Writing Through Literature

by Anstendig, Linda; Hicks, David B.

• ISBN13: 9780023035647
• ISBN10: 0023035641
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1995-12-18
• Publisher: Pearson

Summary

The only book of its kind to date, this process-oriented book emphasizes writing through literature, offering accessible and multicultural reading selections. Helping users become better writers and readers through their study of literature, it contains writing assignment sequences wrapped around 17 thematically arranged "clusters" consisting of 5 10 readings apiece.Integrating writing assignments throughout the book to help users better understand and appreciate the literature, it includes suggestions for writing before and after readings in each chapter and cluster, and poses questions following each individual work which probe the literary techniques of the work.

Table of Contents

I. WRITING THROUGH LITERATURE.

1. Introduction: Writing Through Literature.
2. Reading/Writing: The Reading Process.

The “before, during and after method. A poem and a story: Illustrating the before, during and after method. Sharon Olds, Photograph of a Girl. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World.

3. Reading/Writing: Reading Journals.

The double-entry journal. The summary/reflection journal. The freewriting journal.

4. The Writing Process.

Prewriting. Drafting. Revising. Editing. A revision checklist. An editing checklist.

5. From Personal Response to Critical Inquiry.

Gwendolyn Brooks, We Real Cool. Hortense Spillers, from Gwendolyn the Terrible. Kenny Williams, from The World of Satin Legs. Houston Baker, from The Achievement of Gwendolyn Brooks..

6. The Research Process.

Primary/secondary sources. Taking notes while researching. Integrating quotations.

7. The Assignment Sequence.

Step 1: Thinking about the topic. Step 2: “Enacting” the topic. Step 3: Responding to the readings. Step 4: Making connections. Step 5: Putting it all together. Sample assignment sequence.

8. Talking Literature.

Literary terms. Perspective. Voice. Language/technique. Poetic form. Story form. Dramatic form. Character. Meaning.

II. READINGS FOR WRITING.

IDENTITIES.

Getting started: Writing exercises on Identities. Section Essay: Rollo May, from The Experience of Becoming a Person.
9. Becoming a Person (Cluster).
Writing Assignment Sequence. Cluster essay: Langston Hughes, Salvation. James Joyce, Araby. Richard Wright, The Man Who Was Almost a Man. John Updike, A+P. Alice Munro, Boys and Girls. Rita Dove, Adolescence III Stephen Dunn, Tenderness. Writing Assignment Sequence (cont.)
10. Self-Reliance.
Writing Assignment Sequence. Cluster essay: Ralph Waldo Emerson, from Self-Reliance. Robert Frost, Mending Wall. Shirley Jackson, The Lottery. Chinua Achebe, Dead Men's Path. Kitty Tsui, It's In the Name. Sophocles, Antigone. Writing Assignment Sequence. Critical Commentary. (cont.)
11. Phenomenal Women.
Writing Assignment Sequence. Cluster essay: Virginia Woolf, from Professions for Women. Adrienne Rich, Aunt Jennifer's Tigers. Joyce Carol Oates, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Marge Piercy, Barbie Doll. Maya Angelou, Phenomenal Woman. Linda Pastan, Marks. Kate Rushin, The Tired Poem: Last Letter from a Typical Unemployed Black Professional Woman. Nikki Giovanni, Dreams. Susan Glaspell, Trifles. Writing Assignment Sequence (cont.).
12. A Dream Deferred.
Writing Assignment Sequence. Cluster essay: Martin Luther King, Jr., I Have a Dream. Langston Hughes, Harlerm and As I Grew Older. Gwendolyn Brooks, Sadie and Maud. Wole Soyinka, Telephone Conversation. Charles Johnson, Exchange Value. Lucille Clifton, for de Lawd. Audre Lorde, Power. Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun. Writing Assignment Sequence (cont.).

FAMILIES.

Getting started: Writing exercises on Families. Chapter essay: Jane Howard, Families.
13. Growing Up.
Writing Assignment Sequence. Cluster essay: Russell Baker, from Growing Up. Frank O'Connor, My Oedipus Complex. Anne Sexton, The Fury of Overshoes. Audre Lorde, Hanging Fire. Liliana Heker, The Stolen Party. Writing Assignment Sequence (cont.).
14. Mother's Inheritance.
Writing Assignment Sequence. Cluster essay: Michael Dorris, The Contest. Jamaica Kincaid, Girl. Fawziyya Abu- Khalid, Mother's Inheritance. Cynthia Ozick, The Shawl. Amy Tan, Two Kinds. David Leavitt, Gravity. Margaret Atwood, Today. Marsha Norman, 'Night, Mother. Writing Assignment Sequence (cont.). Critical Commentary.
15. The Father.
Writing Assignment Sequence. Cluster essay: Raymond Carver, My Father's Life. Lidia Sigourney, The Father. James Baldwin, The Rockpile. Theodore Roethke, My Papa's Waltz. Ronald Koertge, Orientation Week. Sharon Olds, The Victims. Writing Assignment Sequence (cont.).
16. Family Reunion.
Writing Assignment Sequence. Cluster essay: Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, from Dan Quayle Was Right. Seamus Heaney, Mid-Term Break. Alice Walker, Everyday Use. Louise Erdrich, Family Reunion. Kazuo Ishiguro, A Family Supper. Gardner McFall, Four Corners. Sam Shepard, True West. Writing Assignment Sequence (cont.). Critical Commentary.

LOVE.

Getting started: Writing exercises on Love. Chapter Essay: Diane Ackerman, from The Natural History of Love.
17. True Love.
Writing Assignment Sequence. Cluster essay: Andy Rooney, The Love That's Easy to Hate. William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116 (“Let Me Not to the Marriage...” ). Elizabeth Barrett Browning, How Do I Love Thee? Bernard Malamud, The Magic Barrel. Judith Viorst, True Love. Luisa Valenzuela, I'm Your Horse in the Night. Galway Kinnell, Rapture. Wendy Wasserstein, The Man in a Case. Writing Assignment Sequence (cont.).
18. Guilt, Desire and Love.
Writing Assignment Sequence. Cluster essay: Bruce Weber, The Unromantic Generation. Ernest Hemingway, Hills Like White Elephants. James Balwin, Guilt, Desire and Love. Sharon Olds, Sex Without Love. Marge Piercy, To Have Without Holding. Muriel Rukeyser, Looking at Each Other. Tess Gallagher, The Hug. Tony Kushner, from Angels in America I: Millennium Approaches. Writing Assignment Sequence (cont.).
19. Married Love.
Writing Assignment Sequence. Cluster essay: Anna Quindlan, Married. Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Birthmark. Kate Chopin, The Storm. Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour. John Updike, Wife Wooing. Robert Creely, A Marriage. Liz Rosenberg, Married Love. Henrik Ibsen, A Doll's House. Writing Assignment Sequence (cont.). Critical Commentary.

FRAMES OF MIND.

Getting started: Writing exercises on Frames of Mind. Chapter essay: Howard Gardner, from Frames of Mind.
20. The Magic Chalk.
Writing Assignment Sequence. Cluster essay: Bruno Bettleheim, The Child's Need for Magic. Mme. de Beaumont, Beauty and the Beast. John Keats, La Belle Dame Sans Merci. Kobo Abe, The Magic Chalk. Ursula LeGuin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. Naguib Mahfouz, Half a Day. William Shakespeare, Midsummer Night's Dream. Writing Assignment Sequence (cont.). Critical Commentary.
21. Much Madness.
Writing Assignment Sequence. Cluster essay: Phyllis Chesler, from Women and Madness. Edgar A. Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart. Emily Dickinson, Much Madness is Divinest Sense. Robert Browning, Porphyria's Lover. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper. Sylvia Plath, Lady Lazarus. Shiga Naoya, Han's Crime. Writing Assignment Sequence (cont.).
22. The Lesson.
Writing Assignment Sequence. Cluster essay: William Zinsser, College Pressures. Walt Whitman, When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer. Langston Hughes, Theme for English B. Anzia Yezierska, Soap and Water. Toni Cade Bambara, The Lesson. Shirley Lauro, Open Admission. Eugene Ionesco, The Lesson. Writing Assignment Sequence (cont.).

THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE COSMOS.

Getting started: Writing exercises on The Individual and the Cosmos. Chapter essay: Gwynne Dyer, A Cruel Universe, But the Only One Where Humans Could Exist.
23. Seeing.
Writing Assignment Sequence. Cluster essay: Annie Dillard, from Seeing. Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. Robert Frost, Once by the Pacific. Elizabeth Bishop, The Fish. Dorris Lessing, A Sunrise on the Veld. Joy Harjo, Eagle Poem. Writing Assignment Sequence (cont.).
24. Celestial Music.
Writing Assignment Sequence. Cluster essay: Paul Tillich, The Lost Dimension in Religion. William Blake, Proverbs from Hell. Ho Xuan Hu'o'ng, A Buddhist Priest. Grace Paley, The Loudest Voice. Philip Larkin, Church- Going. Leslie Marmon Silko, The Man to Send Rain Clouds. Louise Gluck, Celestial Music. Writing Assignment Sequence (cont.).
25. Death & Co.
Writing Assignment Sequence. Cluster essay: J. Bruce Long, from The Death That Ends Death in Hinduism and Buddhism. Emily Dickinson, Because I could not stop for Death. Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. Sylvia Plath, Death & Co. Isabel Allende, And of Clay Are We Created. Barbara Holder, October. Woody Allen, Death Knocks. Writing Assignment Sequence (cont.).
Appendix A. Sample Cluster Essary.
Appendix B. Sample Synthesis Essay.
Credits.
Index.