Patterns for a Purpose - Softcover

Clouse, Barbara Fine; Wall Dr., Kathleen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0070984573 ISBN 13: 9780070984578

Publisher: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 2009

Synopsis

Patterns for a Purpose’s clear instructions and selection of essays demonstrate rhetorical techniques (patterns) that can be used alone or in combination to achieve writing goals (purposes).

Patterns for a Purpose, a rhetorically organized reader, emphasizes how to think through a writing task by using the patterns of development; the text also acknowledges that many of the real-world writing tasks we undertake are ill served by the rhetorical patterns in their purest form. Patterns for a Purpose's clear instructions and selection of essays demonstrate the rhetorical techniques (patterns) that can be used alone or in combination to achieve writing goals (purposes).

Endeavouring to increase students' cultural literacy, this reader represents Canada's rich tapestry of essayists from various cultures and regions while encouraging readers to think about issues that press our world, such as the environment, gender identity, and technology. From Mark Kingwell's wrestling with ideas of the good life to Thomas King's thoughts about how our narratives shape our lives; from Carol Shields' musings on the delights and challenges of travelling to June Callwood's thoughts about forgiveness; from Brian Payton's startling evocation of a grizzly bear preserve and the nature of "bear-ness" to Wayne Grady's discussions on walking―these Canadian essays portray a particularly Canadian penchant for reflecting on and interrogating our culture.

About this title

About the Authors

Barbara Clouse has taught all levels of college composition, first at Youngstown State University in northeastern Ohio and then at Slippery Rock University in western Pennsylvania. She has also written a number of composition texts. In addition to A Troubleshooting Guide for Writers, her books include The Student Writer: Editor and Critic, Jumpstart: A Workbook for Writers, Patterns for a Purpose: A Rhetorical Reader, and Transitions: From Reading to Writing, all written for McGraw-Hill. She has also developed Cornerstones: Readings for Writers, which is a short prose reader that is part of Primis, McGraw-Hill's custom publishing database. Barbara has also written Progressions with Readings and Conventions and Expectations: A Brief Handbook and Guide to Writing for Longman Publishers. A frequent presenter at national and regional conferences, Barbara often conducts workshops for writing teachers. McGraw-Hill authors represent the leading experts in their fields and are dedicated to improving the lives, careers, and interests of readers worldwide.

Kathleen Wall is a professor in the English Department at the University of Regina. She was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and took her B.A. and M.A. in English at the University of Michigan. She immigrated to Canada in 1973 and began work on her Ph.D. at the University of Manitoba in 1976. Her thesis, The Callisto Myth from Ovid to Atwood, was published by McGill Queen’s University Press in 1988. After working as a sessional in an off-campus program for inner city teachers and social workers at the University of Manitoba, she joined the University of Regina in 1990. She edited Wascana Review, the English Department’s literary journal, from 1993–2002, and became editor again in 2008. In 2001, she won the University of Regina’s Alumni Award for Undergraduate Teaching. Recent publications include Time’s Body, a book of poetry that was a poetry finalist for the Saskatchewan Book Awards, and “Ethics, Knowledge, and the Need for Beauty: Zadie Smith’s On Beauty and Ian McEwan’s Saturday,” which was published in the University of Toronto Quarterly in 2008. Her novel, Blue Duets, will be published by Brindle & Glass in the spring of 2010. She is working on a study of the way Virginia Woolf uses literary form to articulate her work’s relationship to the public sphere.

Edition details

• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Ryerson
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0070984573
• ISBN 13: 9780070984578
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 560