A Brief Guide to Arguing about Literature with 2021 MLA Update by John Schilb; John Clifford - Third Edition, 2021 from Macmillan Student Store
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A Brief Guide to Arguing about Literature with 2021 MLA Update

Third Edition ©2021 John Schilb; John Clifford

The ebook has been updated to give your students the latest guidance on documenting sources in MLA style and follows the guidelines set forth in the MLA Handbook, 9th edition (April 2021).

More and more, first-year writing courses foreground skills of critical analysis and argume...

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ISBN:9781319462703

A Brief Guide to Arguing about Literature with 2021 MLA Update by John Schilb; John Clifford - Third Edition, 2021 from Macmillan Student Store

The ebook has been updated to give your students the latest guidance on documenting sources in MLA style and follows the guidelines set forth in the MLA Handbook, 9th edition (April 2021).

More and more, first-year writing courses foreground skills of critical analysis and argumentation. In response, A Brief Guide to Arguing about Literature first hones students’ analytical skills through instruction in close critical reading of texts; then, it shows them how to turn their reading into well-supported and rhetorically effective argumentative writing. For instructors who prefer to aggregate their own anthology of readings and literary works for their literature-based composition courses, A Brief Guide to Arguing about Literature comprises only the writing-guide chapters of John Schilb and John Clifford’s admired Arguing about Literature: Guide and Reader.

Achieve with Schilb, Arguing about Literature, puts student reading, writing, and revision at the core of your course, with interactive close reading modules, reading comprehension quizzes for the selections in the book, videos of professional writers and students discussing literary works, and a dedicated composition space that guides students through draft, review, source check, reflection, and revision. For details, visit macmillanlearning.com/college/us/englishdigital.

Features

A text that combines thorough treatment of rhetorical and literary analysis with instruction in argument and research. The first two chapters explain what argument is and how to write effective ones.  The next chapter shows how argumentation relates to literary and other texts.  Chapters 4 through 6 explain the reading and writing process and apply them to the genres of fiction, poetry, drama.  Then chapter 7 traces the process of writing from sources to develop researched academic arguments, and chapter 8 covers evaluating internet sources and analyzing visual arguments.

Arguments and literature for analysis, with model student writing in response. Throughout, a combination of more than two dozen contemporary arguments and classic and recent literary works prompt critical thinking and writing. Every chapter features models of student writing for a total of thirteen examples, including three documented research papers.

A research casebook for critical writing and analysis. A casebook on Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s "The Yellow Wallpaper" features the story and three cultural documents related to it.

New to This Edition

The ebook has been updated to give your students the latest guidance on documenting sources in MLA style and follows the guidelines set forth in the MLA Handbook, 9th edition (April 2021).

A new chapter on internet sources and visual arguments. With real-life arguments becoming ever more contentious, it’s especially important for students to identify when sources, websites, and images  offer real information and credible claims--and when they don’t. Arguing about Literature has a new Chapter 8, “Evaluating Internet Resources in the Post-Truth Age,” to address these skills and help students develop their analytical eye.

New literature selections and arguments. New readings and visual arguments tackle contemporary issues such as public shaming, immigration, and gun violence, including:

  • “The Problem with Public Shaming,” by Cole Stryker
  • “The Social Shaming of Racists is Working,” by Laila Lalami
  • “The Ferryman,” by Katie Bickham
  • “The Border: A Double Sonnet,” by Alberto Ríos

“A Brief Guide to Arguing about Literature is all you truly need to guide students through the process of developing a clear argument and applying those techniques to literature.”
-- Misti Brock, Vernon College

“Distinctive for its emphasis on style, content, and structure to form a coherent essay.”
-- Matthew Duffus, Gardner-Webb University

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Table of Contents

Preface for Instructors 
Contents by Genre
1. What is Argument? 
       Paul Goldberger, Disconnected Urbanism
       Understanding Rhetoric
The Elements of Argument
Sample Argument for Analysis
              David W. Barno, A New Moral Compact
              Writing a Response to an Argument
       Strategies for Analyzing an Argument So You Can Write a Response to It
 An Argument for Analysis
       Regina Rini, Should We Rename Institutions that Honor Dead Racists?

2.   Writing Effective Arguments
Strategies for Developing an Effective Style of Argument
Structuring Your Argument; Beyond the Five-Paragraph Essay
Student Response to an Argument
               Justin Korzack, How to Slow Down the Rush to War
Arguments for Analysis
Lee Siegel, Why I Defaulted on My Student Loans
  *Afshan Jafar, Not a Fan of Fat Shaming? Stop Thin Praising

3. How Do You Argue about Literature?
What Is Literature?
Why Study Literature in a College Writing Course?
A Story for Analysi
               Jamaica Kincaid, Girl (story)
Strategies for Making Arguments about Literature
Sample Student Argument about Literature
               Ann Schumwalt, The Mother’s Mixed Messages in “Girl”
Looking at Literature as Argument
               John Milton, When I Consider How My Light Is Spent (poem)
               Robert Frost, Mending Wall (poem)
 Literature and Current Issues
         Rivka Galchen, Usl at the Stadium (story)
 *Cole Stryker, The Problem with Public Shaming
 *Laila Lalami, The Social Shaming of Racists is Working

4.   The Reading Process
Strategies for Close Reading
A Poem for Analysis
              Sharon Olds, “Summer Solstice, New York City” (poem)
Applying the Strategies
Reading Closely by Annotating
 *Emily Skillings, Girls Online (poem)
Further Strategies for Close Reading
             Use Topics of Literary Studies to Get Ideas
             Lynda Hull, Night Waitress (poem)

5.  The Writing Process
 *Rachel Kadish, Letters Arrive from the Dead (story)
Strategies for Exploring
Strategies for Planning
Strategies for Composing
First Draft of a Student Paper
Strategies for Revising
               A Checklist for Revising
Revised Draft of a Student Paper
Strategies for Writing a Comparative Paper
               Don Paterson, Two Trees (poem)
               Luisa A. Igloria, Regarding History (poem)
               List Similarities and Differences
               Consider “Weighting” Your Comparison
A Student Comparative Paper
               Jeremy Cooper, ”Don Paterson’s Criticism of Nature’s Owners”

6.  Writing about Literary Genres
Writing about Stories
               Eudora Welty, A Visit of Charity (story)
The Elements of Short Fiction 
               Plot and Structure/Point of View / Characters /Setting /Imagery/ Language/ Theme
Final Draft of a Student Paper
               Tanya Vincent, The Real Meaning of Charity in “A Visit of Charity”
Writing about Poems 
               Mary Oliver, Singapore  (poem)
               Yusef Komunyakaa, Blackberries (poem)
                Edwin Arlington Robinson, The Mill (poem)
The Elements of Poetry
               Speaker and Tone / Diction and Syntax / Figures of Speech / Sound/ Rhythm and Meter /Theme
Final Draft of a Student Paper
               Michaela Fiorucci, “Negotiating Boundaries”
Writing about Plays
                August Strindberg, The Stronger (play)
The Elements of Drama 
                Plot and Structure/ Characters/ Stage Directions and Setting /Imagery /Language/ Theme
Final Draft of a Student Paper
               Trish Carlisle, “Which Is the Stronger Actress in August Strindberg’s Play?”

7. Writing Researched Arguments
      Begin Your Research by Giving It Direction
Search for Sources in the Library and Online
Evaluate the Sources  
        Record Your Sources’ Key Details
Strategies for Integrating Sources
New Avoid Plagiarism
Strategies for Documenting Sources (MLA Format) 
                MLA In-Text Citation  
                MLA Works Cited  
Three Annotated Student Researched Arguments
An Argument that Uses a Literary Work to Examine Social Issues
               Sarah Michaels, “The Yellow Wallpaper” as a Guide to Social Factors in Postpartum Depression
An Argument that Deals with Existing Interpretations of a Literary Work
               Katie Johnson, The Meaning of the Husband’s Fainting in “The Yellow Wall-Paper”
An Argument that Places a Literary Work in Historical and Cultural Context
               Brittany Thomas, The Relative Absence of the Human Touch in “The Yellow Wall-Paper”
 Contexts for Research:  Confinement,  Mental Illness and “The Yellow Wallpaper”
 Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper
 Cultural Contexts
               Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Why I Wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper”
               S. Weir Mitchell, From The Evolution of the Rest Treatment
               John Harvey Kellogg, From The Ladies’ Guide in Health and Disease

*8. Evaluating Internet Resources in a Post-Truth Age

Evaluating Written Arguments You Find on the Internet
Wendy Brenner, Prayer for Gluten (poem)
Varda He, Restaurants should be more aware of celiac, gluten-free diet limits
Critically Analyzing Web Sites’ Truth Claims

Understanding Strategies in Visual Arguments on the Internet
*Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est (poem)
*British WWI recruitment poster
*Linda Hogan, Song for the Turtles in the Gulf (poem)
*Environmental ads
*WH Auden, Refugee Blues (poem)
*Cartoon: “No room, you’ll sink us!”
 *Alberto Ríos, The Border: A Double Sonnet (poem)
 *Map: U.S.-Mexico border
*Katie Bickham, The Ferryman (poem)
*Graph: Mass Shootings in 2018
Identifying Biases You Might Bring to Your Internet Research

Appendix: Writing with Critical Approaches to Literature 
 Contemporary Schools of Criticism
             New Criticism; Feminist Criticism; Psychoanalytic Criticism; Marxist Criticism; Deconstruction; Reader-Response Criticism; Postcolonial Criticism; New Historicism; Queer Theory
Working with the Critical Approaches
           James Joyce, Counterparts (story)
           Molly Fry, A Refugee at Home (student paper)
           James Joyce, Eveline

John Schilb

John Schilb (Ph.D., State University of New York—Binghamton) is Culbertson Chair and Professor of English Emeritus at Indiana University, Bloomington. From 2006 to 2012, he was editor of the journal College English. He has coedited Contending with Words: Composition and Rhetoric in a Postmodern Age, and with John Clifford, Writing Theory and Critical Theory. He is author of Between the Lines: Relating Composition Theory and Literary Theory and Rhetorical Refusals: Defying Audiences’ Expectations.

John Clifford

John Clifford (Ph.D., New York University) is Professor of English Emeritus at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. He is the editor of The Experience of Reading: Louise Rosenblatt and Reader Response Theory and has written a number of literature and composition textbooks with John Schilb, including Making Literature Matter and Constellations. He has published scholarly articles on pedagogy, critical theory, and composition theory in a variety of journals.