You may go to any library to borrow your book. Most libraries allow a three-week checkout, and you may have to renew your book loan. You may also purchase a book or use one that you have. You must not choose a book you have already read (unless you have started reading it specifically for this assignment).
Your book should be at an adult reading level. Some books are classified for teens at the high-school age. These books are appropriate, but do not choose a book that is specifically for children. Choose something that interests you.
Your book must satisfy one of the following requirements. It must be either
1) a book related to one of the primary themes in our textbook (listed on pp. iii and iv)
AND/OR
2) a book by one of the authors in our textbook (listed from pp. 239 through 241).
The book may be fiction or non-fiction; it may be an anthology (of short stories or essays) or a complete work. It must be at least 100 pages in length. You will complete 100 pages of reading for this assignment. If your book is longer, you do not have to finish it before the final due date. Hopefully you will or have chosen something you would want to continue to read anyway.
Your reading logs will include this book later in the semester. You can already guess that the reading logs will be similar to the reading logs you’ve been completing throughout the semester. You will be asked, of course, to identify the title of your book, the author’s name (or the editor’s name and the authors’ names), what voice it is written in, and whether or not your reading is fiction or non-fiction. You will be asked to summarize, respond, and identify tone (or tones), primary themes, and secondary themes.
You will then complete a rough draft essay (instructions will be given later) based on your chosen reading. Your essay will have the same format as the other essays throughout this semester. You will be asked to summarize your book (as you have read it so far), compare and contrast your book to at least two of the readings from out textbook this semester, evaluate your book, and respond to the topic. Use as much analysis of rhetorical devices as you feel is necessary, but do not just list the points you are making. If you choose a book by one of the authors from our textbook, one of the texts you compare your book to must be the one by that author.
List of authors from our book:
1. Maya Angelou
2. Isaac Asimov
3. Judy Brady
4. Judith Ortiz Cofer
5. Stephanie Coontz
6. Barbara Ehrenreich
7. Lars Eighner
8. Nikki Giovanni
9. Ellen Goodman
10. Stephen Jay Gould
11. Martin Luther King, Jr.
12. Jonathon Kozol
13. David Madden
14. Desmond Morris
15. Gloria Naylor
16. George Orwell
17. Alexander Petrunkevitch
18. Richard Rodriguez
19. Scott Russell Sanders
20. Richard Selzer
21. Amy Tan
22. Deborah Tannen
23. James Thurber
24. Judith Viorst
25. E.B. White
26. Marie Winn
