an exercise that encourages the student to investigate the character’s various human
dimensions.
In our Part One discussion of plays as a genre, we refer to changes in theatrical
conventions. Quite possibly your students will express discomfort with the language
and format of Antigone (p. 832) and Othello (p. 545). When you teach any of these
ESSAYS
You may be reluctant to teach the essays in our book, suspecting that this genre is not
as “literary” as short fiction, poetry, and drama. But as we indicate in the text, quite a
few essays show many of the same qualities traditionally associated with the other
three genres. Indeed, you may want to emphasize that nonfiction is less a window on
the real world than an artful representation of it, exhibiting many of the same tech-
niques of craft that one can find in fiction. Furthermore, reading essays can serve as a
bridge between the literature your students encounter in our book and the writing you
have them do. Even if you demand that their writing eschew explicitly personal reflec-
tions like those of June Jordan, familiarizing your students with essays expands their
rhetorical repertoires. They grow aware of strategies and techniques that, to some ex-
tent, can shape their own prose.
Unfortunately, we find that most students have had little previous experience
analyzing essays. At best, they have taken an English class that included a brief unit on
this genre. We also have had scant formal training in essay analysis, and the same may
be true of you. Moreover, we find that published theories of the essay do not dwell
much on specific features of specific texts. Instead, their tendency is to exalt the genre
in broad terms. Hence, more than with the other genres in our book, your class’s
approach to the essay will include evolving a critical lexicon for it. We try to help by
identifying typical elements of essays in Part One.
its intellectual force precisely by embedding its claims within a compelling and
credible narrative.
You and your class may desire to discuss the extent to which, and the sense in
which, a particular essay is “true.” Some of your students may simply accept the text’s
veracity; others may be skeptical, disposed to regard the work as fiction. We encourage
our classes to consider how even avowedly objective writing is still a selective, crafted
representation of the world. We also suggest that essayists deserve at least some leeway
when they attempt to render their past experiences, conversations, and thoughts. At
the same time, we acknowledge that readers approach essays and short stories with
different expectations. In an important sense, they are willing to accept short stories as
fabrication, while being suspicious of essays that seem bent on falsifying the writer’s
life.
Annotated Bibliography of Resources
We have found the following list of books and articles especially useful for teaching
literature and composition courses. They have influenced, too, our work on Making
Literature Matter. The list is necessarily selective; particular items on it may lead you
to other good resources for your pedagogy. We have divided the list into three catego-
ries: (1) texts on basic principles of rhetoric and argument, (2) texts that engage in
rhetorical analysis of literature or discuss argumentative moves that literary critics
make, and (3) texts that relate literary theory or pedagogy to the teaching of writing.
BASIC PRINCIPLES OF
RHETORIC AND ARGUMENT
Aristotle. On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse. Ed. and trans. George A. Kennedy.
New York: Oxford UP, 1991.
Although an ancient treatise (dating from c. 333 B.C.E.), this remains an illumi-
nating guide to basic principles, and most contemporary theorists of rhetoric and
argument continue to build on it. Kennedy’s edition is accessible as well as sound
and up-to-date in its scholarly apparatus.
Bitzer, Lloyd F. “The Rhetorical Situation.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 1 (1968): 1–17.
Bizzell, Patricia, and Bruce Herzberg, eds. The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from
Classical Times to the Present. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2001.
The best compendium we know of primary sources in rhetorical theory through
the ages.
Crosswhite, James. The Rhetoric of Reason. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1996.
Winner of the Modern Language Association’s Shaugnessy Award, this is a lucid
and thoughtful defense of written argument as a form of reasoning.
Ede, Lisa, and Andrea Lunsford. “Audience Addressed/Audience Invoked: The Role
of Audience in Composition Theory and Pedagogy.” College Composition and
Communication 35 (1984): 155–71.
Clarifies various possible senses of the term audience.
Emmel, Barbara, Paula Resch, and Deborah Tenney, eds. Argument Revisited, Argu-
ment Redefined: Negotiating Meaning in the Composition Classroom. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage, 1996.
Includes many thoughtful essays that apply current strands in argument theory to
the teaching of writing.
Fulkerson, Richard. Teaching the Argument in Writing. Urbana, IL: National Council
of Teachers of English, 1996.
Good introduction to various theories of argument. Written expressly for teachers
of writing.
Kroll, Barry M. “Arguing Differently.” Pedagogy 5.1 (2005): 37–60.
Offers multiple approaches to argument, emphasizing those in which the writer
demonstrates respect for the audience’s potentially opposing opinions.
Lamb, Catherine E. “Beyond Argument in Feminist Composition.” College Composi-
tion and Communication 42 (1991): 11–24.
Despite its title, this article does not go “beyond” argument but rather proposes a
collaborative model of it while incisively critiquing “monologic” forms.
Lynch, Dennis A., Diana George, and Marilyn Cooper. “Moments of Argument: Ag-
onistic Inquiry and Confrontational Cooperation.” College Composition and
Communication 48 (1997): 61–85.
Detailed presentation of a framework for composition teaching that stresses argu-
ment as inquiry.
Perelman, Chaim, and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca. The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Ar-
gumentation. Trans. J. Wilkinson and P. Weaver. Notre Dame, IN: U of Notre
Dame P, 1969.
A landmark in contemporary theorizing about rhetoric, especially argument.
Details many strategies of informal logic and makes a cogent case for seeing
argument as intertwined with considerations of value.
Toulmin, Stephen. The Uses of Argument. New York: Cambridge UP, 1964.
A significant influence on textbooks about argument, including ours. Founda-
tional especially in its discussion of claims and warrants.
RHETORICAL ANALYSIS OF LITERATURE AND DISCUSSION
OF ARGUMENT IN LITERARY CRITICISM
Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: U of Minne-
sota P, 1996.
Lucid and witty survey of various schools of literary theory. Concludes by recom-
mending they be replaced with a rhetorical approach to literature.
Fahnestock, Jeanne, and Marie Secor. “The Rhetoric of Literary Criticism.” In Textu-
al Dynamics of the Professions: Historical and Contemporary Studies of Writing in
Professional Communities. Ed. Charles Bazerman and James Paradis. Madison: U
of Wisconsin P, 1990. 76–96.
Invaluable survey of the kinds of issues and argumentative moves that literary crit-
ics undertake.
Fish, Stanley. Doing What Comes Naturally: Change, Rhetoric, and the Practice of
Theory in Literary and Legal Studies. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1989.
Includes many essays that show the pervasiveness of rhetoric in literary criticism
and theory.
———. Professing Literature: An Institutional History. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1987.
Graff’s 1987 book is an excellent chronicle of debates among literary critics since
the modern founding of the discipline. His later book recommends ways of teach-
ing such conflicts in undergraduate classes.
Levin, Richard. New Readings vs. Old Plays: Recent Trends in the Reinterpretation of
English Renaissance Drama. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1979.
Negative about current practices in literary criticism but cannily analyzes the
field’s typical argumentative moves. Especially good on the impulse to “thema-
tize.”
MacDonald, Susan Peck. Professional Academic Writing in the Humanities and Social
Sciences. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1994.
Winner of the College Composition and Communication Book Award, this is an
incisive empirical comparison of scholarly discourse in literary studies with writ-
ing in other fields.
Mailloux, Steven. Reception Histories. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1998.
———. Rhetorical Power. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1989.
Two books by a theorist dedicated to showing how both literature and literary crit-
icism function rhetorically.
Smith, Karen R. “What Good Is World Literature? World Literature Pedagogy and
1992. 227–33.
Drawing on personal experience, Tompkins calls for more civil argument in liter-
ary criticism.
Turner, Mark. Reading Minds: The Study of English in the Age of Cognitive Science.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1991.
RELATING LITERARY THEORY AND PEDAGOGY
TO THE TEACHING OF WRITING
Anderson, Judith H., and Christine R. Farris, eds. Integrating Literature and Writing
Instruction: First-Year English, Humanities Core Courses, Seminars. New York:
Modern Language Association, 2007.
ary study and writing instruction, with attention to debates over whether and how
to combine the two.
Berlin, James. Rhetorics, Poetics, and Cultures. Urbana, IL: National Council of
Teachers of English, 1996.
This posthumously published book is a thoughtful overview of how the three
combine the two subjects.
Booth, Wayne. The Vocation of a Teacher: Rhetorical Occasions, 1967–1988. Chicago:
U of Chicago P, 1989.
Collection of essays by a highly influential advocate of combining literary study
with instruction in writing and rhetoric.
1991.
Many essays in this collection include interesting writing assignments about litera-
ture.
Donahue, Patricia A., and Ellen Quandahl, eds. Reclaiming Pedagogy: The Rhetoric of
the Classroom. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1989.
Includes several essays that merge literary theory with composition theory.
Horner, Winifred Bryan, ed. Composition and Literature: Bridging the Gap. Chicago:
U of Chicago P, 1983.
Remains a useful anthology of essays on ways to overcome the institutional divide
between composition and literature. Many of the contributors are leading scholars
in both fields.
McCormick, Kathleen. The Culture of Reading and the Teaching of English. Man-
chester, UK: Manchester UP, 1994.
Insightful recommendations for teaching students how to read literature critically
and explore its various cultural dimensions through their own writing.
McQuade, Donald. “Composition and Literary Studies.” In Redrawing the Bounda-
ries: The Transformation of English and American Literary Studies. Ed. Stephen
Greenblatt and Giles Gunn. New York: Modern Language Association, 1992.
Incisive overview of the relations between composition and literary studies in
English departments.
Miller, Susan. “What Does It Mean to Be Able to Write? The Question of Writing in
35.
Provides a model for analyzing both the production and the reception of texts, in-
cluding student writing as well as published literature.
Pope, Rob. Textual Intervention: Critical and Creative Strategies for Literary Studies.
New York: Routledge, 1995.
Delightful presentation of assignments that help students learn about literature by
encouraging them to write extensions and alternative versions of particular texts.
Raymond, Richard C. “When Writing Professors Teach Literature: Shaping Ques-
tions, Finding Answers, Effecting Change.” College Composition and Communi-
cation 59 (2008): 473–502.
Drawing on his experiences teaching in post-Communist Albania, the author ex-
plains how students can better appreciate American literature through intensively
writing about it.
Young, Art, and Toby Fulwiler, eds. When Writing Teachers Teach Literature: Bring-
ing Writing to Reading. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1995.
A collection that constantly emphasizes the integration of literature and composi-
tion.
You may also be interested in four of our own books:
Clifford, John, ed. The Experience of Reading. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1990.
Clifford, John, and John Schilb, eds. Writing Theory and Critical Theory. New York:
Modern Language Association, 1994.
Harkin, Patricia, and John Schilb, eds. Contending with Words: Composition and
Rhetoric in a Postmodern Age. New York: Modern Language Association, 1991.
Schilb, John. Between the Lines: Relating Composition Theory and Literary Theory.
Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1996.
Poems and Pictures: A Portfolio for Writers:
(between pp. 152 and 154)
EDWARD HOPPER, Office at Night (Portfolio p. G)
ROLANDO PEREZ, Office at Night (Portfolio p. G)
To help your students compare Edward Hopper’s painting with Rolando Perez’s po-
em, you might have them read the sample paper included in our introduction to the
portfolio. It shows concretely how a writer can analyze the two works together. Of
course, even if you do make use of the paper, you need not expose your class to it right
away. Students might produce several insights if given a chance to forge connections
between these works on their own. Some class members may be at least hazily familiar
with Hopper’s art, though they may not have seen this particular example. If time and
technology permit, you could show a number of his paintings accessible on the Web,
including his most famous one: the now-iconic Nighthawks. For art historians, Hop-
per’s basic style is so recognizable that they employ the adjective “Hopperesque” when
they come across a work by him or see another artist take a similar approach. If you do
lead your class through a Web survey of his career, you might invite students to identi-
fy recurring features of his style and to explain how Office at Night exhibits them. You,
or a student you assign to do such research, might provide the class with additional
facts about Hopper: for example, his birth and death dates (1882–1967) and the year
he painted Office (1941). But extensive lecturing about his life will delay the active
inquiry you probably hope to encourage. Given this particular painting’s many inter-
esting elements, you might divide the class into small groups and assign each the task
of coming up with a list of the picture’s details. Each group can then relay its findings
to the class as a whole, and next you might ask which of the reported details pop up in
Perez’s poem. If necessary, call attention to Hopper’s use of light and shadow, a hall-
mark of his art that operates dramatically in this particular scene. You might point out,
too, that the picture is typical of Hopper in depicting human figures as somehow de-
EDWARD HOPPER, Conference at Night (Portfolio p. H)
VICTORIA CHANG, Conference at Night (Portfolio p. H)
Victoria Chang’s poem about Edward Hopper’s “Conference at Night” is both a narra-
tion of Hopper’s scene and a reflection on the speaker’s workplace experiences. Pub-
lished in her collection The Boss, the poem offers a behind-the-scenes story that con-
structs the two standing figures as a couple recently fired by the seated man. Chang’s
poem raises issues about employees’ relationships with their boss, their relationships to
one another, the results of layoffs, and even women’s role in the workplace. In a sense,
she uses the painting as a way to work through potential life issues and experiences. By
mixing in description with personal reflection, Chang also models a way of “reading”
the painting. She writes, for example, “a boss once told me never to/act like a woman
the woman stares beyond the man” (9–10). Her choice to combine sentences and
GUSTAV KLIMT, The Kiss (Portfolio p. I)
LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI, Short Story on a Painting of Gustav
Klimt (Portfolio p. I)
Like some of the other pictures in the portfolio, Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss has be-
come world-famous, and some of your students may be familiar with it. As always
with an iconic piece of art, you can invite speculation about why this painting is so
popular. Through a student report or a presentation of your own, you can offer
some basic information about Klimt (1862–1918), including his nationality (Aus-
trian), the current home of this particular work (Vienna, near which the artist was
born), and recurring features of his paintings (e.g., the fascination with female sex-
uality that The Kiss displays). So, too, you might offer some biographical facts about
Lawrence Ferlinghetti (b. 1919), especially that he played a leading role in the
1950s Beat movement through his writing and through his establishment of San
Francisco’s City Lights Bookstore. But you might proceed fairly quickly to having
the class compare Klimt’s picture with Ferlinghetti’s poem. Allow time for students
to read the poem together; check to see that they understand its various lines. To
sharpen their focus on it, you might ask them which passages in the poem seem to
describe objectively the painting’s details, and which passages seem to interpret the
painting by making inferences about the couple. Moreover, through group effort or
individual work, you might have the class identify places in the poem where Fer-
linghetti uses vivid language to make a still painting come alive. You might also ask
the class whether he prepares the reader for the final judgment (“He / is not the
One”). Is this evaluation surprising, or do earlier passages in the poem somehow
anticipate it? Another potentially fruitful question has to do with the poem’s title; is
there indeed a detectable “story” here, and if so, what is it? Of course, the poem’s
EDVARD MUNCH, The Scream (Portfolio p. K)
MAY MILLER, The Scream (Portfolio p. K)
Here we pair two works with the same title, “The Scream”: the famous picture by
the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch (1863–1944) and a much-lesser-known poem
by the African American writer May Miller (1899–1995). You, or a student assigned
to research such facts, might inform the class about the multiple forms that
Munch’s picture actually took. For example, after he first painted it in oil, tempera,
and pastel on cardboard in 1893, he made a widely reproduced lithograph of it in
1895, and he then used tempera on cardboard to create yet another version in
1910. Students might also enjoy learning about thefts of the picture: the 1893
Scream was stolen from the National Gallery of Norway in 1994; the 1910 version
was stolen from the Munch Museum in 2004; both were eventually recovered. Of
course, given that Munch’s Scream has become famous in popular culture, many of
your students will immediately recognize it as an old friend when they come across
it here. Allow some time, however, for them to identify all of the picture’s details,
not just its central figure. Also, invite them to consider why the image of the
screamer has become so iconic—a phenomenon you might verify for them by
showing various appropriations of it on the Web, easily found through Google Im-
ages. Furthermore, you might have your students articulate through freewriting
their own sense of what the screamer is anguished about. These conjectures might
even be, like Miller’s text, first-person poems.
You should acknowledge to your class that it’s unclear whether Miller had
Munch’s picture in mind when she wrote, although she may well have been thinking
of it. Encourage students to ponder why the poem features a divided self: (1) a person
who declares that “I never scream” and (2) some “other frenzied self” who utters “a
mighty scream.” You might ask students: How does someone come to be split in this
way? What role is played in the poem by “silence,” a word that stands out through
FRIDA KAHLO, Wedding Portrait (Portfolio p. L)
DAVID DOMINGUEZ, Wedding Portrait (Portfolio p. L)
David Dominguez’s poem “Wedding Portrait” describes the experience of hanging
Frida Kahlo’s painting “Frida and Diego Rivera” on his living room wall. The paint-
ing, while vibrant, doesn’t look much like the kind of wedding portraits with which
readers are likely familiar. Both Kahlo and Rivera are looking at the camera, rather
than at each other, and while they are holding hands, there remains space between
them. We might notice companionship, but perhaps not the intimacy one might ex-
pect to see between a newly married couple. As the narrator mulls over the process of
putting up the painting, the poem turns into a kind of meditation on the labor of
hanging the piece and, even more so, on his relationship with his own wife. Students
might pay particular attention to the title of his poem, “Wedding Portrait.” Whose
marriage is being portrayed here? Rather than remarking on the painting’s form or
REMBRANDT VAN RIJN, Self Portrait at the Age of 63
(Portfolio p. N)
LINDA PASTAN, Ethics (Portfolio p. N)
Some of your students may have heard of the great Dutch painter Rembrandt van
Rijn (1606–1669), but many of them may not be familiar with his self-portraits. It
will be useful for them to learn that he did several of these and that the picture here
is from the year of his death, when he had fallen into bankruptcy. Employing
Google Images or another search device, you might even display a Web gallery of
his self-portraits at various stages of his life, asking students to identify the changes of
mood they possibly reflect. This 1669 painting is often interpreted as reflecting not
only the artist’s agedness but also his despair over his financial crisis. Probably this
picture will serve your class best if you encourage students to keep it in mind while
they read and discuss Linda Pastan’s poem. You should acknowledge that this
Rembrandt image isn’t necessarily the one that the poem’s speaker refers to,
although it seems a good candidate. Similarly, while the speaker does bring up the
name “Linda,” you might point out that the poem needn’t be thoroughly
autobiographical. In any case, given that the author was born in 1932 and the poem
JACOB LAWRENCE, They Were Very Poor (painting)
SANDRA GILBERT, Jacob Lawrence’s “They Were Very Poor”
(poem)
Feminist literary critic and poet Sandra Gilbert’s “They Were Very Poor” (2015) is a
rich testament to Jacob Lawrence’s 1940–1941 painting of the same name. Lawrence’s
painting is one of a series that chronicles the movement of African Americans from
their rural Southern communities to the North during and after World War I. Gilbert
beautifully unpacks the abstract, modern representations of Lawrence’s piece, paying
particular attention to the political and economic realities behind the image. The
poem notes, for example, the absence in the two figures’ bowls, naming “the blank
bowl and platter” and “the past of yams, melons, and greens” they’ve “lost.” Gilbert
also picks up on the painting’s undercurrent of movement in terms of both geography
and identity. While no longer subject to “hails of whips,” newcomers to the urban
North nevertheless experienced economic and sociocultural loss: “& what was left was
only / the bowl of empty.”