Your Ideas
Drafting
Using Visuals
Collaborating
Revising, Editing, and Proofreading
Jennifer Favorite, I Played the Nanny (Student Essay)
Making Sense with Your Writing
Finally
2. Description
What Is Description?
Why Use Description?
How Do You Read a Description?
How Do You Write a Description?
"Reading" and Using Visuals in Description
Readings
Gavin Rember, Closing Doors (Student Essay)
*Susan Orlean, The American Man, Age Ten
N. Scott Momaday, The Way to Rainy Mountain
Meghan Daum, Music Is My Bag
Annie Dillard, The Deer at Providencia
Julia Alvarez, Snow (Fiction)
Barrie Jean Borich, What Kind of King
*E. B. White, Once More to the Lake
*Plum Delicious (Visual)
3. Narration
Readings
Malcolm X, Prison Studies
David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day
*Jacey Blouch, Dance to Liven Up Your Life (Student Essay)
Jeff Drayer, Bedside Terror
*Maya Angelou, Finishing School
Steve Earle, A Death in Texas
Gary Soto, Black Hair
*Tales of Woe and Wonder (Visual)
4. Exemplification
Readings
Gretel Ehrlich, About Men
Brent Staples, Just Walk on By: A Black Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public Space
Eva Payne, Handy (Student Essay)
Michelle Stacey, All You Can Eat
*Diane Ravitch, The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn
Jonathan Kozol, The Human Cost of an Illiterate Society
*Ted Allen, The Laws of Fashion (Visual)
5. Classification and Division
Readings
William Zinsser, College Pressures
Carolyn Foster Segal, The Dog Ate My Disk, and Other Tales of Woe
Jessica Moyer, My Circle of Friends (Student Essay)
*Laura Sessions Stepp, Alpha Girls
*Stephanie Ericsson, The Ways We Lie
Amy Tan, Mother Tongue
Timothy Noah, Laura Bush: Bitch or Victim?
*George Saunders, My Amendment
6. Comparison and Contrast
Readings
Deborah Tannen, Cross Talk
*Suzanne Britt, Neat People vs. Sloppy People
*Bob Costas, Ali and Jordan
Robin Hatfield, Smoothing Rough Edges (Student Essay)
Bruce Catton, Grant & Lee: A Study in Contrasts
Dave Barry, Guys vs. Men
*If Experience Is Equal, Who Gets Hired?
Zora Neale Hurston, How It Feels to Be Colored Me
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18 (Poetry)
*Roz Chast, The Berlitz Guide to Parent-Teacher Conferences (Visual)
7. Process Analysis
Readings
*Kathy Antioniotti, Marshmallow Mayhem: Fun (and Sweet) Alternative to Toy Guns
Rachel Dillon, Mission Possible (Student Essay)
Jessica Mitford, The Embalming of Mr. Jones
Bernice Wuethrich, Getting Stupid
David Lieberman, Deal with Any Complaint Fast and Easy: Get Anyone to Stop Complaining
Malcolm Gladwell, The Trouble with Fries
O2 (Visual)
8. Cause-and-Consequence Analysis
Readings
Terry McMillan, Easing My Heart Inside
*Robyn Sylves, Credit Card Debt Among College Students: Just What Does It Cost? (Student Essay)
Linton Weeks, The No-Book Report: Skim It and Weep
*David Brooks, The Triumph of Hope over Self-Interest
Stephen Jay Gould, Sex, Drugs, Disasters, and the Extinction of Dinosaurs
Douglas Foster, The Disease Is Adolescence
*Susan Glaspell, A Jury of Her Peers (Fiction)
*Centers for Disease Control, Deaths from Smoking (Visual)
9. Definition
Readings
Judy Brady, I Want a Wife
Paul Theroux, Being a Man
*Omotayo Banjo, Personalizing Your College Education (Student Essay)
Kruti Trivedi, A Big Push for Learning "Differences," Not Disabilities
*Randy Olson, Shifting Baselines: Slow-Motion Disaster under the Sea
David Plotz, The American Teenager
*Mr. Goodwrench (Visual)
10. Argumentation
Readings
Topic: College Athletics
James L. Shulman and William G. Bowen, How the Playing Field Is Encroaching on the Admissions Office
Lynda Rush, Assessing a Study of College Athletics
Michael Webber, Athletics Provide Positive Influence (Student Essay)
William F. Shughart II, Why Not a Football Degree?
Topic: Vegetarianism
*Andy Kerr, On Eating Meat
*Alison Green, Living in Harmony with Vegetarians
*Laura Fraser, Why I Stopped Being a Vegetarian
*Michael Pollan, An Animal's Place
*Horrifying Vegetarians since 1980. (Visual)
Topic: The Draft and National Service
*Charles B. Rangel, Bring Back the Draft
*Charles Moskos and Paul Glastris, Now Do You Believe We Need a Draft?
*Walter Y. Oi, The Virtue of an All-Volunteer Force
*Maggie Rose Koerth, Women in the Draft Necessary as Part of Quest to End Discrimination (Student Essay)
Classic Arguments
*Martin Luther King Jr., A Letter from Birmingham Jail
*Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence
*Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal
H. L. Mencken, The Penalty of Death
Appendix: Using and Documenting Sources
Summarizing and Paraphrasing
Avoiding Plagiarism
Using and Integrating Quotations
Citing Sources Using MLA Style
* New to this Edition