Reading Selections
peggy.porter
Authentic Voices
The Writing Process
The four stages of the writing process
Writing Descriptions
Written descriptions often follow a specific direction: near to far, top to bottom, bottom to top and vice versa.
Introductions and Conclusions
Multiple strategies to introduce and conclude your essays
On Natural Death
An article that illustrates the importance of organization and emphasis
Roseanne
Paragraph development and support
Model Essay: Comparison and Contrast
My English Grandmother
Why Small Businesses Fail
Mindfulness, Self-Compassion and Resilience
Model Essay: Cause and Effect
Model Essay: Argument (PDF)
Virginia Woolf, Professions for Women
The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin
Youtube: The Story of an Hour
Langston Hughes, "Salvation"
Joseph M. Williams, Style: Toward Clarity and Grace
My Wood
Mary Rowlanson's Capitivity Narrative
James Baldwin, "Stranger in the Village"
Charlotte Perkins Stetson, "The Yellow Wall-paper"
Plato, The Allegory of the Cave
Scott Russell Sanders, "Under the Influence"
N. Scott Momaday, "Way to Rainy Mountain"
Nancy Mairs, "On Being a Cripple"
Michael Pollan, "An Animal's Place"
Eudora Welty, "One Writer's Beginning"
Bouncing Back
They Say I Say
Short Process Essay
Toni Morrison's Nobel Lecture in Literature (1993)
Read and listen to Morrison's speech.
'Idiot,' 'Yahoo,' 'Original Gorilla': How Lincoln Was Dissed in His Day
Anaphora and Epistrophe: Two Rhetorical Devices You See Everywhere
Benjamin Franklin, "Learning to Write"
Summary of "My Wood"
"The Yellow Wall-paper" The Rest Cure
Silas Weir Mitchel, inventor of the rest cure.
Credits:Wellcome Library, London
Influential American neurologist Silas Weir Mitchell developed the rest cure in the late 1800s for the treatment of hysteria, neurasthenia and other nervous illnesses. It became widely used in the US and UK, but was prescribed more often for women than men. It was frequently used to treat anorexia nervosa. The treatment kept some patients alive and others out of asylums, though some patients and doctors considered the cure worse than the disease.
More on "The Rest Cure"
Both Virginia Woolf and Charlotte Perkins Gilman were prescribed the rest cure.
George Orwell, Politics and the English Language
Listen to Orwell's "Politics and the English Language"
Shakespeare's Sister
Anaphora: A Definition with Examples
Epistrophe: A Definition with Examples
George Orwell, "Shooting an Elephant"
MLK's Letter from a Birmingham Jail
Rhetorical Appeals in Letter from a Birmingham Jail (Color Coded)
Bruce Catton, "Grant and Lee: A Study in Contrasts"
Toni Morrison, "Strangers"
Interrogating Texts
From Harvard Library: Reading Critically
Francis Bacon, "Of Studies"
The Essays of Francis Bacon
These essays are searchable for key words.
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed