Prose Models

by Levin, Gerald

• ISBN13: 9780155064041
• ISBN10: 0155064045
• Edition: 11th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-04-18
• Publisher: Cengage Learning

Summary

Containing over 110 selections by contemporary and classic writers, PROSE MODELS is a rhetorical reader that covers the major elements of paragraph, essay and methods of development with an emphasis on Argument and Persuasive writing.

Table of Contents

Preface
Preface to the Student: How to Use this Book Contents by Theme
Part I: Organizing the Essay	1	(80)
Introduction	1	(4)
Topic Sentence, Thesis, and Unity	5	(29)
Topic Sentence and Unity in the Paragraph	5	(8)
Obituary	7	(1)
Gretel Ehrlich
``A big ranch is a miniature society.''
About Men	8	(3)
Gretel Ehrlich
The cowboy is not the man we see in cigarette ads.
The Shape of the River	11	(2)
Mark Twain
A cub pilot learns to navigate a riverboat on the Mississippi
Thesis and Unity in the Essay	13	(21)
Shooting an Elephant	14	(9)
George Orwell
A British Police inspector in Burma makes a discovery about colonial governments
A well in India	23	(5)
Peggy
Pierre Streit
A woman challenges tradition in a rural Indian village
Velva, North Dakota	28	(6)
Eric Sevareid
The author discovers that his midwestern hometown has changed
Main and Subordinate Ideas	34	(13)
The Paragraph	34	(4)
Queen Victoria at the End of Her Life	35	(3)
Lytton Strachey
Queen Victoria mourned her dead husband in unusual ways
The Essay	38	(9)
The Blast Furnace	39	(4)
Sally Carrighar
The author learned truths about life on Sunday afternoon walks with her father
Why Did I Ever Play Football?	43	(4)
David Holahan
The author explains why he enjoyed playing college football
Order of Ideas	47	(13)
The Paragraph	47	(3)
In an Elevator	48	(2)
E. B. White
``In an elevator, ascending with strangers to familiar heights, the breath congeals, the body stiffens, the spirit marks time.''
The Essay	50	(10)
The Purpose of Lifting	51	(4)
Leonard Kriegel
A man crippled by polio explains why he lifts weights
Marrying Absurd	55	(5)
Joan Didion
Young people who marry in Las Vegas have strange expectations
Beginning, Middle, and End	60	(11)
Mountain Day	62	(4)
Susan Allen Toth
On a fall holiday students at a New English college bike in the countryside
Ben & Jerry's	66	(5)
Calvin Trillin
A popular ice cream has an unusual history
Transitions	71	(10)
Communication	72	(3)
Lewis Thomas
Human language is different from that of other species
Mary	75	(6)
Mary E. Mebane
The author remembers her mother and her North Carolina childhood
Part II: Description, Narration, Exposition	81	(142)
Introduction	81	(2)
Description	83	(23)
The World's Largest Pile of Scrap Tires	84	(4)
John McPhee
Scrap tires border a California valley half a mile
The Buick	88	(4)
W. S. Merwin
``The Buick started up, waking huge echoes, and the tail lights moved toward us with the smoke rising around them.''
Hoyt Street	92	(6)
Mary Helen Ponce
``The barrio was laid out like a huge square. The streets ran up and down with nary a curve or dead end.''
The Barrio	98	(8)
Ronald Takaki
Chicanos create a Mexican-American world in the barrios of the United States
Narration	106	(17)
Flying	107	(5)
James Salter
``The winds aloft had been incorrectly forecast. Unknown to us, they were from a different direction and stronger. Alone and confident we headed west.''
Learning to See	112	(4)
Eudora Welty
``Riding behind my father I could see that the road had him by the shoulders, by the hair under his driving cap. It took my mother to make him stop.''
The American Invasion of Macun	116	(7)
Esmeralda Santiago
Experts come to a rural Puerto Rican community to give instructions on healthy living
Example	123	(10)
New York	123	(2)
E. B. White
New York is too implausible a city to work, and yet it does
Thursday Morning in a New York Subway Station	125	(3)
Tom Wolfe
Young lovers embrace during morning rush hour at a New York City subway station
Discipline---To What End?	128	(5)
Margaret Mead
Rhoda Metraux
Two anthropologists investigate how children are disciplined in different cultures
Classification and Division	133	(12)
Kinds of Discipline	134	(5)
John Holt
Children learn from the disciplines of Superior Force, Culture, and Nature
The Newspaper	139	(3)
Allan Nevins
The accuracy of a newspaper depends on the kind of information it reports
Hoppers	142	(3)
Garrison Keillor
People hop over water on a New York City street
Definition	145	(23)
Monkeying	146	(3)
Carol Bly
The word monkeying has special meaning in farm life
Crime	149	(3)
Lawrence M. Friedman
Not all harmful or evil acts are crimes
The Sooners	152	(2)
Philip Hamburger
The word Sooner reflects the history and values of present-day Oklahoma
``Manly'' and ``Womanly''	154	(5)
Casey Miller
Kate Swift
Dictionary definitions reveal differing American attitudes toward men and women
The Underclass	159	(3)
Herbert L. Gans
The term underclass encourages us to blame people for their poverty
Newspapers	162	(6)
Irving Lewis Allen
Slang words for nineteenth-century newspapers had various origins
Comparison and Contrast	168	(16)
Televisions and Reading	169	(3)
Marie Winn
Television controls the experience of the viewer
City People and Country People	172	(3)
Edward Hoagland
Attitudes vary among city people and country people
the English and the Americans	175	(4)
Edward T. Hall
The English and Americans have different attitudes toward privacy
Digital Literacy	179	(5)
Richard Lanham
The two kinds of literacy existing today work in different ways
Analogy	184	(13)
What Makes a Writer	187	(1)
Loren Eiseley
The writer's brain resembles the artist's hidden storehouse of pictures
The Cosmic Prison	187	(4)
Loren Eiseley
Time and space limit our exploration of the universe
The Education of a Physicist	191	(6)
Michio Kaku
Early experiences encouraged the author to become a theoretical physicist
Process	197	(11)
Sounding	197	(3)
Marx Twain
A cub pilot learns to ``sound'' the river at low stages
Outdoor Cooking	200	(5)
Jearl Walker
There are several ways to cook outdoors
How the Spider Spins Its Web	205	(3)
John Richards
Orb-webs are intricate in construction
Cause and Effect	208	(15)
The Telephone	209	(2)
John Brooks
The telephone is a paradoxical invention
Why Nothing Works	211	(3)
Marvin Harris
Modern industrial society is responsible for why nothing works
The Growth of Cities	214	(9)
James Trefil
New kinds of transportation influenced the growth of cities
Part III: Matters of Style: Diction	223	(62)
Introduction	223	(2)
Usage	225	(12)
In the Land of ``Coke-Cola''	227	(3)
William Lest Heat Moon
A traveller orders the $4.50 special in a rural Georgia restaurant
Newsweek, Being Cool	230	(4)
A young man becomes the ``guru of cool'' in 1950s Ohio
A Memo from Dad	234	(3)
Robert Sullivan
``As your father, I am happy to report that our family had a marvellously successful first quarter this year.''
Tone	237	(9)
Osu!	238	(5)
Mark Singer
Eight-year-old Joshua Feldman has a karate-birthday-party
Surfing	243	(3)
William Finnegan
``It's a clean takeoff: a sudden sense of height fusing with a deep surge of speed.''
Imagery	246	(5)
The Rocky Shores	246	(5)
Rachel Carson
Walking through an evergreen forest to a rocky seacoast has a special enchantment
Figurative Language	251	(9)
Watching a Night Launch of the Space Shuttle	252	(4)
Diane Ackerman
The space shuttle expresses a human aspiration
Time is Money	256	(4)
George Lakoff
Mark Johnson
Metaphorical expressions structure how we think and act
Concreteness	260	(10)
Mortality	261	(1)
Bailey White
``So now I have two cars. I call them my new car and my real car. Most of the time I drive my new car. But on some days I go out to the barn and get in my real car.''
Fireworks	262	(8)
George Plimpton
Fireworks made the Fourth of July the best day of the year
Euphemism and Jargon	270	(15)
Learning the Language	271	(4)
Perri Klass
Her first months working in a hospital, a medical student learns the special language of doctors
Nipping Cliches in the Bud	275	(3)
Sydney J. Harris
``I should like to read or hear, just once, about an apology that is not abject, a void that is not aching, a test that is not acid, and a swoop that isn't fell.''
Little Red Riding Hood Revisited	278	(3)
Russell Baker
A classic tale translated into the ``modern American language.''
More on Faulty Diction	281	(4)
Part IV: Matters Of Style: The Sentence	285	(48)
Introduction	285	(2)
Addition and Modification	287	(7)
Hudson Street	288	(6)
Jane Jacobs
A New York street has the qualities of a complex ballet
Emphasis	294	(8)
The Steamboatman	296	(6)
Mark Twain
A steamboat brings excitement to a nineteenth-century Missouri river town
Loose and Periodic Sentences	302	(8)
The Turtle	303	(3)
John Steinbeck
A turtle struggles up a steep embankment to reach the highway
At Tinker Creek	306	(4)
Annie Dillard
A Virginia creek deepens the author's sense of time and space
Climax	310	(3)
My Grandmother	310	(3)
John Updike
An exuberant boy lifts his grandmother in his arms
Parallelism	313	(6)
Boyhood in a Sacramento Barrio	314	(5)
Ernesto Galarza
Traditional Hispanic values conflict with American ones in a Sacramento neighborhood
Antithesis	319	(5)
Nonviolent Resistance	320	(4)
Martin Luther King, Jr.
We can resist oppression without creating anarchy
Length	324	(9)
On Matters of Doubt	325	(8)
Lewis Thomas
``The sciences and the humanities are all of a piece, one and the same kind of work for the human brain . . . .''
Part V: Argument and Persuasion	333	(232)
Inductive Reasoning	335	(51)
Experience and Observation	336	(24)
Max into Maximilian	337	(2)
Vicki Hearne
A remarkable dog guides a blind and deaf woman
Revenge Theory	339	(11)
Edward Tenner
``The world we have created seems to be getting even, twisting our cleverness against us.''
More Police, Less Crime? Wrong	350	(2)
Richard Moran
The public holds mistaken ideas about policing and crime
The Right to Fail	352	(5)
William Zinsser
Failure is an integral part of growing up and becoming educated
Wait a Minute	357	(3)
Ellen Goodman
``In public, people swing beliefs at each other like fists. The audience is expected to identify a hero and a villain.''
Analogy	360	(8)
The Warfare in the Forest Is Not Wanton	361	(3)
Brooks Atkinson
Warfare in the forest is unlike human warfare
The End of Education	364	(4)
John Henry Newman
Like bodily health, education is good for its own sake
Cause and Effect	368	(18)
Who Killed Benny Paret?	369	(3)
Norman Cousins
The death of a prizefighter raises questions about causes
Computer Viruses	372	(4)
Stephen L. Carter
Computer viruses show what is uncivil in our society
Statistical Lives	376	(3)
Alan Wertheimer
Must we turn out backs on needy people to meet the needs of people in the future?
Why save Tropical Rain Forests?	379	(3)
Roger D. Stone
We must save tropical rain forests from destruction
Students and Drugs	382	(4)
Herbert Hendin
Drug abuse is the most dramatic expression of student unhappiness
Deductive Reasoning	386	(22)
Freedom and Security	389	(3)
Sydney J. Harris
Freedom and Security are mutually sustaining
Reflections on War	392	(5)
H. L. Mencken
War is difficult to eradicate because it serves human needs
The Limits of Relevance	397	(3)
Kenneth B. Clark
Education is relevant to nothing but itself
Final Exams Discourage Learning	400	(5)
Karl L. Schilling
Karen Maitland Schilling
``Many of our current testing practices, particularly final exams, encourage the development of academic bulimia: binge-and-purge learning:''
Who Deserves the Death Penalty?	405	(3)
William Raspberry
Should a judge consider social advantage and disadvantage in sentencing criminals?
Controversy	408	(63)
Internet Filtering	410	(50)
Supreme Court Ruling on the Communications Decency Act, ``Reno v. ACLU,'' June 26, 1997
The Supreme Court declares the Communications Decency Act unconstitutional	410	(17)
from the majority opinion of Justice John Paul Stevens from the dissent of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor
Internet: The Lost Fight	427	(3)
William F. Buckley, Jr.
The majority opinion declaring the Communications Decency Act unconstitutional was argued on the wrong grounds
Sex, Fat, and Responsibility	430	(3)
George F. Will
``The law can do only so much in removing the burden of living vigilantly and responsibly, for our own sake and our children's
The New Censorship	433	(6)
Patrick D. Maines
Recent laws and regulations imposr a new kind of censorship
Wal-Mart's Free Choice	439	(2)
William J. Bennett
C. DeLores Tucker
In choosing not to stock certain compact discs, Wal-Mart is exercising quality control, not censorhip
Will Free Speech Get Tangled in the Web?	441	(10)
Joshua Michah Marshall
``The new world of online media is inevitably changing the terms of debate about freedom of speech and of the press.``
In Praise of Censorship	451	(9)
Stanley C. Brubaker
Moderate censorship has a place in a modern republic
Legalizing Drugs	460	(11)
Prohibition and Drags	460	(3)
Mark H. Moore
Prohibition is misunderstood in analogies with the drug war
The Case for Medicalizing Heroin	463	(3)
Alan M. Dershowitz
Medicalizing heroin would cut drug-related crime and save lives without creating new addicts
Legalize Drugs?	466	(5)
Charles B. Rangel
Legalizing drugs would neither reduce crime nor attack the root causes of drug use
Interpretation of Evidence	471	(41)
What Columbus ``Saw''' in 1492	472	(11)
I. Bernard Cohen
Columbus's view of Native Americans was shaped by the tales of earlier seafarers, by contemporary religious ideas, and by what he expected to find
Asymmetries	483	(9)
Deborah Tannen
Men and women give different weight to status and connection
A New Look at the Homeless	492	(20)
Leanne G. Rivlin
An environmental psychologist examines the causes of homelessness
Methods of Persuasion	512	(53)
Order of Ideas in Persuasive Essays	513	(52)
Homeless	514	(3)
Anna Quindlen
``They are not the homeless. They are people who have no homes. No drawer that holds the spoons. No window to look out upon the world.''
``I Think I Will Not Forget This''	517	(4)
Hilary De Vries
A journalist talks with a woman in a Boston shelter for the homeless
``Extreme Fighting'' and the Morals of the Marketplace	521	(4)
George F. Will
`Extreme fighting' forces a commercial society to decide when the morals of the marketplace are insufficient
The Morality of Indian Hating	525	(12)
N. Scott Momaday
The history of the American Indian is one of abuse and shame
For Indians, No Thanksgiving	537	(4)
Michael Dorris
The first Thanksgiving if it did occur, was the last meeting of equals
Anonymous Who Am I?	541	(13)
Most Americans are ignorant of the history of Mexican-Americans and their contribution to American society
A Modest Proposal
A patriot and friend of the Irish poor proposes a way to relieve poverty and reduce the surplus population
The Gettysburg Address	554	(1)
Abraham Lincoln
The Gettysburg Address	555	(10)
Garry Wills
For Lincoln words were ``weapons of peace in the midst of war.''
Part VI: Essays on Writing	565	(28)
Introduction	565	(28)
The Art of Composition	566	(2)
Mark Twain
``Let us guess that whenever we read a sentence and like it, we unconsciously store it away in our model-chamber . . . .''
What Every Writer Must Learn	568	(9)
John Ciardi
The last act of successful writers is to become readers of their own writing
Simplicity	577	(5)
William Zinsser
To write effectively, we must learn to reduce the clutter of words
Stuffy Talk	582	(11)
Walker Gibson
Writing becomes stuffy when it tries to be impersonal
Glossary	593	(8)
Index	601	(4)
Acknowledgement	605