Simon and Schuster Short Prose Reader, The

Simon and Schuster Short Prose Reader, The

• Step by Step Writing Assignments. This recurring feature guides students through planning and writing an essay that is organized and developed like the one they have just read. These directed assignments do much of the planning and shaping work for students, allowing them to focus on content and ideas. Even inexperienced writers can produce an acceptable essay with a minimum of effort—an experience that builds confidence and instills a sense of form and style.
• Readings. Reading selections are short, lively, accessible, and up to date; they also cover a variety of topics and current issues of interest to college students. There are a number of essays by women and multicultural writers.
• Various suggestions for writing . Accommodates a range of approaches and purposes: journal entries, collaborative writing, using the Internet, writing about the readings, and writing with sources.
• Visual Literacy. The chapter-opening visuals (photos, cartoons, ads, graphics) provide an opportunity to teach visual literacy and increase critical thinking, as well as to make connections between verbal and nonverbal discourse.
• The updated appendix on Writing with Sources now includes the most recent changes in the MLA documentation style; it also provides instructions for using a research notebook and additional examples for integrating secondary-source material.
• New topics for debate: Sets of readings on “Can Money Buy Happiness?” and “How Real Is Reality TV?” enhance Chapter 10, Argument, with trendy subjects that will appeal to students of all ages.
• Two new chapter-opening images (a clustered bar graph and a flow chart). The images appearing at the opening of each chapter introduce students to each rhetorical strategy and encourage them to make connections between the print and visual texts.
• Additional help in understanding and writing summaries (Chapter 1 and throughout the book).
• Updated links to Web sites where students can find additional information about the readings and their authors.
• Thirteen new readings, including selections by Rita Dover, Cynthia Crossen, Sue Shellenbarger, and Nancy Masterson Sakamoto, along with two new student essays. Many favorites by Russell Baker, Brent Staples, Gloria Naylor, Judith Viorst, Isaac Asimov, Suzanne Britt, Elizabeth Berg, Mike Royko, Stephen King, and Jade Snow Wong have been held over from previous editions.