Widely praised for its superior teaching apparatus and thought-provoking readings, The Longman Reader remains the most successful rhetorically organized freshman composition reader. The Sixth Edition offers fresh examples of professional essays, separate chapters on reading and writing, detailed introductions to the patterns of development, “before and after” student essays for each pattern, and more activities and assignments than any comparable reader.

Table of Contents:
Thematic Contents. Preface. 1. The Reading Process. Stage 1: Get an Overview of the Selection. Stage 2: Deepen Your Sense of the Selection. Stage 3: Evaluate the Selection. *Ellen Goodman, Family Counterculture. 2. The Writing Process. Stage 1: Prewrite. Stage 2: Identify the Thesis. Stage 3: Support the Thesis with Evidence. Stage 4: Organize the Evidence. Stage 5: Write the First Draft. Stage 6: Revise the Essay. Student Essay. Commentary. 3. Description. What Is Description? How Description Fits Your Purpose and Audience. Suggestions for Using Description in an Essay. Student Essay. Commentary. Activities: Description. Gordon Parks, Flavio's Home. Russell Baker, In My Day. *Maya Angelou, Sister Flowers. E.B. White, Once More to the Lake. Judith Ortiz Cofer, A Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican Childhood. Additional Writing Topics. 4. Narration. What Is Narration? How Narration Fits Your Purpose and Audience. Suggestions for Using Narration in an Essay. Student Essay. Commentary. Activities: Narration. *Audre Lorde, The Fourth of July. George Orwell, Shooting an Elephant. Annie Dillard, The Chase. Langston Hughes, Salvation. Sophronia Liu, So Tsi-Fai. Additional Writing Topics. 5. Exemplification. What Is Exemplification? How Exemplification Fits Your Purpose and Audience. Suggestions for Using Exemplification in an Essay. Student Essay. Commentary. Activities: Exemplification. Charles Sykes, The “Values” “ Wasteland. Alleen Pace Nilsen, Sexism and Language. James Thurber, University Days. *Beth Johnson, Bombs Bursting in Air. Barbara Ehrenreich, What I've Learned From Men. Additional Writing Topics. 6. Division-Classification. What Is Division-Classification? How Division-Classification Fits Your Purpose and Audience. Suggestions for Using Division-Classification in an Essay. Student Essay. Commentary. Activities: Division-Classification. Judith Viorst, Friends, Good Friends—And Such Good Friends. William Zinsser, College Pressures. William Lutz, Doublespeak. Ann McClintock, Propaganda Techniques in Today's Advertising. *Deborah Tannen, But What Do You Mean? Additional Writing Topics. 7. Process Analysis. What Is Process Analysis? How Process Analysis Fits Your Purpose and Audience. Suggestions for Using Process Analysis in an Essay. Student Essay. Commentary. Activities: Process Analysis. *Bill Bryson, Your New Computer. Nikki Giovanni, Campus Racism 101. Jessica Mitford, The American Way of Death. Paul Roberts, How to Say Nothing in 500 Words. Caroline Rego, The Fine Art of Complaining. Additional Writing Topics. 8. Comparison-Contrast. What Is Comparison-Contrast? How Comparison-Contrast Fits Your Purpose and Audience. Suggestions for Using Comparison-Contrast in an Essay. Student Essay. Commentary. Activities: Comparison-Contrast. Rachel Carson, A Fable for Tomorrow. Suzanne Britt, That Lean and Hungry Look. Richard Rodriguez, Workers. Dave Barry, The Ugly Truth About Beauty. Stephen Chapman, The Prisoner's Dilemma. Additional Writing Topics. 9. Cause-Effect. What Is Cause-Effect? How Cause-Effect Fits Your Purpose and Audience. Suggestions for Using Cause-Effect in an Essay. Student Essay. Commentary. Activities: Cause-Effect. *Stephen King, Why We Crave Horror Movies. Jacques D'Amboise, Showing What Is Possible. Alice Walker, Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self. Lewis Thomas, The Lie Detector. *Jonathan Coleman, Is Technology Making Us Intimate Strangers? Additional Writing Topics. 10. Definition. What Is Definition? How Definition Fits Your Purpose and Audience. Suggestions for Using Definition in an Essay. Student Essay. Commentary. Activities: Definition. K.C. Cole, Entropy. *James Gleick, Life as Type A. Gloria Naylor, “Mommy, What Does 'Nigger' Mean?”. Marie Winn, TV Addiction. William Raspberry, The Handicap of Definition. Additional Writing Topics. 11. Argumentation-Persuasion. What Is Argumentation-Persuasion? How Argumentation-Persuasion Fits Your Purpose and Audience. Suggestions for Using Argumentation-Persuasion in an Essay. Student Essay. Commentary. Activities: Argumentation-Persuasion. Mary Sherry, In Praise of the “F” Word. Yuh Ji-Yeon, Let's Tell the Story of All America's Cultures. Mark Twain, The Damned Human Race. Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal. Nat Hentoff, Free Speech on Campus. Examining an Issue: Date Rape. Camille Paglia, Rape: A Bigger Danger than Feminists Know. Susan Jacoby, Common Decency. Examining an Issue: Cloning. *Daniel Kevles, Study Cloning, Don't Ban It. *Charles Krauthammer, Of Headless Mice...and Men. Examining an Issue: Affirmative Action. Roger Wilkins, Racism Has Its Privileges. Shelby Steele, Affirmative Action: The Price of Preference. Additional Writing Assignments. 12. Combining the Patterns. The Patterns in Action: During the Writing Process. The Patterns in Action: In an Essay. Virginia Woolf, The Death of the Moth. Virginia Woolf, Professions for Women. Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go From Here: Community or Chaos? Martin Luther King, Jr., The World House. Joan Didion, On Going Home. *Joan Didion, The Santa Ana. Appendix: A Concise Guide to Finding and Documenting Sources. Using the Library to Find Books on Your Subject. Using the Library to Find Reference Works on Your Subject. Using the Library to Find Articles on Your Subject. Using the Internet to Research Your Subject. Documenting Sources. What to Document. How to Document. List of Works Cited. Glossary. Index.