Write It: A Process Approach to College Essays with Readings

Acknowledgments
Preface 
Foreword 

Part 1: Basic Information
Some General Guidelines
A Step-by-Step Strategy for Reading Thoughtfully
Leadership: Facing Moral and Ethical Dilemmas
An Explanation of Plagiarism and Copyright Infringement
How to Use a Handbook
The Conventional Academic Essay Structure 
Plagiarism: A Crime to Be Prevented by Vicki Xiong 
Two Alternative Essay Structures 
The Hourglass Structure 
Making Great Strides by N. J. Gleason
The Funnel Structure 
When Volunteerism Isn’t Noble by Lynn Steirer
A Strategy for Writing a Timed Essay 

A Closer Look at the Elements of the Conventional Argument Essay 
An Introduction in an Argument Essay 
Guidelines for Writing a Directed Summary 
Strategies for Developing Your Ideas
Writing a Supporting Paragraph for Your Thesis Statement 
An Introduction to Logical Fallacies 
Transitions 
An Application Exercise 
Conclusions
Sample Scoring Rubric

A Closer Look at Your Control at the Sentence Level 
Proofreading Your Essay for Mistakes in Grammar, Punctuation, and Mechanics 
Assessing Your Grammar Mastery 
Diagnostic Test 1 
Sentence Skills Assessment for Diagnostic Test 1 
Diagnostic Test 2 
Sentence Skills Assessment for Diagnostic Test 2 

Part 2: Writing Assignments 
Assignment 1: “Literature and Real World Connections” 
Literature and Real World Connections by Wendell Berry 
Vocabulary Check 
Questions to Guide Your Reading 
Prewriting for a Directed Summary 
Developing an Opinion and Working Thesis Statement 
Prewriting to Find Support for Your Thesis Statement 
Revising Your Thesis Statement 
Planning and Drafting Your Essay 
Getting Feedback on Your Draft 
Final Draft Checklist 
Reviewing Your Graded Essay 
Extending the Discussion: Considering Other Viewpoints 
On Some Functions of Literature by Umberto Eco 
Does Great Literature Make Us Better People? by Gregory Currie 
The Solitary Vice: Against Reading by Mikita Brottman 
Why Literature Matters: Good Books Help Make a Civil Society by Dana Gioia 
How Reading Makes Us More Human by Karen Swallow Prior 
Practicing Medicine Can Be Grimm Work by Valerie Gribben 
Writing without Reading by John Briggs 

Assignment 2: “Why Place Matters” 
Why Place Matters by Wilfred M. McClay and Ted V. McAllister 
Vocabulary Check 
Questions to Guide Your Reading 
Prewriting for a Directed Summary
Developing an Opinion and Working Thesis Statement 
Prewriting to Find Support for Your Thesis Statement 
Revising Your Thesis Statement 
Planning and Drafting Your Essay 
Getting Feedback on Your Draft 
Final Draft Checklist 
Reviewing Your Graded Essay 
Extending the Discussion: Considering Other Viewpoints 
Why Virtual Worlds Can Matter by Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown 
Settling Down by Scott Russell Sanders 
from Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck 
Infinite Reality by Jim Blascovich and Jeremy Bailenson 
GPS and the End of the Road by Ari N. Schulman 
The Importance of Place: Where Writers Write and Why by Alexandra Enders 
Moving Around without Losing Your Roots by Gianpiero Petriglieri 
What Happens When You Live Abroad by Chelsea Fagan 
from On the Road by Jack Kerouac 

Assignment 3: “Walking and the Suburbanized Psyche” 
Walking and the Suburbanized Psyche by Rebecca Solnit 
Vocabulary Check 
Questions to Guide Your Reading 
Prewriting for a Directed Summary 
Developing an Opinion and Working Thesis Statement 
Prewriting to Find Support for Your Thesis Statement 
Revising Your Thesis Statement 
Planning and Drafting Your Essay 
Getting Feedback on Your Draft 
Final Draft Checklist 
Reviewing Your Graded Essay 
Extending the Discussion: Considering Other Viewpoints 
Walking by Henry David Thoreau 
Street Haunting: A London Adventure by Virginia Woolf 
The Chair by Dave Dawson 
Wild by Cheryl Strayed 
Making Great Strides by N. J. Gleason
Nightwalking: A Subversive Stroll through the City Streets by Matthew Beaumont 
Learning Responsibility on City Sidewalks by Jane Jacobs

Assignment 4: “In Praise of Margins” 
In Praise of Margins by Ian Frazier 
Vocabulary Check 
Questions to Guide Your Reading 
Prewriting for a Directed Summary 
Developing an Opinion and Working Thesis Statement 
Prewriting to Find Support for Your Thesis Statement 
Revising Your Thesis Statement 
Planning and Drafting Your Essay 
Getting Feedback on Your Draft 
Final Draft Checklist 
Reviewing Your Graded Essay 
Extending the Discussion: Considering Other Viewpoints 
The Shallows by Nicholas Carr 
You Say Putter, I Say Potter: We’ve Called the Whole Thing Off by M. Allison Smith |
Hitting Pay Dirt by Annie Dillard 
The Dance within My Heart by Pat Mora 
Blue-Sky Research by Sir John Vane 
The Importance of Free Time by Bhagwad Jal Park 
The Lost Art of Walking by Geoff Nicholson 

Assignment 5: “Shopping: A Spiritual Adventure in America” 
Shopping: A Spiritual Adventure in America by Phyllis Rose 
Vocabulary Check 
Questions to Guide Your Reading 
Prewriting for a Directed Summary 
Developing an Opinion and Working Thesis Statement 
Prewriting to Find Support for Your Thesis Statement 
Revising Your Thesis Statement 
Planning and Drafting Your Essay 
Getting Feedback on Your Draft 
Final Draft Checklist 
Reviewing Your Graded Essay 
Extending the Discussion: Considering Other Viewpoints 
Delectable Materialism: Were the Critics of Consumer Culture Wrong All Along? by Michael Schudson
Shopping: The Moral Ecology of Consumption by James J. Farrell 
from A World Split Apart by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 
from Lead Us into Temptation: The Triumph of American Materialism by James Twitchell 
Waste by Wendell Berry 
Why “Retail Therapy” Works by Kit Yarrow 
from Das Kapital: What Capitalist Accumulation Leads To (excerpted from vol. I, ch. 32) by Karl Marx

Assignment 6: “In Defense of Masks” 
In Defense of Masks by Kenneth Gergen 
Vocabulary Check 
Questions to Guide Your Reading 
Prewriting for a Directed Summary 
Developing an Opinion and Working Thesis Statement 
Prewriting to Find Support for Your Thesis Statement 
Revising Your Thesis Statement 
Planning and Drafting Your Essay 
Getting Feedback on Your Draft 
Final Draft Checklist 
Reviewing Your Graded Essay 
Extending the Discussion: Considering Other Viewpoints 
Appearance Equals Identity by Ted Polhemus 
Metaperceptions: How Do You See Yourself? by Carlin Flora 
The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf 
Differentiating the Hijab from the Headscarf by Rawan AbuShaban 
The Style Imperative by Hara Estroff 
The Importance of Getting Your Appearance in Order by Chris MacLeod 

Assignment 7: “Why We Take Pictures” 
Why We Take Pictures by Susan Sontag 
Vocabulary Check 
Questions to Guide Your Reading 
Prewriting for a Directed Summary 
Developing an Opinion and Working Thesis Statement 
Prewriting to Find Support for Your Thesis Statement 
Revising Your Thesis Statement
Planning and Drafting Your Essay 
Getting Feedback on Your Draft 
Final Draft Checklist 
Reviewing Your Graded Essay 
Extending the Discussion: Considering Other Viewpoints 
Every Portrait Tells a Lie by Debra Brehmer 
Photographs of My Mother by Maxine Hong Kingston 
Experience and Image: The Essential Connection by Jim Richardson 
Art at Arm’s Length: A History of the Selfie by Jerry Saltz 
What Your Selfies Say About You by Peggy Drexler 
A Thousand Pictures for a Million Words by Lash Keith Vance 

Assignment 8: “Reading and Thought” 
Reading and Thought by Dwight Macdonald 
Vocabulary Check 
Questions to Guide Your Reading 
Prewriting for a Directed Summary 
Developing an Opinion and Working Thesis Statement 
Prewriting to Find Support for Your Thesis Statement 
Revising Your Thesis Statement 
Planning and Drafting Your Essay 
Getting Feedback on Your Draft 
Final Draft Checklist 
Reviewing Your Graded Essay 
Extending the Discussion: Considering Other Viewpoints 
Is Google Making Us Stupid? What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr 
Yes, People Still Read, but Now It’s Social by Steven Johnson 
The Tomes They Are A-Changing by Benedict Jones 
Reading Won’t Make You a Better Person: Enough of This Sanctimonious Blather by Leo Robson 
Is Reading Really at Risk? It Depends on What the Meaning of Reading Is by Joseph Epstein 
The Future of Books by Kathryn Keeton 
The Death of Reading: Will a Nation That Stops Reading Eventually Stop Thinking? by Mitchell Stephens

Assignment 9: Arguments through Literature: “The Monkey Garden” 
Understanding and Responding to Arguments in Literature 
Chapter IX from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein 
Strategies for Identifying an Argument in Literature 
Developing an Opinion and Working Thesis Statement 
The Monkey Garden by Sandra Cisneros 
Vocabulary Check 
Questions to Guide Your Reading 
Prewriting for a Directed Summary 
Developing an Opinion and Working Thesis Statement 
Prewriting to Find Support for Your Thesis Statement 
Revising Your Thesis Statement 
Planning and Drafting Your Essay 
Getting Feedback on Your Draft 
Final Draft Checklist 
Reviewing Your Graded Essay 

Part 3: Case Studies 
Case Study 1: Rebecca Solnit’s “Walking and the Suburbanized Psyche” 
Walking and the Suburbanized Psyche by Rebecca Solnit 
Student 1 
Student 2 
Student 3 
Student 4 

Case Study 2: “Shopping: The Moral Ecology of Consumption” 
Shopping: The Moral Ecology of Consumption by James J. Farrell 
Student 1 
Student 2 
Student 3 
Student 4

Case Study 3: Susan Sontag’s “Why We Take Pictures” 
Why We Take Pictures by Susan Sontag 
Student 1 
Student 2 
Student 3 
Student 4 

Case Study 4: Dwight Macdonald’s “Reading and Thought” 
Reading and Thought by Dwight Macdonald 
Student 1 
Student 2 
Student 3 
Student 4 
Student 5 

A Glossary of Key Terms 

Index