The Norton Reader Shorter Fifteenth Edition [15 ed.] 9780393420531

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Publisher’s Notice Please note that this version of the ebook does not include access to any media or print supplements that are sold packaged with the printed book. This pdf took me hours to create all hyperlinks might not work but the chapter/stories hyperlinks work, Add me on snap:ayana441 or instagram:321.002

Welcome Welcome to the Fifteenth Edition of The Norton Reader, an anthology devoted to excellent nonfiction writing. As our vibrant cover suggests, we hope that this collection can be both a mirror and a window for your reading and writing; that you see yourself reflected in the thoughts and experiences found here; and that you encounter new perspectives on the world and how to write about them. In this book you’ll find the intersection of personal writing with civic conversations and academic ideas. You’ll find a broad range of authors, from the contemporary voices of Tara Westover and Viet Thanh Nguyen to classic writers like Frederick Douglass and E. B. White, from humorist David Sedaris to youth activist Emma González. You’ll find selections on the environment, education, race, sports, food, and more. As you read this collection of essays, we invite you to reflect on the issues, ideas, and genres presented. May The Norton Reader inspire your writing now and in the future.

EDITORS EMERITI ARTHUR M. EASTMAN, GENERAL EDITOR Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University CAESAR R. BLAKE University of Toronto HUBERT M. ENGLISH JR. University of Michigan JOAN E. HARTMAN College of Staten Island, City University of New York ALAN B. HOWES University of Michigan ROBERT T. LENAGHAN University of Michigan LEO F. MCNAMARA University of Michigan JAMES ROSIER University of Pennsylvania LINDA H. PETERSON Yale University

W. W. Norton & Company has been independent since its founding in 1923, when William Warder Norton and Mary D. Herter Norton first published lectures delivered at the People’s Institute, the adult education division of New York City’s Cooper Union. The firm soon expanded its program beyond the Institute, publishing books by celebrated academics from America and abroad. By midcentury, the two major pillars of Norton’s publishing program—trade books and college texts—were firmly established. In the 1950s, the Norton family transferred control of the company to its employees, and today— with a staff of five hundred and hundreds of trade, college, and professional titles published each year—W. W. Norton & Company stands as the largest and oldest publishing house owned wholly by its employees. Copyright © 2020, 2017, 2016, 2012, 2008, 2004, 2000, 1996, 1992, 1988, 1984, 1980, 1977, 1973, 1969, 1965 by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved. Editor: Sarah Touborg Project Editor: Layne Broadwater Assistant Editor: Madeline Rombes Editorial Assistant: Emma Peters Managing Editor, College: Marian Johnson Production Manager: Stephen Sajdak Media Editors: Joy Cranshaw, Samantha Held Media Project Editor: Cooper Wilhelm Media Editorial Assistant: Katie Bolger Managing Editor, College Digital Media: Kim Yi Ebook Production Manager: Danielle Vargas Marketing Manager, composition: Lib Triplett, Michele Dobbins Design Director: Rubina Yeh Designer: Juan Paolo Francisco Director of College Permissions: Megan Schindel Permissions Clearing: Margaret Gorenstein Photo Editor: Cat Abelman

Composition: Westchester Publishing Services Permission to use copyrighted material is included in the credits section of this book, which begins on page 557. The Library of Congress has cataloged the full edition (earlier version) as follows: Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Goldthwaite, Melissa A., 1972- editor. | Bizup, Joseph, 1966- editor. | Fernald, Anne E., editor. | Brereton, John C., 1943- editor. Title: The Norton reader : an anthology of nonfiction / Melissa A. Goldthwaite, Joseph Bizup, Anne E. Fernald, John C. Brereton. Description: Fifteenth edition. | New York : W. W. Norton & Company, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019042787 | ISBN 9780393690231 (paperback) | ISBN 9780393441277 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: College readers. | Exposition (Rhetoric)—Problems, exercises, etc. | English language—Rhetoric—Problems, exercises, etc. | Report writing—Problems, exercises, etc. Classification: LCC PE1122 .N68 2020 | DDC 808/.0427—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019042787 ISBN: 978-0-393-69024-8 (pbk.) ISBN: 978-0-393-44129-1 (ebook) W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110 W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., 15 Carlisle Street, London W1D 3BS

CONTENTS 1. PREFACE xxvii 2. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xxxi 3. Reading The Norton Reader xxxiii 4. Writing with The Norton Reader xlvii 1 HOME AND FAMILY ❖ JOAN DIDION On Going Home ❖ SCOTT RUSSELL SANDERS Under the Influence ❖ JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant ❖ VIET THANH NGUYEN from The Displaced ❖ LARS EIGHNER On Dumpster Diving 2 PEOPLE AND PLACES ❖ CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE The Danger of a Single Story ❖ JOEY FRANKLIN Working at Wendy’s ❖ JUDITH ORTIZ COFER More Room ❖ IAN FRAZIER Take the F ❖ E. B. WHITE Once More to the Lake 3. SELF AND SOCIETY 67 ❖ KWAME ANTHONY APPIAH Go Ahead, Speak for Yourself ❖ SOJOURNER TRUTH Ain’t I a Woman? ❖ ROXANE GAY What Fullness Is ❖ NANCY MAIRS On Being a Cripple ❖ TEJU COLE Black Body 4. CULTURAL ANALYSIS 102 ❖ MARGARET ATWOOD The Female Body ❖ SLOANE CROSLEY Wheels Up ❖ TIM KREIDER The “Busy” Trap ❖ HENRY LOUIS GATES JR. In the Kitchen ❖ BARBARA KINGSOLVER #MeToo Isn’t Enough 5. FOOD 123 ❖ CHRIS WIEWIORA This is Tossing ❖ JJ GOODE Single-Handed Cooking ❖ DAN BARBER What Farm-to-Table Got Wrong ❖ MARION NESTLE Superfoods Are a Marketing Ploy 6. SPORTS 141 ❖ AIMEE NEZHUKUMATATHIL This Landshark Is Your Landshark ❖ ROGER ANGELL The Interior Stadium ❖ MICHAEL LEWIS from The Blind Side ❖ MAYA ANGELOU Champion of the World ❖ DAVID EPSTEIN Sports Should Be Child’s Play ❖ CLAUDIA RANKINE from Citizen 7. EDUCATION 176

❖ FLORENCE WILLIAMS ADHD Is Fuel for Adventure ❖ LYNDA BARRY The Sanctuary of School ❖ FREDERICK DOUGLASS Learning to Read ❖ TARA WESTOVER from Educated ❖ GERALD GRAFF Hidden Intellectualism ❖ MIKE ROSE Blue-Collar Brilliance ❖ MAYA ANGELOU Graduation 8. WORDS AND WRITING 220 ❖ STEPHEN KING On Writing ❖ BENJAMIN FRANKLIN Learning to Write ❖ AMY SEQUENZIA Loud Hands ❖ REBECCA SOLNIT How to Be a Writer ❖ GEORGE ORWELL Politics and the English Language ❖ KATHY FISH Collective Nouns for Humans in the Wild 9. NATURE AND THE ENVIRONMENT 247 ❖ BRIAN DOYLE Joyas Voladoras ❖ DAVID SEDARIS Untamed ❖ JOHN MCPHEE Under the Snow ❖ CHIEF SEATTLE Letter to President Pierce, 1855 ❖ TERRY TEMPEST WILLIAMS The Clan of One-Breasted Women ❖ SANDRA STEINGRABER Tune of the Tuna Fish 10. WHERE WE LIVE, WHAT WE LIVE FOR 274 ❖ HENRY DAVID THOREAU Where I Lived, and What I Lived For ❖ ALAN LIGHTMAN Our Place in the Universe: Face to Face with the Infinite ❖ ELIZABETH KOLBERT The Siege of Miami ❖ TATÉ WALKER The (Native) American Dream ❖ CORMAC CULLINAN If Nature Had Rights 11. MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION 316 ❖ NICHOLAS CARR Is Google Making Us Stupid? ❖ SHERRY TURKLE The End of Forgetting ❖ EULA BISS Time and Distance Overcome ❖ JEAN M. TWENGE Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? ❖ THOMAS GOETZ Harnessing the Power of Feedback Loops ❖ JANE MCGONIGAL Be a Gamer, Save the World 12. PHILOSOPHY AND ETHICS 370 ❖ MARK TWAIN Advice to Youth ❖ MATT DINAN Be Nice ❖ ATUL GAWANDE When Doctors Make Mistakes ❖ REBECCA SKLOOT The Woman in the Photograph ❖ MICHAEL POLLAN An Animal’s Place 13. HISTORY AND POLITICS 417 ❖ THOMAS JEFFERSON AND OTHERS The Declaration of Independence ❖ ELIZABETH CADY STANTON Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions ❖ JONATHAN SWIFT A Modest Proposal

❖ NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLI The Morals of the Prince ❖ HENRY DAVID THOREAU The Battle of the Ants ❖ GEORGE ORWELL Shooting an Elephant ❖ ABRAHAM LINCOLN Second Inaugural Address ❖ JOHN F. KENNEDY Inaugural Address ❖ REBECCA SOLNIT Bird in a Cage 14. LITERATURE AND THE ARTS 460 ❖ JONATHAN GOTTSCHALL Why Fiction Is Good for You ❖ MATT DE LA PEÑA Why We Shouldn’t Shield Children from Darkness ❖ KATE DICAMILLO Why Children’s Books Should Be a Little Sad ❖ MICHAEL HAMAD Song Schematics ❖ NGŨGĨWA THIONG’O•Decolonizing the Mind 15. RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY 483 ❖ LANGSTON HUGHES Salvation ❖ BARACK OBAMA Eulogy for Clementa Pinckney ❖ VIRGINIA WOOLF The Death of the Moth ❖ FARIHA RÓISÍN Meet a Muslim ❖ ANITA DIAMANT The Orange on the Seder Plate ❖ ANNIE DILLARD Sight into Insight 16. IN CONVERSATION 513 ❖ JOY CASTRO Grip ❖ EMMA GONZÁLEZ Fighting for Gun Control ❖ DAVID FRENCH What Critics Don’t Understand about Gun Culture ❖ TERESA M. BEJAN The Two Clashing Meanings of free speech ❖ HADAR HARRIS AND MARY BETH TINKER Hate Speech Is Showing Up in Schools ❖ ERWIN CHEMERINSKY AND HOWARD GILLMAN What Students Think about Free Speech 5. AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES 537 6. CREDITS 557 7. CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX 565 8. GENRES INDEX 569 9. RHETORICAL MODES INDEX 575 10. THEMATIC INDEX 581 11. INDEX 585

PREFACE The Norton Reader began as an attempt to introduce students to the essay as a genre and to create an anthology of excellent nonfiction writing. This new edition continues that tradition, offering a wide selection of essays on a broad range of subjects and including examples of the kinds of writing students are most often assigned, from profiles and arguments to narratives and analyses. With 145 selections in the Full Edition and 90 in the Shorter Edition, The Norton Reader offers depth, breadth, and variety for teaching the essay as it has developed over time, including selections from the classic to the contemporary. As always, The Norton Reader has aimed to uphold a tradition of anthologizing excellent prose, starting with Arthur Eastman, the founding editor, who insisted that essays be selected for the quality of their writing. As he put it, “Excellence would be their pillar of smoke by day, of fire by night.” With this vision, the original editors of The Norton Reader chose classic essays that appealed to modern readers and that are now recognized as comprising the essay canon. We have aimed to continue this practice yet have also adapted the Reader to new pedagogies and have updated it by adding new writers whose work appeals to new generations of student readers. We believe that the essays in this volume are well written, focus on topics that matter, and demonstrate what all of us tell our students about good writing.

NEW TO THIS EDITION ● Thirty-six new readings from a diverse array of today’s most influential and exciting voices, including Emma González, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Tara Westover, Jose Antonio Vargas, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Fariha Róisín, Roxane Gay, Margaret Atwood, and many others. ● Three new chapters—Self and Society; Where We Live, What We Live For; and In Conversation—will inspire and inform students’ reading and writing about issues that matter. The final chapter of readings, In Conversation, offers a unique cluster of contemporary essays around timely topics: gun control and free speech. ● New chapter introductions give students a stimulating overview of the readings, with questions and connections to consider. And a refreshed table of contents shows the lively intersection of personal writing with civic conversations and academic ideas. These features help students connect the relevance of their individual experiences to the broader cultural context. ● A new introductory chapter, Reading The Norton Reader, includes an annotated example of active reading, advice on reading with a purpose, and guidance on reading different genres.

HALLMARK FEATURES OFTHE NORTON READER

● The Norton Reader offers the greatest breadth and depth of any composition reader, with an abundance of contemporary essays anchored by classic and canonical selections. For example, a new selection from Tara Westover’s best seller, Educated, appears alongside Frederick Douglass’s “Learning to Read” in the Education chapter. And in Self and Society, Kwame Anthony Appiah’s op-ed “Go Ahead, Speak for Yourself” is in conversation with Sojourner Truth’s 1851 speech “Ain’t I a Woman.” ● Apparatus provides just enough detail—but not so much as to overwhelm the essays themselves. Contextual notes indicate when and where the essay was published; annotations explain unfamiliar persons, events, and concepts; study questions for all essays prompt analysis, discussion, and writing; and biographical information about the authors appears at the end of the book. ● Four expanded indexes organize the readings according to genre, rhetorical mode, date of publication, and additional themes. This feature helps teachers structure courses that meet crucial goals of the WPA Outcomes Statement, which urges that students learn to write in several genres, identify conventions of format and structure, and understand how genres shape reading and writing.

ALSO AVAILABLE FOR INSTRUCTORS AND STUDENTS ● The Norton Reader ebook, now available for both versions of The Norton Reader, lets you and your students highlight and annotate within the digital text. Links make it easy to navigate between—and make connections among—the readings. ● The book’s website, Nortonreader.com, makes The Norton Reader uniquely searchable and easy to use. Instructors and students can sort readings by theme, genre, rhetorical mode, and more to find just the reading they’re looking for, and then open it in the ebook with one click. ● InQuizitive for Writers supplements The Norton Reader with activities to help students learn to edit sentences and work with sources. Question-specific feedback and links to the Little Seagull Handbook provide students with extra instruction for these crucial first-year writing skills. ● For instructors, The Guide to The Norton Reader includes new sample syllabi, suggested classroom activities, and general advice on planning your course— including new coverage on the teaching of reading and advice on how to make the most out of Nortonreader.com. The Guide also includes teaching suggestions and writing assignments to accompany each reading. ● Comprehensive LMS-ready resources provide additional support, including documentation guidelines, model student papers, and customizable grammar and language quizzes.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS John Brereton began his association with The Norton Reader when the house editor for the book, Carol Hollar-Zwick, invited him to write a review of the eighth edition. John pointed to the high quality of the essays in The Norton Reader, but he also noted that some of them seemed a bit dated. He suggested updating the book, making it more contemporary and diverse. On the strength of that review and his reputation as a teacher and scholar, John was invited to join the editorial team—which included Linda Peterson and Joan Hartman—for the ninth edition, published in 1996. That edition included a new chapter, “Cultural Critique,” and essays such as “In the Kitchen” by Henry Louis Gates Jr., “On Being a Cripple” by Nancy Mairs, and “More Room” by Judith Ortiz Cofer. For nearly a quarter of a century, John has continued to search for quality essays and to include new voices and perspectives in seven editions of The Norton Reader. We appreciate John’s intelligence, collegiality, and many contributions to the ninth through fifteenth editions. The editors would like to express appreciation and thanks to the many teachers who provided reviews and invaluable feedback for this edition: Robin Amaro (Cypress Bay High School), Joseph Berenguel (Asnuntuck Community College), Deborah Bertsch (Columbus State Community College), Paul Bounds (San Jacinto College South), Carla Bradley (Drury University), Mary Dalton (Dreher High School), Gita DasBender (Seton Hall University), Michael DeStefano (Fairfield University), Emily Dial-Driver (Rogers State University), Janet Duckham (Ladue Horton Watkins High School), Michael Duffy (Moorpark College), Christine Ethier (Camden County College–Blackwood Campus), Lori Franklin (Northern New Mexico College), Eva Fritsch (Fontana Unified School District), Jordan Heil (Saint Joseph’s University), Danielle Johannsen (University of Minnesota Crookston), Edmund Jones (Seton Hall), Susanna Lankheet (Lake Michigan College), Kevin LaPlante (Walled Lake Northern High School), Jessica Lindberg (Georgia Highlands College), Martha Michieka (East Tennessee State University), Caitlin MurphyGrace (Camden County College–Blackwood Campus), Ruth Prakasam (Suffolk University), Lee Romer Kaplan (Solano Community College), Katie Stoynoff (University of Akron), and Cory Youngblood (East Los Angeles College). We would also like to thank the many teachers who provided input on previous editions: Sadaf Alam (San Jacinto College), Deborah Bertsch (Columbus State Community College), Patricia Bjorklund (Southeastern Community College), Jessica Brown (City College of San Francisco), Lee Carmouche (Houston Community College), Jessie Casteel (San Jacinto Community College), James M. Chesbro (Fairfield University), Delicia Daniels (Houston Community College), Gita DasBender (Seton Hall University), Syble Davis (Houston Community College), Michael DeStefano (Fairfield University), Michael Duffy (Moorpark College), Charles Ellenbogen (John F. Kennedy—Eagle Academy), Craig Fehrman (Indiana University), Rebecca Fleming (Columbus State Community College), Lori Franklin (Northern New Mexico College), David Gorin (Yale University), Stacey Higdon (Houston Community College), Sonya Huber (Fairfield University), John Isles (City College of San Francisco), Crystal Johnson (Houston Community College), Kristi

Krumnow (San Jacinto College), John Kwist (Georgia Highlands College), Susanna Lankheet (Lake Michigan College), Andrea Laurencell Sheridan (SUNY Orange), Jessica Lindberg (Georgia Highlands College), Iswari Pandey (California State University at Northridge), Rolf Potts, Sonya Prince (San Jacinto College), Mark Ridge (Rust College), Guy Shebat (Youngstown State University), and Kim Shirkhani (Yale University). We also thank Katharine Ings for her copyediting; Susan McColl for her proofreading; and Michael Fleming for his work on the author biographies that appear in the back of the book. At W. W. Norton we thank Editorial Assistant Emma Peters for her superb project coordination and editing of our chapter introductions; Stephen Sajdak, Layne Broadwater, Madeline Rombes, Ashley van der Grinten, and Juan Paolo Francisco for their expert help with editing, design, and production; Samantha Held, Katie Bolger, Danielle Lehmann, Matthew Vitale, and Michael Hicks for their wonderful work on the website, ebook, and instructor resources; Megan Schindel, Margaret Gorenstein, and Cat Abelman for their expert permissions work; Debra Morton Hoyt for the new cover design; and our editors past and present: Jennifer Bartlett, Carol Hollar-Zwick, Julia Reidhead, Marilyn Moller, and Ariella Foss. We are grateful to the Norton travelers who represent the book on campus so energetically, and to our talented marketers and specialists, Lib Triplett, Elizabeth Pieslor, and Michele Dobbins. A special thanks to our new editor Sarah Touborg, whose kindness, savvy, and collaborative spirit helped shape this new edition.

Reading THE NORTON READER Reading and the Rhetorical Situation How do specific people, experiences, and environments help shape identity? How might we live and eat in more sustainable ways? How do sports influence our lives and culture? If technology inevitably shapes us, how might we use it to solve some of the world’s greatest problems? How might we listen, view art, and understand one another better? How do we have true conversations with others, speaking and listening when we hold different beliefs? These are just a few of the questions and issues explored by essays in The Norton Reader. Whether you read many or just a few of the selections, we hope that you will find them thought provoking. We also hope you will use them to inform and improve your own writing; in this anthology you will find readings that model a wide range of genres and styles from a diverse group of writers. The pieces collected here come from a variety of publications, from graphic memoirs and daily newspapers to blogs, online magazines, science journals, and books. In an anthology like The Norton Reader, all of these selections appear in the same format, with the same typeface and layout; most have annotations to explain references and allusions; and all have questions to urge you to think about major issues and themes. To help in the reading process, we provide information about the context in which the essay first appeared. We also suggest some ways to read the different kinds of essays. In the next chapter, “Writing with The Norton Reader” (pp. xlvii-lxviii) we provide guidance to help you with your own writing. Among the goals of a college anthology like this one are to help make your reading enrich, inspire, and improve your writing. When you begin reading an essay that your instructor assigns, ask yourself some or all of the following questions. These questions—about audience, author, purpose, and genre— will help you understand the essay, consider its original context, analyze its meaning or effect, recognize its organization and rhetorical strategies, and imagine how you might use similar strategies for your own writing.

WHO IS THE AUDIENCE? An audience consists of those to whom the essay is directed—the people who read the article, listen to the speech, or view the text. The question about audience might be posed in related ways: For whom did the author write? What readers does the author hope to reach? What readers did the author actually reach? Sometimes the audience is national or international, as in an editorial for a newspaper like the Washington Post or the New York Times. Often, the audience shares a common interest, as might the readers of an environmental magazine or the buyers of books on

food or history. To help you understand the original audience for each essay, we provide contextual notes at the bottom of the first page of each essay. These contextual notes give information about when and where the essay first appeared and, if it began as a talk, when and where it was delivered and to what audience. As editors, we could swamp you with information about publication and authorship, but we prefer to include more essays and keep contextual information focused on the original audience and publication history—that is, on where the essay appeared, who read it, and (if we know) what reaction it received. For example, the contextual note for Chris Wiewiora’s “This Is Tossing” (p. 124) tells you that it appeared in MAKE, a small-circulation magazine from Chicago that attracts readers who enjoy fiction, essays, art, and poetry. In contrast, Dan Barber’s “What Farm-to-Table Got Wrong” (p. 131) appeared as an op-ed in the New York Times, a daily newspaper with a huge national readership. Wiewiora could assume that his audience would like reading personal memoirs, whereas Barber knew that he needed to speak to a large, diverse national audience of people holding different opinions on matters of education, politics, religion, and the environment. Recognizing these audiences gives a window into the writers’ choices, strategies, and styles. Wiewiora begins in the present tense, putting the reader in the moment: It’s 10A.M. An hour before Lazy Moon Pizzeria opens. You have an hour—this hour—to toss. You’re supposed to have 11 pies by 11A.M. One hour. (124) He puts the reader in the place of the dough tosser, providing a sense of purpose and urgency. Barber, too, begins by putting the reader in a specific moment: It’s spring again. Hip deep in asparagus—and, soon enough, tomatoes and zucchini—farm-to-table advocates finally have something from the farm to put on the table. . . . Today, almost 80 percent of Americans say sustainability is a priority when purchasing food. The promise of this kind of majority is that eating local can reshape landscapes and drive lasting change. Except it hasn’t. (137) But unlike Wiewiora, who keeps his reader in the position of dough tosser, Barber quickly moves to his main argument: that the farm-to-table movement has not created sustainable changes in the American food system. The expectations of the two different audiences explain, in part, the writers’ different approaches and styles. Sometimes contextual notes give information about where the selection was published and how it was received—another way to understand the audience. Maya Angelou’s

“Graduation” (p. 210) comes from her autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969); Angelou then continued writing her life story in six sequential volumes, concluding with Mom & Me & Mom (2013)—a sequence that testifies to her book’s success and its appeal to a wide variety of readers. In each contextual note, we try to explain a little about the magazines, newspapers, and books that printed these essays—whether it’s MAKE, a small literary journal published twice a year; the New York Times Magazine, a Sunday supplement of the daily newspaper; or I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, a freestanding book. Although the contextual notes provide some clues about the original audience for each piece, you might also think about yourself and your classmates as the current audience. What has changed since the essay was originally published? What experiences or knowledge do you bring to your reading of the essay? Are there ways in which you feel you’re not the best audience for a specific essay? Understanding the ways you are or are not the best audience for an essay can help you articulate your response, can enliven class discussions, and can give you ideas for your own writing.

WHO IS THE AUTHOR? If the audience consists of those who read the essays, the author is the person who writes them. Through their writing, authors tend to introduce themselves to their audiences, revealing personal experiences, preferences, and beliefs that bear on the subject at hand. In “My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant” (p. 15), the title gives us an important fact about the author Jose Antonio Vargas and his perspective: he is an undocumented immigrant, and he is going to share that experience with readers. Not all authors are as direct as Vargas. You don’t really need to know that Brian Doyle was editor of Portland Magazine and the author of several novels to appreciate his meditation on hearts—from those belonging to tiny hummingbirds to huge whales to humans—in “Joyas Voladoras” (p. 248). Nor do you need to know that Florence Williams, author of “ADHD Is Fuel for Adventure” (p. 177), also wrote a book about breasts. Such biographical facts are interesting but not essential to understanding the essays included. Because we believe that essayists prefer to introduce themselves and reveal details of personality and experience that they consider most relevant, we do not preface each essay with a biographical note. We think they, as authors, should step forward and we, as editors, should stand back and let them speak. But if you want to learn more about the writer of an essay, you can check the “Author Biographies” section at the end of this book. Putting this information at the end of the book gives you a choice. You may already know something about an author and not wish to consult this section, or you may wish to know more about the authors before you read their writing. Or you may just prefer to encounter the authors on their own terms, letting them identify themselves within the essay. Sometimes knowing who authors are and where their voices come from helps readers grasp what they say—but sometimes it doesn’t.

WHAT IS THE RHETORICAL CONTEXT AND PURPOSE? The rhetorical context, sometimes called rhetorical situation or rhetorical occasion, refers to the context—social, political, biographical, historical—in which writing takes place and becomes public. The term purpose, in a writing class, refers to the author’s goal—whether to inform, to persuade, to entertain, to analyze, or to do something else through the essay. We could also pose this question as follows: what goals did the writer have in composing and publishing the essay? What effect did the author wish to have on the audience? For some selections, the rhetorical context is indicated by the title. Abraham Lincoln’s “Second Inaugural Address” (p. 450) and John F. Kennedy’s “Inaugural Address” (p. 452) were speeches that marked the beginning of their presidencies. An inauguration represents a significant moment in a leader’s—and the nation’s—life. The speech given on such an occasion requires a statement of the president’s goals for the next four years. In addition to the title, you can discover more about the rhetorical context of a president’s inaugural speech in the opening paragraphs. Lincoln, for example, refers back to his first inaugural address and the “impending civil war” (450); then he acknowledges that the war continues and that he prays “this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away” (451). In the midst of the American Civil War, Lincoln knows that he must, as president, address the political conflict that faces the nation, offer hope for its resolution, and set the moral tone for the aftermath. That’s his purpose. Like the presidential speech, many essays establish the rhetorical context in their opening paragraphs. Editorials and op-eds begin with a “hook”—an opening reference to the issue at hand or the news report under consideration. You might even say that the editorial writer “creates” the rhetorical context and shows us the purpose straight away. Kwame Anthony Appiah opens his op-ed “Go Ahead, Speak for Yourself” (p. 68), with the lines, “‘As a white man,’ Joe begins, prefacing an insight, revelation, objection or confirmation he’s eager to share—but let’s stop him right there. Aside from the fact that he’s white, and a man, what’s his point?” (68) Readers know that Appiah is writing about speaking as a member of a group, and in the title and opening, he establishes his position right up front (he wants others to speak for themselves rather than use some aspect of their social identity to gain or undermine authority). If an essay does not establish a rhetorical context in its opening paragraphs, you can find additional information in the contextual note (described above) or in the footnotes to each essay (described below). For example, the contextual note for Barack Obama’s “Eulogy for Clementa Pinckney” (p. 486) is: On June 17, 2015, a twenty-one-year-old shooter entered Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and murdered nine people, including the senior pastor, Reverend Clementa Pinckney, also a state senator. President Barack Obama delivered this eulogy for Reverend Pinckney on June 26, 2015. (486)

Although the title establishes the genre, neither the title nor the opening paragraphs reveal the context of Reverend Pinckney’s death, a context that would have been clear to the original audience and becomes clear to the reader later in the eulogy but is important to understand before reading the piece. The footnotes (marked with small numerals) give further details. Here is some additional information about footnotes and how to use them as you read an essay: Explanatory footnotes are a common feature of a textbook. When the original authors wrote the footnotes themselves, we indicate that in the text. In Terry Tempest Williams’s essay, for example, we state that all notes are the author’s unless indicated otherwise (263). This tells you that the author wished to cite an expert, add information, or send the reader to another source. In most cases, however, we have written the footnotes to help with difficult words, allusions, and references. We provide information about people, places, works, theories, and other unfamiliar things that the original audience may have known. For example, for Maya Angelou’s “Graduation” (p. 210) we footnote Gabriel Prosser and Nat Turner, but not Abraham Lincoln and Christopher Columbus. Many of Angelou’s readers would have known that Prosser and Turner were executed leunless indicated otherwaders of slave rebellions in the nineteenth century. But because not all readers today know (or remember) this part of American history, we add a footnote. Although reading the footnotes can facilitate the making of meaning, it can never take the place of reading carefully. Reading is an active process. Experienced readers take responsibility for that action—reading critically, constructing meaning, interpreting what they read. If our footnotes help you read critically, then use them; if they interfere, then just continue reading the main text and skip over them. Just as authors have a purpose in writing, readers have a purpose for reading. You will read differently depending on your purpose. Are you reading a piece to prepare for classroom discussion? If so, you might consider your position on or experience with the topic being written about. You might assess the author’s argument and support or mark the parts of the essay that seem most and least successful in getting across a point. If your purpose is to gain inspiration as a writer, you might note the stylistic elements (metaphors, similes, varying sentence length, precision of language, and so on) and the rhetorical strategies the writer uses. If you’re reading more than one essay on the same topic, you might compare and contrast the authors’ positions and approaches. Later in this chapter, we provide sample annotations to model active reading.

WHAT IS THE GENRE AND ITS CONVENTIONS? Genre is a term used by composition and literature teachers to refer to kinds of writing that are expected to have common features and certain conventions of style, presentation, and subject matter. Essay genres include the memoir and the profile, the visual analysis and the op-ed, the literacy narrative and the lyric essay, among others. For the essay, genre

partially determines the form’s content and organization, but it should never do so in a “cookie-cutter” way. Conventions are practices or customs commonly used in a genre—like a handshake for a social introduction. Genre and convention are linked concepts, the one implying the other. Articles in a scientific journal (a genre) begin with a title and an abstract (conventions) and include sections about the methodology and the results (also conventions). Op-eds, by convention, begin with a “hook”; profiles of people or places include a physical description of the subject; literacy narratives include a key episode in the acquisition of reading or writing skills; lyric essays are often written in sections or organized by association rather than by employing explicit transitions. But in reading and writing essays, conventions should not be thought of as rigid rules; rather, they should be seen as guidelines, strategies, or special features. As you read an essay, think about its form: what it includes, how the writer presents the subject, what features seem distinctive. If you read a pair or group of essays assigned by your teacher, you might ask yourself whether they represent the same genre or are noticeably different. If they are the same, you will recognize similar features; if they are different, you will notice less overlap. The Norton Reader includes four categories of genres, some of which overlap in particular cases: ● Narrative genres tell stories. They include personal essays, memoirs, graphic memoirs, and literacy narratives. If you’re reading a narrative, note how the author structures the story. Does the narrative begin with a dramatic moment, unfold in chronological order, or have a different structure? What is the balance between scene (putting the reader in the moment) and reflection (making sense of an experience)? What is the effect of the organization the writer chose? ● Descriptive genres give details about how a person, place, or thing looks, sounds, and feels, often in a larger framework. These include profiles of people and places, essays about nature and the environment, lyric essays, reportage, and pieces of humor and satire. If you’re reading a descriptive genre, note the author’s use of language and sensory imagery. What strategies does the writer use to draw the reader in—to make a person, place, or situation come alive for the reader? ● Analytic genres examine texts, images, and cultural objects and trends. They include reflection, textual analysis, visual analysis, and cultural analysis. If you’re reading an analytical genre, consider the ways that the author looks closely at a text, image, object, or trend and breaks it down into parts in order to understand the whole. What insight does the analysis provide? How does it make you look differently at the subject? ● Argumentative genres take positions and use reasons and evidence to support them. These include evaluations and reviews, proposals, op-eds, and speeches. If you’re reading an argumentative genre, identify the author’s main point, which may come in a thesis statement or may be implied less directly. Once you know the

argument, consider the author’s support. What evidence does the writer use? Are the sources reputable? Is the reasoning sound? Does the author respond to counterarguments? Is the argument persuasive? Why or why not? For more detailed information on some of the common genres included in The Norton Reader and some features to consider as you read and write, see pp. xxxvi–xlv.

WHAT ARE RHETORICAL STRATEGIES? Writers use a range of strategies in order to develop and organize their material. Here are some of the most common rhetorical strategies: ● Describing appeals to the senses to describe something or someone. ● Narrating provides an account of actions or events that occur over a period of time. ● Exemplifying provides examples to illustrate a claim or idea. ● Classifying and dividing groups people or things on the basis of shared qualities. ● Explaining or analyzing a process breaks a process or concept into its component parts. ● Comparing and contrasting considers the similarities and differences between or among people, places, things, or ideas. ● Defining attempts to give the essential meaning of something. ● Analyzing cause and effect considers the reasons something happened (cause) and determines the results (effect). ● Arguing makes a claim and provides evidence to support that claim. Sometimes authors use rhetorical strategies to structure an entire piece. Kathy Fish, for example, uses definition to structure her lyric essay “Collective Nouns for Humans in the Wild” (p. 245). But writers most often use a combination of rhetorical strategies to develop and present their ideas. For example, Maya Angelou in “Graduation” (p. 210) blends narration and description as she tells the story of her graduation from high school. And Marion Nestle uses cause and effect analysis as well as exemplification to make an argument in “Superfoods Are a Marketing Ploy” (p. 135). As you read the essays included in The Norton Reader, notice how the writers develop and organize their material—and see if you can get ideas for your own writing. For more details on rhetorical strategies, see pp. xlv–xlix.

STRATEGIES FOR CRITICAL READING The previous pages gave an overview of different questions to consider when reading, from thinking about the intended audience to recognizing genres and rhetorical strategies. Here we offer some general tips for approaching the reading your instructor assigns.

Preview the essay

Think about the essay’s title, read its opening paragraph, and skim the essay to get a sense of its organization and genre. Look at the contextual note on the first page, and try to imagine the experience, issue, or debate that motivated the essayist to write. Previewing is a technique widely used for college reading, but not all writing teachers encourage it. Some teachers explain that it helps readers focus on key issues; others discourage previewing, pointing out that a good essay—like a good novel or movie—can be ruined by knowing the ending. Whether you preview or not might depend on the genre of essay you’re reading. While you might want to know an author’s argument before reading more carefully, you also might want to allow a personal or lyric essay to unfold— to see where the author takes you.

Annotate in the margin As you read, note points that seem interesting and important, forecast issues that you think the writer will address, and pose questions of your own. Note the rhetorical strategies and literary features the writer uses. Imagine that you’re having a conversation with the author. Respond to their ideas with some of your own. Most essayists want active readers who think about what the essay says, implies, and urges as a personal response or course of action. Similarly, note points that you don’t understand or that you find ambiguous. Puzzling over a sentence or a passage with your classmates can lead to crucial points of debate or provide inspiration for your own writing. Mark your queries and use them to energize class discussion. Here, for example, is a sample annotation of the first eleven paragraphs of David French’s “What Critics Don’t Understand about Gun Culture.” My wife knew something was amiss when the car blocked our driveway. She was outside our house, playing with our kids on our trampoline, when a car drove slowly down our rural Tennessee street. As it reached our house, it pulled partially in the driveway, and stopped. A man got out and walked up to my wife and kids. Strangely enough, at his hip was an empty gun holster. She’d never seen him before. She had no idea who he was. He demanded to see me. I wasn’t there. I was at my office, a 50-minute drive from my house. My wife didn’t have her phone with her. She didn’t have one of our guns with her outside. She was alone with our three children. Even if she had her phone, the police were minutes away. My wife cleverly defused the confrontation before it escalated, but we later learned that this same person had been seen, hours before, slowly driving through the parking lot of our kids’ school. That wasn’t the first disturbing incident in our lives, nor would it be the last. My wife is a sex-abuse survivor and was almost choked to death in college by a furious boyfriend. In just the last five years, we’ve faced multiple threats—so much so that neighbors have expressed concern for our safety, and theirs. They didn’t want an angry person to show

up at their house by mistake. We’ve learned the same lesson that so many others have learned. There are evil men in this world, and sometimes they wish you harm. Miles’s law states, “Where you stand is based on where you sit.” In other words, your political opinions are shaped by your environment and your experience. We’re products of our place, our time, and our people. Each of these things is far more important to shaping hearts and minds than any think piece, any study, or certainly any tweet. And it strikes me that many millions of Americans don’t truly understand how “gun culture” is built, how the process of first becoming a gun owner, then a concealed-carrier, changes your life. It starts with the consciousness of a threat. Perhaps not the kind of threat my family has experienced. Some people experience more. Some less. And some people don’t experience a threat at all—but they’re aware of those who do. With the consciousness of a threat comes the awareness of a vulnerability. The police can only protect the people you love in the most limited of circumstances (with those limits growing ever-more-severe the farther you live from a city center). You want to stand in that gap. So you take a big step. You walk into a gun store. Unless you’re the kind of person who grew up shooting, this is where you begin your encounter with American gun culture. The first thing you’ll notice—and I’ve seen this without fail—is that the person behind that counter is ready to listen. They want to hear your experience. They’ll share their own. They’ll point you immediately to a potential solution. Often the person behind the counter is a veteran. Often they’re a retired cop. Always they’re well-informed. Always they’re ready to teach. Your first brush with this new world is positive, but it’s just a start. The next place the responsible adult goes is to the gun range, a place that’s often located in the store. Sometimes you buy the gun and walk straight to the range. You put on eye protection. You put on ear protection. And if you’re honest with yourself, you’re nervous. But, again, there’s a person beside you. They show you how to load the gun. They teach you the basics of marksmanship. They teach you gun safety. Always treat the gun as if it’s loaded, even if you think you know it’s not. Keep your finger off the trigger unless you intend to fire the weapon. Only point it at objects you intend to shoot. You do it. You fire. It’s loud, but if the salesman has done his job, then he’s matched you with a gun you can handle. In an instant, the gun is demystified. You buy a box of ammunition and shoot it all. Then you buy another box. For most people there’s an undeniable thrill when they realize that they can actually master so potent a tool. But something else happens to you, something that’s deeper than the fun of shooting a paper target. Your thought-process starts to change. Yes, if someone tried to break into your house, you know that you’d call 911 and pray for the police to come quickly, but you also start to think of exactly what else you’d do. If you heard that “bump” in the night, how would you protect yourself until the police arrived? You’re surprised at how much safer you feel with the gun in the house.

Analyze any illustrations Many of the essays in The Norton Reader include illustrations from their original publications. Think about how the essays and the images “speak” to each other. Consider whether the images enrich, highlight, or possibly challenge the essay. Does the image primarily illustrate the essay, or does it emphasize a feature unexplained by the essayist? Does the image enrich and make clearer one aspect of the writing, or does it minimize certain aspects of the subject, perhaps aspects you find important? What do you see in the images that the essayist discusses or explains? What do you see that the writer overlooks or minimizes? Thinking about images can help you clarify the author’s argument or reveal points the author may have missed.

Summarize the essay Write a summary of the essay. If you’re summarizing an argument or analysis, begin by making a list of its key points and identifying the evidence used in support of each; then try to state briefly, in your own words, the “gist” or core of the essay. The goal is to condense the argument and evidence, while remaining faithful to the author’s meaning. If you’re summarizing a narrative or descriptive essay, summarize the meaning or effect you think the writer wanted to get across and list the strategies the author used to communicate that meaning or effect to readers. Your summary will be useful when you discuss the essay in class or write about it in a paper.

Keep a reading journal Buy a class notebook or keep an electronic journal for reflections on the essays you read. For each essay, take notes, record your responses, write questions about what puzzles you, and jot down what you might want to write about in an essay of your own. Make note of sentences or passages that you like and that you might want to use as models for your own writing. You may also want to list questions that the essayist raises and answers, as well as write down questions that you think the essayist has overlooked.

Use the study questions Review the questions that follow each essay in The Norton Reader and think about the issues—the subject, the structure, the language—that they cover. We include these questions to help you become an active reader, to focus attention on key issues, and to make suggestions for doing or writing something. ● Some questions ask you to locate or mark an essay’s structural features, the patterns that undergird and clarify meaning. Narrative, description, exposition, persuasion, and argument can follow conventional shapes—but can also distort them—and your ability to recognize these shapes will improve your comprehension.

● Other questions ask you to paraphrase meanings or extend them—that is, to express the meaning in your own words, to amplify points by providing your own examples, or to reframe points by connecting them with points in other essays. ● Still other questions ask you to notice special features or conventions that contribute to meaning: the author’s choice of title, the author’s voice (or persona), the author’s assumptions about audience (and how the author speaks to the audience), and the author’s choice of style and forms of expression. ● At least one question, usually the last, asks you to write. Sometimes we ask you to demonstrate comprehension by writing about something from your experience or reading that extends an essay and enforces its argument. Sometimes we invite you to express disagreement or dissent by writing about something from your experience or knowledge that qualifies the author’s argument or calls it into question. We may ask you to compare or contrast two authors’ positions— especially when their positions seem opposed. Or we may ask you to adapt one of the essay’s rhetorical strategies to a topic of your own choice and to make the essay even more your own by basing it on personal experience.

Reread the essay If possible, read the essay a second time before you discuss it with your peers or write about it in an essay of your own. If you’re short on time, reread the key passages and paragraphs that you marked in marginal notes. Ask yourself what you see the second time that didn’t register with you on first reading. Reading need not be only a private activity; it can also become communal and cooperative. Writing down your thoughts or taking part in conversations with others can clarify your own and others’ interpretation of the essays. What interests and motives does each reader bring to particular essays? What are responsive and responsible readings? Are there irresponsible readings, and how do we decide? All these questions—and others—can emerge as private reading moves into the more public arena of the classroom. Readers write, writers read. Making meaning by writing is the flip side of making meaning by reading, and we hope to engage you in both processes. But in neither process are meanings passed from hand to hand like nickels, dimes, and quarters. Instead, they are constructed—as a quilt or a house or an institution. We hope that these suggestions for reading will lead you to engaged and fruitful writing.

Glossary My wife knew something was amiss when the car blocked our driveway. The first sentence tells us something is wrong. was an empty gun holster Why is it strange that the holster is empty? Would it be better if there were a gun in the holster?

cleverly defused the confrontation What did she say? Would the situation have escalated if she had a gun? My wife is a sex-abuse survivor and was almost choked to death in college by a furious boyfriend. This detail makes me feel sympathetic to his wife. we’ve faced multiple threats Why? What makes this family a target when their neighbors are not? In other words, your political opinions are shaped by your environment and your experience. We’re products of our place, our time, and our people Yes—and that's why we should try new things and meet new people. threat (1) The repetition of "threat" heightens the sense of fear in this paragraph. threat (2) The repetition of "threat" heightens the sense of fear in this paragraph. threat (3) The repetition of "threat" heightens the sense of fear in this paragraph. threat (4) The repetition of "threat" heightens the sense of fear in this paragraph. So you take a big step. Author switches to 2nd person ("you") here to put the reader in the position of someone wanting to buy a gun. Always they’re ready to teach. Author assumes that all gun store workers are like this. Is it true? responsible adult Is everyone with access to a gun a responsible adult? Always treat the gun as if it’s loaded, even if you think you know it’s not. Author uses the 2nd person here to help teach the reader about gun safety. undeniable thrill I'm not sure about the use of "thrill" and "fun" here. Would most people really be this eager? fun of shooting I'm not sure about the use of "thrill" and "fun" here. Would most people really be this eager? You’re surprised at how much safer you feel with the gun in the house. Does everyone feel safer with a gun in their house? Aren't there people who worry about their children finding the gun? Is everyone prepared to shoot another person? I don't always identify with the "you." Maybe I'd feel differently if the author had used first person ("I") throughout the essay.

WRITING WITH THE NORTON READER Writing in Academic Contexts We hope that the selections included in The Norton Reader, as well as your class discussions, inspire you to write. Much of the