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

A Guide and ReaderThird 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).

As critical thinking and coherent argument become even more important in our contemporary wo...

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ISBN:9781319456078

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

Literature worth arguing about.

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).

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

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 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

Preface for Instructors 
Contents by Genre
 
PART ONE: A Brief Guide to Arguing about Literature

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
New  *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

 

ALL NEW 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


PART TWO: Literature and Arguments

9. Families
Mothers and Children: Stories 
          Tillie Olsen, I Stand Here Ironing 
          Amy Tan, Two Kinds
 *Cristina Henriquez, Everything is Far From Here

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
         Alberto Ríos, Mi Abuelo 
         Judith Ortiz Cofer, Claims
         Richard Blanco, Queer Theory: According to My Grandmother

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
 *Brent Stephens, Climate of Complete Certainty

Arguments about a Poem: “Daddy”
            Sylvia Plath, Daddy
            Arguments about the Poem
                   Mary Lynn Broe, From Protean Poetic: The Poetry of Sylvia Plath
                   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

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
         W.H. Auden, Funeral Blues
Pablo Neruda, The Song of Despair
   Robin Becker, Morning Poem

Impossible Love: Stories
 *Karen Russell, The Bog Woman
 *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 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


11.  Freedom and Confinement
Oppressive Traditions:  Stories
        Shirley Jackson, The Lottery
 *Alexander Weinstein, Rocket Night

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

Trapped in 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
 *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
New    Kirstin Valdez Quade, The Manzanos   

Literature and Current Issues:  Does Our Happiness Depend on Others’ Misery?
        Ursula LeGuin, 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 You Free to Say? 
 *Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Flowers and Bullets (poem)
Arguments on the Issue
 *David Cole, Liberals, Don't Lose Faith in the First Amendment
 *Minouche Shafik, Should Universities Host Speakers Who Propound Offensive Ideas?
New 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
      Henrik Ibsen, Memorandum
       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


12.   Crime and Justice

Discovering Injustice: Stories
         Nathaniel Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown
         Toni Cade Bambara, The Lesson
         Ha Jin, Saboteur

Justice for Workers: Poems
Marge Piercy, The Secretary Chant 
Philip Shultz, Greed

Crime and Guilt: 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

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

Literature and Current Issues: What Are Effective Ways of Fighting Racial Injustice Today?
     *Hafizah Geter, Testimony (poem)
  *#IfTheyGunnedMeDown (visual)
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


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

Journeys to the Future
 *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

Contexts for Research: Race, Social Equality, and “Battle Royal”
Ralph Ellison, “Battle Royal”
 Contexts for Research:
         Booker T. Washington, Atlanta Exposition Address
         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 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.