Models for Writers: Short Essays for Composition » (10th Edition)

ALFRED ROSA and PAUL ESCHHOLZ are professors emeriti of English at the University of Vermont. They have directed statewide writing programs and conducted numerous workshops throughout the country on writing and the teaching of writing. Rosa and Eschholz have collaborated on a number of best-selling texts for Bedford/St. Martin's, including Subjects/Strategies, Eleventh Edition (2008); Outlooks and Insights: A Reader for College Writers, Fourth Edition (1995); with Virginia Clark, Language Awareness, Tenth Edition (2008); and, with Virginia Clark and Beth Simon, Language: Readings in Language and Culture, Seventh Edition (2007).

It’s a simple, best-selling combination that has worked for over 20 years — short, accessible essays and helpful, thorough writing instruction. Models for Writers continues to offer thought-provoking selections organized to demonstrate not only the rhetorical patterns that students will use in their own essays but also the elements and language that will make those essays effective.

Preface Introduction for Students

Part One: On Reading and Writing Well

1 The Writing Process
Prewriting Understand Your Argument

Choose a Subject Area, and Focus on a Topic

Get Ideas and Collect Information

Establish Your Thesis

Know Your Audience

Determine Your Method of Development

Map Your Organization Writing the First Draft

Create a Title

Focus on Beginnings and Endings Revising Editing

Run-ons: Fused Sentences and Comma Splices

Sentence Fragments

Subject-Verb Agreement

Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

Verb Tense Shifts

Misplaced and Dangling Modifiers

Faulty Parallelism

Weak Nouns and Verbs

Academic Diction and Tone

ESL Concerns (Articles and Nouns)
Proofreading Writing an Expository Essay: A Student Essay in Progress

Jeffrey Olesky, Golf: A Character Builder (student essay)

2 From Reading to Writing
Getting the Most Out of Your Reading

Step 1: Prepare Yourself to Read the Selection

Step 2: The Selection

Step 3: Reread

Step 4: Annotate the Text with Marginal Notes

Step 5: Analyze the Text with Questions

An Example: Annotating Isaac Asimov’s “Intelligence”

Rachel Carson, Fable for Tomorrow
Using Your Reading in the Writing Process

Reading as a Writer Writing from Reading: Three Sample Student Essays

A Narrative Essay: Lisa V. Driver, The Strong Arm of a Sixth-Grade Teacher

(student essay)

A Response Essay: Zoe Ockenga, The Excuse “Not To” (student essay)

An Analytical Essay: Susan Francis, The Disgrace of Man (student essay)

Part Two: The Elements of the Essay

3 Thesis
Helen Keller, The Most Important Day
James Lincoln Collier, Anxiety: Challenge by Another Name
* Buzz Bissinger, Faster, Higher, Stronger, No Longer

4 Unity
Sandra Cisneros, My Name
* Malcolm Gladwell, No Mercy
Gloria Naylor, The Meanings of a Word

5 Organization
Cherokee Paul McDonald, A View from the Bridge
*Bharati Mukherjee, Two Ways to Belong in America
Martin Luther King Jr, The Ways of Meeting Oppression

6 Beginnings and Endings
Michael T. Kaufman, Of My Friend Hector and My Achilles Heel
Steve Brody, How I Got Smart
Ruth Russell, The Wounds that Can’t Be Stitched Up
Carl T. Rowan, Unforgettable Miss Bessie

7 Paragraphs
William Zinsser, Simplicity
*Abe Whaley, Once Unique, Soon a Place Like Any Other
Mike Rose, “I Just Wanna Be Average”

8 Transitions
David Raymond, On Being 17, Bright, and Unable to Read
Russell Baker, Becoming a Writer
*Nancy Gibbs, The Magic of the Family Meal

9 Effective Sentences
*Alice Walker, Childhood
Langston Hughes, Salvation
*Meghan Daum, My House: Plain and Fantasy
Martin Gansberg, 38 Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call Police

*10 Writing with Sources
*Sharon Begley, Praise the Humble Dung Beetle
Natalie Goldberg, Be Specific
*Jake Jamieson, The English-Only Movement: Can America

Proscribe Language with a Clear Conscience?

Part Three: The Language of the Essay

11 Diction and Tone
Dick Gregory, Shame
David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day
Sarah Vowell, Pop-A-Shot
Richard Lederer, The Case for Short Words

12 Figurative Language
Robert Ramirez, The Barrio
Gary Soto, The Jacket
*Diane Ackerman, Watching a Night Launch of the Space Shuttle

Part Four: Types of Essays

13 Illustration Barbara Huttmann, A Crime of Compassion
* Gregory Pence, Let’s Think Outside the Box of Bad Cliches
*Linton Weeks, Burdens of the Modern Beast
*Steven Pinker, In Defense of Dangerous Ideas

14 Narration
Henry Louis Gates Jr, What’s in a Name?
George Orwell, A Hanging
Maya Angelou, Momma, the Dentist, and Me
Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour

15 Description
Gilbert Highet, The Subway
*Oscar Hijuelos, Memories of New York City Snow
Eudora Welty, The Corner Store
Thomas L. Friedman, My Favorite Teacher

16 Process Analysis
*Paul Merrill, The Principles of Poor Writing
*Tiffany Sharples, Young Love
*Alexander Petrunkevitch, The Spider and the Wasp

17 Definition
Lawrence M. Friedman, What Is Crime?
Ellen Goodman, The Company Man
*Anton Chekhov, A Nincompoop

18 Division and Classification

*Paul Boutin, You Are What You Search
Judith Viorst, Friends, Good Friends — and Such Good Friends
William Lutz, Doubts about Doublespeak

19 Comparison and Contrast
Mark Twain, Two Ways of Seeing a River
*Andrew Braaksma, Some Lessons from the Assembly Line
Bruce Catton, Grant and Lee: A Study in Contrasts
*Audrey Schulman, Fahrenheit 59: What a Child’s Fever

Might Tell Us about Climate Change

20 Cause and Effect
Stephen King, Why We Crave Horror Movies
Myriam Marquez, Why and When We Speak Spanish in Public
*Sanjay Gupta, Stuck on the Couch
*Henry Louis Gates Jr, Forty Acres and a Gap in Wealth

21 Argument
Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence
Martin Luther King Jr, I Have a Dream
*Ronald M. Green, Building Baby from the Genes Up
Mary Sherry, In Praise of the F Word

The Obesity Epidemic: Who’s to Blame?
Greg Critser, Don’t Eat the Flan
Alison Motluk, Supersize Me: It’s Time to Stop Blaming

Fat People for Their Size

Shame: Is It an Effective Punishment?
June Tangney, Condemn the Crime, Not the Person
Dan M. Kahan, Shame Is Worth a Try

*Organ Transplants: How Can We Solve the Shortage?
*Virginia Postrel, Need Transplant Donors? Pay Them.
*Alexander Tabarrok, A Moral Solution to the Organ Shortage

*Man-Made Garbage: How Should We Control What We Waste?
*Heather Rogers, Hiding in Plain Sight
Lars Eighner, On Dumpster Diving

Appendix: Writing a Research Paper
Using Print and Online Sources Developing a Working Bibliography Taking Notes Documenting Sources

Glossary of Useful Terms Index

* new to this edition