Digital Options

E-book

Read online (or offline) with all the highlighting and notetaking tools you need to be successful in this course.

Learn About E-book

Table of Contents

Preface    
   
ONE: Orienting     
On Habits 
On Unlearning   
On a Space of Your Own 

TWO: Paying Attention    
On Learning to See        
On Looking and Looking Again 
On Paying Attention to Words  

THREE: Questioning        
On Asking Good Questions      
On Writing to a Question
On Question-Driven Writing    

FOUR: Exploring  
On Going Down the Rabbit Hole
On Creative Reading     
On Choosing Your Own Adventure      

FIVE: Connecting  
On the Three Most Important Words in the English Language  
On Joining the Conversation     
On Working with the Words of Others 

SIX: Reflecting       
On Seeing as a Writer   
On Reading as a Writer 
On Reading in Slow Motion     

SEVEN: Persisting  
On Encountering Difficulty      
On Learning from Failure 
On Thinking Unthinkable Thoughts     

EIGHT: Rethinking
On Letting Go of Writing-by-Formula 
On Structure      
On Revising       

NINE: Wondering 
On Argument as Journey 
On Imagining Alternatives        
On Complexity  

TEN: Playing 
On Laughter       
On Bending Conventions
On the Joys of Pseudonymous Writing 

Readings     
Frederick Douglass, The Woman’s Cause
Eula Biss, Excerpt from On Immunity: An Inoculation
Cathy Park Hong, Bad English       
Andrew Leland, DeafBlind Communities May Be Creating a New Language of Touch         
Jia Tolentino, Can Motherhood Be a Form of Rebellion?  
Jesmyn Ward, Cracking the Code

Authors

Richard E. Miller

Richard E. Miller is a Professor of English at Rutgers University where he has been teaching since 1993. Richard has written a number of scholarly books, the most recent being, On the End of Privacy (2019). He has tried his hand at blogging, poetry, graphic narrative, and photography, and is currently working on a book of creative nonfiction entitled, To Become a Writer. In 2022, Richard received the Chancellor-Provosts Award for Excellence in Teaching which honors a member of the New Brunswick faculty "whose teaching contributions resulted in an extraordinary impact on the institution, students’ experiences, and public engagement."

Ann Jurecic

Ann Jurecic is an Associate Professor of English at Rutgers University where she teaches the history of the essay, women writers, and the medical humanities. Ann taught in a public high school, a community college, and the Princeton Writing Program before she joined the Department of English at Rutgers University-New Brunswick in 2005. Ann’s first book, Illness as Narrative (2012), charts the emergence of personal writing about illness in the twentieth century. Her new book, Changing Minds: Women and the Political Essay, 1960–2000, is about the careers of five innovative writers, among them Rachel Carson and Joan Didion (2023).

Related Titles