The New Millennium Reader (3rd Edition) - Softcover

Hirschberg, Stuart; Hirschberg, Terry

9780130979919: The New Millennium Reader (3rd Edition)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0130979910 ISBN 13: 9780130979919

Publisher: Pearson College Div, 2002

This thematic reader identifies and collects some of the most important insights, discoveries, and reflections of the past millennia as produced by its most noteworthy writers. This reader includes a myriad of works of fiction and non-fiction, poems, and dramas that address such topics as the environment, popular culture, philosophy, history, technology, art, and more. For writers, readers, or anyone who want a comprehensive and entertaining introduction to major traditions in essay writing.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

From the Back Cover:

The third edition of The New Millennium Reader features many works that have never before been anthologized. This thematic reader identifies and brings together in one collection some of the most important insights, discoveries, and reflections of the past millennia by the most noteworthy writers through a wide selection of nonfiction, fiction, poetry, and drama.

Features 32 new nonfiction pieces, 6 new short stories, 8 new poems, and 1 new dramatic piece.
Displays a gradual expansion of thought beginning with familiar subjects that the student can identify with, easily moving to worldlier and wide reaching concepts.
Continues its accessibility with the addition of two new chapters on Popular Culture and the Environment.
Improves with the addition of questions at the end of each chapter showing how writings from different eras can express the same emotion and message, and helps ground students in today while opening up to the reality of history.

Companion Website™ http://www.prenhall.com/hirschberg

The Companion Website™ provides additional chapter exercises, links, and activities that reinforce and build upon the material presented in the text.

Featuries include:
� Additional essay and short answer questions for every reading
� Web links that provide additional contextual information
� Web destinations for each essay topic
� Message board and chat room
� Syllabus Manager™

The third edition of The New Millennium Reader is intended for freshman composition, intermediate and advanced composition course, and courses that consider the essay as a form of literature.

The book introduces students to major traditions in essay writing and explores the relationship between the writer's voice and stylistic features that express the writer's attitude toward his or her personal experiences. The text also provides guidance for students in developing skills in critical reading and writing.

The New Millennium Reader, Third Edition, provides thought-provoking and engaging models of writing by major scholars, researchers, and scientists that show writing is essential to learning in all academic fields of study.

The eighty-two nonfiction selections (thirty-three of which are new to this edition) have been chosen for their interest, reading level, and length and include a broad range of topics, authors, disciplines, and cross-cultural perspectives.

Besides the number and diversity of the selections and the wide range of topics and styles represented, quite a few of the longer readings are included because of the value that more extensive readings have in allowing students to observe the development of ideas and to enhance their own skills in reading comprehension and writing their own essays.

These readings shed light on myriad subjects, from Tutankhamen's tomb to genetic engineering, from the sinking of the Titanic to Mick Jagger on tour and the Internet, from the American Civil War to the Cultural Revolution in China, from Niagara Falls to the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, from autism to advertising, from popular culture to the environment, and other significant topics.

The book is thematically organized in order to bridge the gap between the expressive essays students traditionally read and their own life experiences. Selections draw from memoirs, scholarly essays, and biographies illustrate how writers move through, and beyond, personal experiences and adapt what they write to different audiences.

The book includes 134 selections by classical, modern, and contemporary authors whose work, in many cases, provides the foundation of the broader intellectual heritage of a college education.

Chapters are organized by themes that have traditionally elicited compelling expressive essays and thoughtful arguments and include accounts of personal growth, nature writing, prison literature, and narratives of religious and philosophical exploration. The New Millennium Reader is rich in a variety of perspectives by African American, Native American, Asian American, and Hispanic writers and offers cross-cultural and regional works as well as a core of selections by authors, of which 44 percent are women.

The eighteen short stories (six of which are new to this edition), twenty-nine poems (eight of which are new), and three dramas, including one new play, amplify the themes in each chapter in ways that introduce students to techniques and forms that writers have traditionally used in the fields of fiction, poetry, and drama.

NEW TO THIS EDITION

In addition to the thirty-two new essays, six new short stories, eight new poems, and one new drama, we have created new chapters that emphasize popular culture (Chapter 5) and the environment (Chapter 6).

We have added questions ("Connections") following each of the eleven chapters that challenge readers to make connections and comparisons between selections within the chapter and throughout the book. These "connections" can be thought of as a kind of conversation between the authors and their readers. These questions provide opportunities to consider additional perspectives on a single theme or to explore a particular issue or topic in depth.

We have strengthened the representation of argument by increasing the number and type of argumentative pieces throughout the text, and we have enlarged the discussion of argumentation and persuasion in the Introduction.

CHAPTER DESCRIPTIONS

The eleven chapters move from the sphere of reflections on personal experience, family life, influential people and memorable places, the value of education and perspectives on language, to consider issues in popular culture, our place in nature, history in the making, the pursuit of justice, the impact of technology, the artistic impulse, and matters of ethics, philosophy, and religion.

Chapter 1, "Reflections on Experience," introduces candid, introspective reminiscences by writers who want to understand the meaning of important personal events that proved to be decisive turning points in their lives.

Chapter 2, "Influential People and Memorable Places," introduces portraits of people important to the writers, presents an invaluable opportunity to study the methods biographers use, and explores the role that landscapes and natural and architectural wonders have played in the lives of the writers.

Chapter 3, "The Value of Education," attests to the value of literacy and looks at the role education plays in different settings as a vehicle for self-discovery and at questions raised by censorship and the Internet.

Chapter 4, "Perspectives on Language," explores the social impact of language, the importance of being able to communicate, and the dangers of language used to manipulate attitudes, beliefs, and emotions, whether in propaganda, in advertising, or in pornography.

Chapter 5, "Issues in Popular Culture," touches on broad issues of contemporary concern, including child abuse, consumerism here and abroad, television news, eating disorders, the significance of urban legends, the treatment of the elderly AIDS and the Hispanic -community, racism, and the national inability to solve problems without resorting to "quick fixes."

Chapter 6, "Our Place in Nature," looks at the tradition of nature writing; offers investigations of animal behavior and the ecosystems of oceans, mountains, and tropical forests, and explores the complex interactions of living things.

Chapter 7, "History in the Making," brings to life important social, economic, and political events of the past and addresses the question of how historians shape our perceptions of the past in ways that influence the present.

Chapter 8,"The Pursuit of Justice," draws on firsthand testimonies by writers whose accounts combine eyewitness reports, literary texts, and historical records in the continuing debate over the allegiance that individuals owe their government and the protection of individual rights that citizens expect in return.

Chapter 9, "The Impact of Technology," examines the extent of our culture's dependence on technology and the mixed blessings that scientific innovations, including cyberspace and genetic engineering, will bequeath to future generations.

Chapter 10, "The Artistic Impulse," considers how artists deepen and enrich our knowledge of human nature and experience and how art changes from age to age and culture to culture.

Chapter 11,"Matters of Ethics, Philosophy, and Religion," focuses on universal questions of faith and good and evil, and on basic questions about the meaning and value of life as applied to specific contemporary issues of animal research, Eastern and Western methods of punishment, religious tenets and taboos, ethics and personal choice, and the allocation of environmental resources.

EDITORIAL APPARATUS

An introduction, "Reading in the Various Genres," discusses the crucial skills of reading for ideas and organization and introduces students to the basic rhetorical techniques writers use in developing their essays. This introduction also shows students how to approach important elements in appreciating and analyzing short fiction, poetry, and drama.

Chapter introductions discuss the theme of each chapter and its relation to the individual selections: Biographical sketches preceding each selection give background information on the writer's life and identify the personal and literary context in which the selection was written.

Questions for discussion and writing at the end of each selection are designed to encourage readers to discover relationships between their own experiences and those described by the writers in the text, to explore points of agreement in areas of conflict sparked by the viewpoint of the authors, and to provide ideas for further inquiry and writing. 'These questions ask students to think critically about the content, meaning, and purpose of the selections, and to evaluate the authors' rhetorical strategy, the voice projected in relationship to the author's audience, the evidence cited, and the underlying assumptions. These writing suggestions afford opportunities for personal and expressive writing as well as expository and persuasive writing.

A new set of connection questions at the end of each chapter links each selection with other readings in that chapter and with readings throughout the book to afford students the opportunity to explore multiple perspectives on the same topic.

A rhetorical contents is included to enhance the usefulness of the text by permitting students to study the form (the rhetorical mode employed) of the selections as well as their content and themes.

INSTRUCTOR'S MANUAL

An accompanying Instructor's Manual provides (1) guidance for teaching fiction and nonfiction, (2) sample syllabi and suggestions for organizing courses with different kinds of focus (argumentation, cultural studies, writing across the curriculum, etc.), (3) background information about each essay and definitions of terms that may be unfamiliar to students, (4) detailed answers to the discussion and writing questions, (5) additional essay topics for writing and research, (6) supplemental resources (bibliographies, websites, etc.) for students who wish to pursue further any of the authors or issues, (7) filmography for instructors who wish ...

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.