Arguing About Literature: A Guide and Reader

Schilb, Arguing about Literature 3e

Preface for Instructors
Contents by Genre

Chapter 1. What is Argument?
Paul Goldberger, Disconnected Urbanism
Understanding Rhetoric
The Elements of Argument
Sample Argument for Analysis
David W. Barno, A New Moral Compact
Writing a Response to an Argument
Further Strategies for Analyzing an Argument So You Can Write a Response to It
An Argument for Analysis
Regina Rini, Should We Rename Institutions that Honor Dead Racists?

Chapter 2: Writing Effective Arguments
Strategies for Developing an Effective Style of Argument
Structuring Your Argument; Beyond the Five-Paragraph Essay
Student Response to an Argument
Justin Korzack, How to Slow Down the Rush to War
Arguing in the First Person: Can You Use I?
Arguments for Analysis
Lee Siegel, Why I Defaulted on My Student Loans
Afshan Jafar, Not a Fan of Fat Shaming? Stop Thin Praising

Chapter 3: How Do You Argue about Literature?
What Is Literature?
Why Study Literature in a College Writing Course?
A Story for Analysis
Jamaica Kincaid, Girl (story)
Strategies for Making Arguments about Literature Sample Student Argument about Literature
Ann Schumwalt, The Mother’s Mixed Messages in "Girl"
Looking at Literature as Argument
John Milton, When I Consider How My Light Is Spent (poem)
Robert Frost, Mending Wall (poem)
Literature and Current Issues
Rivka Galchen, Usl at the Stadium (story)
Cole Stryker, The Problem with Public Shaming
Laila Lalami, The Social Shaming of Racists is Working

Chapter 4: The Reading Process
Strategies for Close Reading
A Poem for Analysis
Sharon Olds, Summer Solstice, New York City (poem)
Applying the Strategies
Reading Closely by Annotating
Emily Skillings, Girls Online (poem)
Further Strategies: Topics of Literary Studies
Lynda Hull, Night Waitress (poem)

Chapter 5: The Writing Process
Rachel Kadish, Letters Arrive from the Dead (story)
Strategies for Exploring
Strategies for Planning
Strategies for Composing
First Draft of a Student Paper
Dylan Rieff, Letters Don’t Arrive from the Dead
Strategies for Revising
A Checklist for Revising
Revised Draft of a Student Paper
Dylan Rieff, Letters Don’t Arrive from the Dead
Strategies for Writing a Comparative Paper
Don Paterson, Two Trees (poem)
Luisa A. Igloria, Regarding History (poem)
List Similarities and Differences
Consider "Weighting" Your Comparison
A Student Comparative Paper
Jeremy Cooper, "Don Paterson’s Criticism of Nature’s Owners"

Chapter 6: Writing about Literary Genres
Writing about Stories
Eudora Welty, A Visit of Charity (story)
The Elements of Short Fiction
Final Draft of a Student Paper
Tanya Vincent, The Real Meaning of Charity in "A Visit of Charity"
Writing about Poems
Mary Oliver, Singapore (poem)
Yusef Komunyakaa, Blackberries (poem)
Edwin Arlington Robinson, The Mill (poem)
A Student’s Personal Response to the Poems
First Draft of a Student Paper
Michaela Fiorucci, Boundaries in Robinson, Komunyakaa, and Oliver
The Elements of Poetry
Revised Draft of a Student Paper
Michaela Fiorucci, Negotiating Boundaries
Comparing Poems and Pictures
Rolando Perez, Office at Night (prose poem)
Edward Hopper, Office at Night (painting)
A Sample Paper Comparing a Poem and a Picture
Karl Magnusson, Lack of Motion and Speech in Rolando Perez’s "Office at Night"
Writing about Plays
August Strindberg, The Stronger (play)
A Student’s Personal Response to the Play
The Elements of Drama
Final Draft of a Student Paper
Trish Carlisle, Which Is the Stronger Actress in August Strindberg’s Play?

Chapter 7: Writing Researched Arguments
Begin Your Research by Giving It Direction
Search for Sources in the Library and Online
Evaluate the Sources
Record Your Sources’ Key Details
Strategies for Integrating Sources
Avoid Plagiarism
Strategies for Documenting Sources (MLA Format)
MLA In-Text Citation
MLA Works Cited
Three Annotated Student Researched Arguments
A Researched Argument that Uses a Literary Work to Examine Social Issues
Sarah Michaels, "The Yellow Wallpaper" as a Guide to Social Factors in Postpartum Depression
How Sarah Uses Her Sources
A Researched Argument that Deals with Existing Interpretations of a Literary Work
Katie Johnson, The Meaning of the Husband's Fainting in "The Yellow Wallpaper"
How Katie Uses Her Sources
An Argument that Places a Literary Work in Historical and Cultural Context
Fatima Nagi, The Relative Absence of the Human Touch in "The Yellow Wallpaper"
How Fatima Uses Her Sources
Contexts for Research: Confinement, Mental Illness and "The Yellow Wallpaper"
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper
Cultural Contexts
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Why I Wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper"
S. Weir Mitchell, From The Evolution of the Rest Treatment
John Harvey Kellogg, From The Ladies’ Guide in Health and Disease

ALL NEW Chapter 8: Evaluating Internet Resources in a Post-Truth Age
Evaluating Written Arguments You Find on the Internet
Wendy Brenner, Prayer for Gluten (poem)
Varda He, Restaurants should be more aware of celiac, gluten-free diet limits
Critically Analyzing Web Sites’ Truth Claims
Summing Up the Recommendations
Understanding Strategies in Visual Arguments on the Internet
Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est (poem)
British WWI recruitment poster
Linda Hogan, Song for the Turtles in the Gulf (poem)
Environmental ads
Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus (poem)
Cartoon: "No room, you’ll sink us!"
Alberto Ríos, The Border: A Double Sonnet (poem)
Map: U.S.-Mexico border
Katie Bickham, The Ferryman (poem)
Graph: Mass Shootings in 2018
Summing Up the Strategies
Identifying Biases You Might Bring to Your Internet Research

PART TWO: Literature and Arguments

Chapter 9: Families
Mothers and Children: Stories
Tillie Olsen, I Stand Here Ironing
Amy Tan, Two Kinds
Alma Luz Villanueva, Her Choice

Siblings in Conflict: Stories
Tobias Wolff, The Rich Brother
James Baldwin, Sonny’s Blues

Decisions about Parenthood: Stories
David Foster Wallace, Good People
Ben Marcus, Cold Little Bird

Reconciling with Fathers: Poems
Lucille Clifton, forgiving my father
Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays
Theodore Roethke, My Papa's Waltz
Li-Young Lee, My Father, in Heaven, Is Reading Out Loud

Grandmothers and Legacies: Poems
Nikki Giovanni, Legacies
Linda Hogan, Heritage
Judith Ortiz Cofer, Claims
Richard Blanco, Queer Theory: According to My Grandmother
Gary Soto, Behind Grandma's House

Literature and Current Issues: Environmental Responsibilities in Families
Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, Dear Matafele Peinem (poem)
Arguments on the Issue
Lauren Markham, Warming World Creates Desperate People
Leah Schade, Climate Change Impacts Health, Families, Wallets
Brent Stephens, Climate of Complete Certainty

Arguments about a Poem: "Daddy"
Sylvia Plath, Daddy
Arguments about the Poem
Lynda K. Bundtzen, From Plath's Incarnations
Steven Gould Axelrod, From Sylvia Plath: The Wound and the Cure of Words
Tim Kendall, from Sylvia Plath: A Critical Study

Contexts for Research: Human Obligations, Robot Consciousness, and "Liar"
Isaac Asimov, Liar (story)
Contexts for Research
Oren Etzioni, How to Regulate Artificial Intelligence
Fei-Fei Li, How to Make AI That’s Good for People
Maureen Dowd, Silicon Valley Sharknado
A. M. Turing, From Computing Machinery and Intelligence

Chapter 10: Love
Romantic Dreams: Stories
James Joyce, Araby
John Updike, A & P
Leslie Marmon Silko, Yellow Woman

Is This Love? Stories
William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily
Raymond Carver, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

True Love: Poems
William Shakespeare, Let me not to the marriage of true minds
John Keats, Bright Star
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, How Do I Love Thee?
e. e. cummings, somewhere i have never travelled

Melancholy Loves: Poems
Edna St. Vincent Millay, What My Lips Have Kissed, and Where, and Why
Robin Becker, Morning Poem

Impossible Love: Stories
Karen Russell, The Bog Girl
Aimee Bender, The Devourings

Literature and Current Issues: What Constitutes Consent?
Kristen Roupenian, Cat Person
Arguments on the Issue
Andrew Russell, The Ecstasy of Consent
Katelyn Ewen, When Yes Really Means Yes
Suzannah Weiss, #MeToo Has Made Me See Anyone as Capable of Sexual Abuse—Including Me

Literature and Current Issues: How Divided Are Our Cultures?
Thomas Lux, The People of the Other Village (poem)
Arguments on the Issue
Michiko Kakutani, Filters, Silos, and Tribes
Amy Chua, How America’s Identity Politics Went from Inclusion to Division
Elizabeth Kolbert, Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds

Arguments about a Play: Othello
William Shakespeare, Othello
Arguments about the Play:
A.C. Bradley, The Noble Othello
Jeffrie G. Murphy, Jealousy, Shame, and Rival

Contexts for Research: Social Disruption, Personal Anxiety, and "Dover Beach"
Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach Contexts for Research:
Charles Dickens, from Hard Times
Friedrich Engels, from The Condition of the Working Class in England
James Eli Adams, Narrating Nature: Darwin

Chapter 11: Freedom and Confinement
Where Tradition Is a Trap: Stories
Shirley Jackson, The Lottery
Alexander Weinstein, Rocket Night

Everyday Confinement: Stories
George Saunders, Exhortation
Daniel Orozco, Orientation

Resisting Stereotypes: Poems
Chrystos, Today Was a Bad Day Like TB
Dwight Okita, In Response to Executive Order 9066
Pat Mora, Legal Alien
Toi Derricotte, Black Boys Play the Classics
Naomi Shihab Nye, Blood
Uma Dwivedi, I Conflate Shame and Desire and the Ocean Purses Her Lips
David Hernandez, Words without Thoughts Never to Heaven Go

A Creative Confinement: Poems by Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson, Wild Nights--Wild Nights!
Emily Dickinson, Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—
Emily Dickinson, Much Madness is divinest Sense
Emily Dickinson, I’m Nobody! Who are you?

Domestic Prisons: Plays
Susan Glaspell, Trifles
Lynn Nottage, POOF!

Dreams of Escape: Stories
Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour
Kirstin Valdez Quade, The Manzanos

Literature and Current Issues: Does Our Happiness Depend on Others’ Misery?
Ursula Le Guin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
Arguments on the Issue
David Brooks, The Child in the Basement
John R. Ehrenfeld, The Error of Trying to Measure Good and Bad

Literature and Current Issues: What Aren’t Students Free to Say?
Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Flowers and Bullets (poem)
Arguments on the Issue
David Cole, Trust the First Amendment
Minouche Shafik, Should Universities Host Speakers Who Propound Offensive Ideas?
Lara Kiswani, Should Universities Host Speakers Who Propound Offensive Ideas?

Contexts for Research: Domesticity, Women’s Rights, and A Doll’s House
Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House
Contexts for Research
August Strindberg, Woman in A Doll’s House
Emma Goldman, Review of A Doll’s House
Joan Templeton, The Doll House Backlash: Criticism, Feminism, and Ibsen
Susanna Rustin, Why A Doll’s House Is More Relevant than Ever

Chapter 12: Crime and Justice
Discovering Injustice: Stories
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown
Toni Cade Bambara, The Lesson
Ha Jin, Saboteur

Racial Injustice: Poems
Countee Cullen, Incident
Natasha Trethewey, Incident

Justice for Workers: Poems
William Blake, The Chimney Sweeper
Deborah Garrison, Worked Late on a Tuesday Night

Secret Crimes: Stories
Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart
Edward J. Delaney, Clean

A Dream of Justice: Poems by Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes, Open Letter to the South
Langston Hughes, Theme for English B
Langston Hughes, Harlem

How Can Injustice Be Resisted? Plays
Sophocles, Antigone
Ida Fink, The Table

Literature and Current Issues: What Are Effective Ways of Fighting Racial Injustice Today?
Hafizah Geter, Testimony (poem)
Arguments on the Issue
Barbara Ransby, Black Lives Matter is Democracy in Action
Barbara Reynolds, I Was a Civil Rights Activist in the 1960s…
The Economist, The Misplaced Arguments Against Black Lives Matter

Arguments about a Story: "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"
Flannery O’Connor, A Good Man Is Hard to Find
Arguments about the Story
Flannery O’Connor, from Mystery and Manners
Martha Stephens, from The Question of Flannery O’Connor
Stephen Bandy, from "One of My Babies": The Misfit and the Grandmother
John Desmond, from Flannery O’Connor’s Misfit and the Mystery of Evil

Contexts for Research: Innocence, Evil, and "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"
Joyce Carol Oates, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been
Contexts for Research
Don Moser, The Pied Piper of Tucson
Joyce Carol Oates, Smooth Talk: Short Story into Film
Meghan Daum, Jaycee Dugard and the Feel-Good Imperative

Chapter 13: Journeys
Fairy Tale Journeys: Stories
Charles Perrault, Little Red Riding Hood
Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm, Little Red Cap
Angela Carter, The Company of Wolves

Wartime Journeys: Stories
Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried
Ambrose Bierce, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

Roads Taken: Poems by Robert Frost
Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost, Acquainted with the Night

Final Journeys: Poems
John Donne, Death Be Not Proud
Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night
Emily Dickinson, Because I could not stop for Death
E. A. Robinson, Richard Cory

Journey Through Time: Stories
Ray Bradbury, Mars is Heaven!
Octavia Butler, Human Evolution
T.C. Boyle, The Relive Box

Literature and Current Issues: How Should the U.S. Handle Immigration?
Juan Felipe Herrara, Borderbus (poem)
Arguments on the Issue
Douglas Rand, Want to Get Rich? Let in More Immigrants
Dan Crenshaw, The US Should Work with Mexico to Stem Central American Migration
Francia Raisa, I Can't (and Won't) Stop Talking about the Dangerous Decision to End DACA

Contexts for Research: Race, Social Equality, and "Battle Royal"
Ralph Ellison, Battle Royal
Contexts for Research:
Booker T. Washington, Atlanta Exposition Address (The Atlanta Compromise)
W.E. B. DuBois, Of Mr. Booker T. Washington
Gunnar Myrdal, Social Equality

Appendix: Writing with Critical Approaches to Literature
Contemporary Schools of Criticism
New Criticism; Feminist Criticism; Psychoanalytic Criticism; Marxist Criticism; Deconstruction; Reader-Response Criticism; Postcolonial Criticism; New Historicism; Queer Theory

Working with the Critical Approaches
James Joyce, Counterparts (story)
Molly Frye, A Refugee at Home (student paper)
James Joyce, Eveline (story)

Index of Authors, Titles, First Lines, and Key Terms