[*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 Anzaldúa, “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”
Rahawa Haile, “Going It Alone”
*Nikole Hannah-Jones, “America Wasn’t a Democracy, Until Black Americans Made It One”
Jenine Holmes, “When Pink Ballet Slippers Wont 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, “Whats 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 Machines”
*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”
*Jerald Walker, “Breathe”
Ai Weiwei, “The Refugee Crisis Isnt About Refugees. Its About Us.”
Virginia Woolf, “Professions for Women”
Hanya Yanagihara, “A Pet Tortoise Who Will Outlive Us All”
*Joe Zadeh, “The Tyranny of Time”
*Michelle Zauner, “Crying in H Mart”
Dave Zirin, “Pre-Game”

Glossary of Writing Terms

14 new essays invite students to think deeply across science, philosophy, and sociology, and to confront issues of our time while providing excellent models of effective writing. New essays include the following:

• Nikole Hannah-Jones’s “America Wasn’t a Democracy Until Black Americans Made It One” recontextualizes race and history in the United States.
• Robin Wall Kimmerer’s “The Council of Pecans” examines Indigenous identity and relationships to nature.
• Joe Zadeh’s “The Tyranny of Time” investigates the nature and experience of time.
• Stephanie Burt’s “My Life as a Girl” details the relationship between gender, identity, and embodied experience.

As You Read questions preceding each essay guide students as they develop their skills as critical readers both in the classroom and beyond.

“Being Critical without Criticizing,” a new section in the Introduction to help students engage in productive and empathetic discourse with each other and with the various essays in the book.

An enhanced Documentation Guide that establishes the importance of conducting research and evaluating sources.