Arguing About Literature: A Guide and Reader by John Schilb; John Clifford - Third Edition, 2020 from Macmillan Student Store
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Arguing About Literature: A Guide and Reader

Third Edition ©2020 John Schilb; John Clifford

As critical thinking and coherent argument become even more important in our contemporary world, Arguing about Literature economically combines two first-year writing books in one: a concise guide to reading literature and writing arguments, and a compact thematic anthology of stories, p...

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Literature worth arguing about.

As critical thinking and coherent argument become even more important in our contemporary world, Arguing about Literature economically combines two first-year writing books in one: a concise guide to reading literature and writing arguments, and a compact thematic anthology of stories, poems, plays, essays, and arguments for inquiry, analysis, and research. The authors of the groundbreaking Making Literature Matter draw connections between contemporary debates and literary analysis, bringing both argument and literature into a contemporary context. Through instruction in close critical reading of texts and well-supported, rhetorically sound argumentative writing, Arguing about Literature prepares students to read, write, and argue effectively. The third edition includes a new chapter on evaluating internet resources and visual arguments in the “post-truth” era, as well as dozens of new works of literature and argumentation.


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.

A thematic anthology with unique clusters that focus on literature, argument, and research. Five thematic chapters—on family, love, freedom and confinement, justice, and journeys—are built out of sharply focused groupings of readings on compelling issues that engage and provoke students, with authors from a diverse variety of backgrounds. Four varieties of clusters focus on key areas:

  • Critical comparison of literary works. Each thematic chapter opens with short clusters of classic and contemporary literary works—stories, poems, and plays--that explore issues within the larger theme.  Students are prompted to analyze and compare works on such compelling issues as parental decisions, romantic love, harmful stereotypes, and cultural divisions.
  • Linking  literature and argument. At the center of each thematic chapter are “Literature and Current Issues” clusters that juxtapose a literary work with arguments about a hot-button issue raised by the literary work, prompting students to recognize the continuing relevance of literature as they write critically about the issue.
  • Literary criticism.  “Arguments about a Literary Work” present multiple interpretive arguments accompanying  important literary works:  Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy,” William Shakespeare’s Othello, and Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find”
  • Contexts for inquiry and research. Each thematic chapter concludes with “Contexts for Research,” which feature classic literary works accompanied by essays, arguments, and documents that place the works in cultural context; the readings are followed by inquiry-based assignments that prompt students to extend their research on the topics raised.

Hundreds of writing opportunities throughout. Writing exercises, questions, and assignments prompt students to respond to the readings and try out the techniques they are learning, making every selection in the book an occasion for critical thinking and writing.

New to This Edition

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 added a new Chapter 8, “Evaluating Internet Resources in the Post-Truth Age,” to address these skills and help students develop their analytical eye.

New reading selections from a diverse array of authors. In addition to classic poems, short stories, and plays, the third edition of Arguing about Literature also includes more work than ever from traditionally underrepresented groups:

  • Women writers, including Aimee Bender (“The Devourings”), Karen Russell (“The Bog Woman”), Octavia Butler (“Human Evolution”), and Katie Bickham (“The Ferryman”).
  • Writers of color, like Hafizah Geter (“Testimony”), Ha Jin (“Saboteur”), Cristina Henríquez (“Everything Is Far From Here”), and Richard Blanco (“Queer Theory: According to My Grandmother”).
  • Emerging voices, such as Kristen Roupenian (“Cat Person”), Ben Marcus (“Cold Little Bird”), and Emily Skillings (“Girls Online”).

New arguments about current issues. Arguing about Literature is more relevant than ever, with “Literature and Current Issues” clusters dedicated to providing a variety of points of view on some of today’s most vital questions, including:

  • How Divided Are Our Cultures?
  • What Constitutes Consent?
  • What Aren’t We Free to Say?
  • What Are Effective Ways of Fighting Racial Injustice?

“A cutting-edge literature book for the new political climate.”
--Jim Richey, Tyler Junior College

“Arguing about Literature helps students explore complex issues through literature, connecting those issues to the real world.”
--Cortney Robins, Indiana Tech

“An inclusive text that offers ample reading selections within the genres, coupled with a process guide for reading and writing.”
--Sue Yamin, Pellissippi State Community College

“The diversity of readings makes this book useful for many different composition and literature courses.”
--Elizabeth Dieterich, City Colleges of Chicago

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Table of Contents

Schilb, Arguing about Literature 3e

Preface for Instructors
Contents by Genre

PART ONE: A Brief Guide to Arguing about Literature

Chapter 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
Further 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?


Chapter 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
Arguing in the First Person: Can You Use I?
Arguments for Analysis
Lee Siegel, Why I Defaulted on My Student Loans
Afshan Jafar, Not a Fan of Fat Shaming? Stop Thin Praising


Chapter 3: How Do You Argue about Literature?
What Is Literature?
Why Study Literature in a College Writing Course?
A Story for Analysis
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


Chapter 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: Topics of Literary Studies
Lynda Hull, Night Waitress (poem)


Chapter 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
Dylan Rieff, Letters Don’t Arrive from the Dead
Strategies for Revising
A Checklist for Revising
Revised Draft of a Student Paper
Dylan Rieff, Letters Don’t Arrive from the Dead
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"


Chapter 6: Writing about Literary Genres
Writing about Stories
Eudora Welty, A Visit of Charity (story)
The Elements of Short Fiction
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)
A Student’s Personal Response to the Poems
First Draft of a Student Paper
Michaela Fiorucci, Boundaries in Robinson, Komunyakaa, and Oliver
The Elements of Poetry
Revised Draft of a Student Paper
Michaela Fiorucci, Negotiating Boundaries
Comparing Poems and Pictures
Rolando Perez, Office at Night (prose poem)
Edward Hopper, Office at Night (painting)
A Sample Paper Comparing a Poem and a Picture
Karl Magnusson, Lack of Motion and Speech in Rolando Perez’s "Office at Night"
Writing about Plays
August Strindberg, The Stronger (play)
A Student’s Personal Response to the Play
The Elements of Drama
Final Draft of a Student Paper
Trish Carlisle, Which Is the Stronger Actress in August Strindberg’s Play?


Chapter 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
Avoid Plagiarism
Strategies for Documenting Sources (MLA Format)
MLA In-Text Citation
MLA Works Cited
Three Annotated Student Researched Arguments
A Researched Argument that Uses a Literary Work to Examine Social Issues
Sarah Michaels, "The Yellow Wallpaper" as a Guide to Social Factors in Postpartum Depression
How Sarah Uses Her Sources
A Researched Argument that Deals with Existing Interpretations of a Literary Work
Katie Johnson, The Meaning of the Husband's Fainting in "The Yellow Wallpaper"
How Katie Uses Her Sources
An Argument that Places a Literary Work in Historical and Cultural Context
Fatima Nagi, The Relative Absence of the Human Touch in "The Yellow Wallpaper"
How Fatima Uses Her Sources
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


ALL NEW Chapter 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
Summing Up the Recommendations
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
Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus (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
Summing Up the Strategies
Identifying Biases You Might Bring to Your Internet Research

PART TWO: Literature and Arguments

Chapter 9: Families
Mothers and Children: Stories
Tillie Olsen, I Stand Here Ironing
Amy Tan, Two Kinds
Alma Luz Villanueva, Her Choice

Siblings in Conflict: Stories
Tobias Wolff, The Rich Brother
James Baldwin, Sonny’s Blues

Decisions about Parenthood: Stories
David Foster Wallace, Good People
Ben Marcus, Cold Little Bird

Reconciling with Fathers: Poems
Lucille Clifton, forgiving my father
Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays
Theodore Roethke, My Papa's Waltz
Li-Young Lee, My Father, in Heaven, Is Reading Out Loud

Grandmothers and Legacies: Poems
Nikki Giovanni, Legacies
Linda Hogan, Heritage
Judith Ortiz Cofer, Claims
Richard Blanco, Queer Theory: According to My Grandmother
Gary Soto, Behind Grandma's House

Literature and Current Issues: Environmental Responsibilities in Families
Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, Dear Matafele Peinem (poem)
Arguments on the Issue
Lauren Markham, Warming World Creates Desperate People
Leah Schade, Climate Change Impacts Health, Families, Wallets
Brent Stephens, Climate of Complete Certainty

Arguments about a Poem: "Daddy"
Sylvia Plath, Daddy
Arguments about the Poem
Lynda K. Bundtzen, From Plath's Incarnations
Steven Gould Axelrod, From Sylvia Plath: The Wound and the Cure of Words
Tim Kendall, from Sylvia Plath: A Critical Study

Contexts for Research: Human Obligations, Robot Consciousness, and "Liar"
Isaac Asimov, Liar (story)
Contexts for Research
Oren Etzioni, How to Regulate Artificial Intelligence
Fei-Fei Li, How to Make AI That’s Good for People
Maureen Dowd, Silicon Valley Sharknado
A. M. Turing, From Computing Machinery and Intelligence

Chapter 10: Love
Romantic Dreams: Stories
James Joyce, Araby
John Updike, A & P
Leslie Marmon Silko, Yellow Woman

Is This Love? Stories
William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily
Raymond Carver, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

True Love: Poems
William Shakespeare, Let me not to the marriage of true minds
John Keats, Bright Star
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, How Do I Love Thee?
e. e. cummings, somewhere i have never travelled

Melancholy Loves: Poems
Edna St. Vincent Millay, What My Lips Have Kissed, and Where, and Why
Robin Becker, Morning Poem

Impossible Love: Stories
Karen Russell, The Bog Girl
Aimee Bender, The Devourings

Literature and Current Issues: What Constitutes Consent?
Kristen Roupenian, Cat Person
Arguments on the Issue
Andrew Russell, The Ecstasy of Consent
Katelyn Ewen, When Yes Really Means Yes
Suzannah Weiss, #MeToo Has Made Me See Anyone as Capable of Sexual Abuse—Including Me

Literature and Current Issues: How Divided Are Our Cultures?
Thomas Lux, The People of the Other Village (poem)
Arguments on the Issue
Michiko Kakutani, Filters, Silos, and Tribes
Amy Chua, How America’s Identity Politics Went from Inclusion to Division
Elizabeth Kolbert, Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds

Arguments about a Play: Othello
William Shakespeare, Othello
Arguments about the Play:
A.C. Bradley, The Noble Othello
Jeffrie G. Murphy, Jealousy, Shame, and Rival

Contexts for Research: Social Disruption, Personal Anxiety, and "Dover Beach"
Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach Contexts for Research:
Charles Dickens, from Hard Times
Friedrich Engels, from The Condition of the Working Class in England
James Eli Adams, Narrating Nature: Darwin

Chapter 11: Freedom and Confinement
Where Tradition Is a Trap: Stories
Shirley Jackson, The Lottery
Alexander Weinstein, Rocket Night

Everyday Confinement: Stories
George Saunders, Exhortation
Daniel Orozco, Orientation

Resisting Stereotypes: Poems
Chrystos, Today Was a Bad Day Like TB
Dwight Okita, In Response to Executive Order 9066
Pat Mora, Legal Alien
Toi Derricotte, Black Boys Play the Classics
Naomi Shihab Nye, Blood
Uma Dwivedi, I Conflate Shame and Desire and the Ocean Purses Her Lips
David Hernandez, Words without Thoughts Never to Heaven Go

A Creative Confinement: Poems by Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson, Wild Nights--Wild Nights!
Emily Dickinson, Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—
Emily Dickinson, Much Madness is divinest Sense
Emily Dickinson, I’m Nobody! Who are you?

Domestic Prisons: Plays
Susan Glaspell, Trifles
Lynn Nottage, POOF!

Dreams of Escape: Stories
Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour
Kirstin Valdez Quade, The Manzanos

Literature and Current Issues: Does Our Happiness Depend on Others’ Misery?
Ursula Le Guin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
Arguments on the Issue
David Brooks, The Child in the Basement
John R. Ehrenfeld, The Error of Trying to Measure Good and Bad

Literature and Current Issues: What Aren’t Students Free to Say?
Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Flowers and Bullets (poem)
Arguments on the Issue
David Cole, Trust the First Amendment
Minouche Shafik, Should Universities Host Speakers Who Propound Offensive Ideas?
Lara Kiswani, Should Universities Host Speakers Who Propound Offensive Ideas?

Contexts for Research: Domesticity, Women’s Rights, and A Doll’s House
Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House
Contexts for Research
August Strindberg, Woman in A Doll’s House
Emma Goldman, Review of A Doll’s House
Joan Templeton, The Doll House Backlash: Criticism, Feminism, and Ibsen
Susanna Rustin, Why A Doll’s House Is More Relevant than Ever

Chapter 12: Crime and Justice
Discovering Injustice: Stories
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown
Toni Cade Bambara, The Lesson
Ha Jin, Saboteur

Racial Injustice: Poems
Countee Cullen, Incident
Natasha Trethewey, Incident

Justice for Workers: Poems
William Blake, The Chimney Sweeper
Deborah Garrison, Worked Late on a Tuesday Night

Secret Crimes: Stories
Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart
Edward J. Delaney, Clean

A Dream of Justice: Poems by Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes, Open Letter to the South
Langston Hughes, Theme for English B
Langston Hughes, Harlem

How Can Injustice Be Resisted? Plays
Sophocles, Antigone
Ida Fink, The Table

Literature and Current Issues: What Are Effective Ways of Fighting Racial Injustice Today?
Hafizah Geter, Testimony (poem)
Arguments on the Issue
Barbara Ransby, Black Lives Matter is Democracy in Action
Barbara Reynolds, I Was a Civil Rights Activist in the 1960s…
The Economist, The Misplaced Arguments Against Black Lives Matter

Arguments about a Story: "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"
Flannery O’Connor, A Good Man Is Hard to Find
Arguments about the Story
Flannery O’Connor, from Mystery and Manners
Martha Stephens, from The Question of Flannery O’Connor
Stephen Bandy, from "One of My Babies": The Misfit and the Grandmother
John Desmond, from Flannery O’Connor’s Misfit and the Mystery of Evil

Contexts for Research: Innocence, Evil, and "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"
Joyce Carol Oates, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been
Contexts for Research
Don Moser, The Pied Piper of Tucson
Joyce Carol Oates, Smooth Talk: Short Story into Film
Meghan Daum, Jaycee Dugard and the Feel-Good Imperative


Chapter 13: Journeys
Fairy Tale Journeys: Stories
Charles Perrault, Little Red Riding Hood
Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm, Little Red Cap
Angela Carter, The Company of Wolves

Wartime Journeys: Stories
Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried
Ambrose Bierce, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

Roads Taken: Poems by Robert Frost
Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost, Acquainted with the Night

Final Journeys: Poems
John Donne, Death Be Not Proud
Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night
Emily Dickinson, Because I could not stop for Death
E. A. Robinson, Richard Cory

Journey Through Time: Stories
Ray Bradbury, Mars is Heaven!
Octavia Butler, Human Evolution
T.C. Boyle, The Relive Box

Literature and Current Issues: How Should the U.S. Handle Immigration?
Juan Felipe Herrara, Borderbus (poem)
Arguments on the Issue
Douglas Rand, Want to Get Rich? Let in More Immigrants
Dan Crenshaw, The US Should Work with Mexico to Stem Central American Migration
Francia Raisa, I Can't (and Won't) Stop Talking about the Dangerous Decision to End DACA

Contexts for Research: Race, Social Equality, and "Battle Royal"
Ralph Ellison, Battle Royal
Contexts for Research:
Booker T. Washington, Atlanta Exposition Address (The Atlanta Compromise)
W.E. B. DuBois, Of Mr. Booker T. Washington
Gunnar Myrdal, Social Equality


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 Frye, A Refugee at Home (student paper)
James Joyce, Eveline (story)

Index of Authors, Titles, First Lines, and Key Terms

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.

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

Arguing about Literature with 2021 MLA Update

John Schilb; John Clifford | Third Edition | 2021 | ISBN:9781319456078

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