A text and anthology for introductory literature courses that emphasize critical thinking and writing. Prepared by editors whose scholarship connects literary and composition studies, the book distributes a diverse selection of 58 stories, 118 poems, 10 plays, and 21 essays throughout a rhetoric on writing about literature and a uniquely organized thematic anthology.
A comprehensive text on reading and writing arguments about literature. Part One’s rhetoric shows students how use their initial responses to a literary work as a step toward identifying issues worth debating. Then it shows them how to use methods of argumentation and research to develop and support their own positions on the issues they identify. Throughout, writing exercises let students try out the techniques they are learning, and student examples model the writing process.
A thematic anthology that organizes literary works into provocative issue-based clusters. Part Two explores themes of universal human interest—families, love, freedom, justice, and journeys. Within these chapters, literary works are uniquely gathered in 48 clusters that tightly focus on issues that students can develop arguments about issues such as parental negligence, love in a time of war, and the consequences of punishment and revenge.
Special clusters highlight different approaches to writing about literature. Each of the broad thematic chapters contains 5 special clusters: one provides documents that place a literary work in cultural context, one presents alternative critical perspectives on a literary work, one takes an in-depth look at the work of one writer, one shows how writers revise their work, or the work of other writers, and one pairs literary texts with current news items.
Thorough writing apparatus integrated throughout. In addition to contextualizing headnotes for every selection, cluster, and theme, Making Literature Matter includes hundreds of assignments that make every story, poem, play, and essay an occasion for critical thinking and writing. An appendix shows how to use different critical approaches to analyze and write about literature.