Synopsis
A mainstream thematic reader for first-year composition courses, this compilation is distinctive from other major readers in that it places a significant emphasis on the role of ethical perspectives in examining themes in non-fiction and literary works. Challenging Perspectives encourages students to grapple with their own views of the world as they are challenged by moral and ethical issues suggested by or directly discussed in a particular selection. Comprised of over 80 non-fiction essays, short stories, poems, and images, the reader's numerous argumentative and persuasive pieces make it a rigorous and substantial anthology ideally suited to composition courses centering on argumentative writing.
- Supporting discussion questions and writing assignments coach students in arguing an effective point of view. Students gain a solid foundation in constructive questioning and analysis, giving them the confidence to take on complex issues that come up in reading and in daily life.
Review
Preface: Questioning the Assumptions Behind this Book--It's Not About "I" 1. Becoming Myself: What Kind of Person Do I Want to Be? Linda Pastan, "Ethics" (poem) Stephen Crane, "The Blue Hotel" (short fiction) Adrienne Rich, "When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision" (essay) Garrett Hardin, "Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor" (essay) Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, "A Mistaken Charity" (short fiction) George Orwell, "Shooting an Elephant" (essay) Alice Walker, "Everyday Use" (short fiction) Daniel Callahan, "What Do Children Owe Elderly Parents?" (essay) Louis Menand, "The Thin Envelope: Why College Admissions Has Become Unpredictable" (essay) Image: Ruth Orkin, "An American Girl in Italy" (photograph) 2. Evaluating Ideas: How Do I Make Sense of My World? From The Onion, "U.S. Government to Discontinue Long-Term, Low-Yield Investment in Nation's Youth" (satire) Margaret Atwood, "Pornography" (essay) Gerald Early, "Understanding Afrocentrism: Why Blacks Dream of a World Without Whites" (essay) Nathaniel Hawthorne, "Young Goodman Brown" (short fiction) Henry Louis Gates, Jr., "The Charmer" (essay) Anonymous, "Old Horse" (essay) Joseph Telushkin, From Words that Hurt, Words that Heal, "The Cost of Public Humiliation" (essay) Albert Camus, "The Guest" (short fiction) Cynthia Ozick, "The Shawl" (short fiction) Howard Rheingold, "Disinformocracy" (essay) Image: Banned Photograph: "The University of Arizona Class of 1898-1899" (photograph) 3. Defining Belief Systems: What Do I Believe? Mad Magazine, The Blasphemous American Satan Family (cartoon) Flannery O'Connor, "Good Country People" (short fiction) Reynolds Price, "Dear Harper: A Letter to a Godchild About God" (essay) Adam Gopnik, "American Electric: Did Franklin Fly That Kite?" (essay) Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" (short fiction) Wray Herbert, Jeffery L. Sheler, and Traci Watson, "Ethical Issues Concerning Human Cloning" (essay) Henry David Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience" (essay) Svi Shapiro, "A Parent's Dilemma: Public vs. Jewish Education" (essay) Raymond S. Duff and A. G. M. Campbell, "Moral and Ethical Dilemmas in the Special-Care Nursery" (essay) Michael Dorris, "The Myth of Justice" (essay) Joy Harjo, "Three Generations of Native American Women's Birth Experience" (essay) Image: "Church Directory" (photograph) 4. Broadening My View: How Do I Perceive Difference? Gail Shister, "NBC Has Its Eye on Reality Series Coming to Bravo" (essay) Martin Luther King, Jr., "Letter from Birmingham Jail" (essay) Bertrand Russell, "Why I Am Not a Christian" (essay) Michael Harrington, from The Other America (essay) Paula Gunn Allen, "Where I Come From Is Like This" (essay) Richard Wright, "The Man Who Went to Chicago" (short fiction) Jack G. Shaheen, "The Media's Image of Arabs" (essay) Gloria Wade-Gayles, "Interracial Relationships Can Be Difficult To Accept" (essay) Anzia Yezierska, "My Own People" (short fiction) Image: "Unidentified Concentration Camp, Germany, at Time of Liberation by U.S. Army," 1945 (U.S. Army Photographic Print) 5. Getting Educated: What Have Others Taught Me? CheatHouse.com Home Page Seth Stevenson, "Adventures in Cheating: A Guide to Buying Papers Online" and bulletin board responses (essay and electronic postings) Jonathan Swift, "A Modest Proposal" (satire) Steve Lopez, "Doin' Time with a New Ticker" (essay) 60 Minutes, "Change of Heart" (transcript from television show) Herman Melville, "Bartleby, the Scrivener" (short fiction) Richard Rodriguez, "Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood" (essay) Henry Demarest Lloyd, from Wealth against Commonwealth, "The Old Self-Interest" (essay) Christina Hoff Sommers, "The War Against Boys" (essay) Image: "Books Are Weapons" (WPA-era poster) 6. Conversing and Confiding: How Do I Respond? Randy Cohen, "Get a Leash" (essay) Monroe H. Freedman, "Professional Responsibility of the Criminal Defense Lawyer: The Three Hardest Questions" (essay) George Steiner, "Heraldry" (essay) Gail Collins, from Scorpion Tongues: Gossip, Celebrity, and American Politics (essays) Margaret Moers Wenig, "Oops! I Shouldn't Say This...Or Should I?" (essay) Gloria Naylor, "Etta Mae Johnson" (fiction) Amy Tan, "Two Kinds" (fiction) Shelby Steele, "On Being Black and Middle Class" (essay) Robert D. Kaplan, "Machiavellian Virtue" (essay) Mary McCarthy, "Cruel and Barbarous Treatment" (short fiction) Image: Jay Boersma, "The Recliner of Turin" (photograph) 7. Speaking My Mind: How Can I Persuade? Editorial Staff of the Chicago Tribune, "Real Beauts: Halle Berry? We Don't Think So" (editorial) Diane Ravitch, "Thin Gruel: How the Language Police Drain the Life and Content from Our Texts" (essay) Jonathan Edwards, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" (sermon) Shirley Jackson, "The Lottery" (short fiction) Langston Hughes, "Salvation" (memoir) Lisa Schmeiser, "Do Geeks Need to Go to College?" (essay) Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Ulysses" (poem) Robert Grudin, "Ideology and Moral Philology" (essay) Alan M. Dershowitz, "Assimilation Is a Greater Problem Than Anti-Semitism for American Jews" (essay) Patricia Hill Collins, from Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, "The Politics of Black Feminist Thought" (essay) Image: Bruce Davidson, from Subway (photograph) 8. Taking a Stand: What Are My Politics? The New Yorker, "This Is What Happens When Ethical Standards Are Set Artificially High" (cartoon) Hanna Rosin, "Separation Anxiety: The Movement to Save Marriage" (essay) Jonathan Rauch, "The Case for Gay (and Straight) Marriage: For Better or Worse?" (essay) Wilfred Owen, "Dulce et Decorum Est" (poem) Studs Terkel, from The Good War (essay) Alleen Pace Nilsen, "Sexism in English: A 1990s Update" (essay) Audre Lorde, "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action" (essay) George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language" (essay) Adam Bellow, "In Praise of Nepotism" (essay) Image: Ansel Adams, "Free Press: Manzanar War Relocation Photograph" (photograph)
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