The Norton Sampler: Short Essays for Composition

by Thomas Cooley

• ISBN13: 9780393957396
• ISBN10: 039395739X
• Edition: 4th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1993-02-01
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Summary

The Norton Sampler is a collection of short essays for composition students. Like the cloth samplers that schoolchildren produced in colonial times to practice their stitches (and, at the same time, their ABCs), The Norton Sampler is based on the assumption that writing is a practical art that can be learned by studying some basic rhetorical patterns -- narration, description, comparison, and the like. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Thomas Cooley is professor of English at The Ohio State University

Table of Contents

Thematic Contents	p. xvii
Preface	p. xxv
Introduction	p. 3
The Death of a Moth	p. 4
How I Wrote the Moth Essay--and Why	p. 8
The Processes of Writing	p. 16
The Modes of Writing	p. 16
Mixing the Modes	p. 18
Description	p. 21
RealTime Writing / Catalog Description	p. 26
The Miss Dennis School of Writing	p. 28
A View from the Bridge	p. 37
No Rainbows, No Roses	p. 42
No Wonder They Call Me a Bitch	p. 47
Narrative	p. 54
RealTime Writing / Obituary	p. 58
The Ashen Guy: Lower Broadway, September 11, 2001	p. 60
The Lion in Winter	p. 65
The Back of the Bus	p. 72
None of This Is Fair	p. 81
Frank Sinatra's Gum	p. 88
Example	p. 93
RealTime Writing / Girl Scout Cookie Box	p. 99
All Seven Deadly Sins Committed at Church Bake Sale	p. 101
The Invisible Flying Cat	p. 106
English Is a Crazy Language	p. 110
Jazz: Music Beyond Time and Nations	p. 116
Homeward Bound	p. 123
Classification and Division	p. 127
RealTime Writing / www.dailycandy.com	p. 130
Mother Tongue	p. 132
The Color of Success	p. 140
What Do You Call a Platypus?	p. 146
Science, Guided by Ethics, Can Lift Up the Poor	p. 154
The Rise of the Blended American	p. 159
Process Analysis	p. 163
RealTime Writing / How to Make Razzleberry Lemonade	p. 168
How to Fend Off a Shark	p. 170
How Boys Become Men	p. 174
The Spider and the Wasp	p. 179
How to Write a Letter	p. 187
How to Get Out of a Locked Trunk	p. 192
Comparison and Contrast	p. 200
RealTime Writing / Baseball Stats	p. 204
Grammy Rewards	p. 206
Body Imperfect	p. 209
Grant and Lee: A Study in Contrasts	p. 212
Like Mexicans	p. 218
Gender in the Classroom	p. 224
Remembering My Childhood on the Continent of Africa	p. 233
Definition	p. 241
RealTime Writing / www.savethemanatee.org	p. 244
Guys vs. Men	p. 246
In Praise of the Humble Comma	p. 254
How Come the Quantum?	p. 260
Bop	p. 265
If You Are What You Eat, Then What Am I?	p. 269
Cause and Effect	p. 276
RealTime Writing / Outside Magazine Q&A	p. 282
Climbing the Golden Arches	p. 284
Prison Man Considers Turkey	p. 290
Who Killed Easter Island?	p. 295
A Giant Step	p. 303
The Wounds That Can't Be Stitched Up	p. 309
Argument	p. 314
RealTime Writing / Sign on an Old House	p. 320
The Declaration of Independence	p. 322
The Island of Plenty	p. 328
The Price of Power: Living in the Nuclear Age	p. 334
Being Prepared in Suburbia	p. 340
Safe-Sex Lies	p. 345
Reply to the U.S. Government	p. 352
Classic Essays	p. 358
A Modest Proposal	p. 362
Politics and the English Language	p. 373
Learning the River	p. 388
The Death of the Moth	p. 396
Once More to the Lake	p. 400
On Keeping a Notebook	p. 408
Glossary	p. 417
Permissions Acknowledgments	p. 425
Index	p. 431
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.