Brief, inexpensive, yet wide-ranging, this acclaimed collection includes a whole semester's worth of thought-provoking reading.

[*represents readings new to this edition] Preface for Instructors Alternative Tables of Contents By Rhetorical Mode By Purpose By Theme By Clusters and Paired Readings By Chronological Order Introduction for Students: Active Reading, Critical Thinking, and the Writing Process Documentation Guide Maya Angelou, Graduation Gloria Anzaldua, How to Tame a Wild Tongue Barbara Lazear Ascher, On Compassion James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son *Stephanie Burt, My Life as a Girl Danny Chau, The Burning Desire for Hot Chicken Sandra Cisneros, Only Daughter Eli Clare, Clearcut: Explaining the Distance Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Paranoid Style of American Policing *Samuel Cohen, Patriot Days *John Dickerson, Every Dog is a Rescue Dog Joan Didion, On Keeping a Notebook Frederick Douglass, Learning to Read and Write Lars Eighner, On Dumpster Diving Stephanie Ericsson, The Ways We Lie Jen Gann, Wrongful Birth Malcolm Gladwell, Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted *Nikole Hannah-Jones, America Wasn't a Democracy, Until Black Americans Made It One Rahawa Haile, Going It Alone Jenine Holmes, When Pink Ballet Slippers Won't Do Langston Hughes, Salvation Zora Neale Hurston, How It Feels to Be Colored Me *Brooke Jarvis, Deer Wars and Death Threats Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence *Walter Johnson, Guns in the Family *Christine Kenneally, Mind Machines *Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Council of Pecans Stephen King, Reading to Write *Jill Lepore, What's Wrong with the Way We Work Audre Lorde, The Fourth of July Nancy Mairs, On Being a Cripple Matthew J. X. Malady, The Ghosts in Our Machine *Saima Mir, A Woman of Substance Bharati Mukherjee, Two Ways to Belong in America Tommy Orange, from There, There George Orwell, Shooting an Elephant Mike Rose, 'I Just Wanna Be Average' *Kathryn Schulz, Where the Wild Things Go David Sedaris, I Like Guys Brent Staples, Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Space Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal Amy Tan, Mother Tongue Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience *Jerard Walker, Breathe Ai Weiwei, The Refugee Crisis Isn't About Refugees. It's About Us. Virginia Woolf, Professions for Women Hanya Yanagihara, A Pet Tortoise Will Outlive Us All *Joe Zadeh, The Tyranny of Time *Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart Dave Zirin, Pre-Game Glossary of Writing Terms