A concise, inexpensive collection of the most commonly taught essays available, arranged rhetorically.

VOLUME 1: Narration. Annie Dillard, "The Chase". Langston Hughes, "Salvation". George Orwell, "A Hanging". Description. N. Scott Momaday, "The Way to Rainy Mountain". Virginia Woolf, "The Death of the Moth". Joan Didion, "Marrying Absurd". Illustration and Example. William F. Buckley, Jr., "Why Don't We Complain?" Alan M. Dershowitz, "Shouting 'Firel"' Process. Jessica Mitford, "Embalming in the U.S.A." Deborah Tannen, "How to Give Orders like a Man". Russell Baker, "Slice of Life". Comparison and Contrast. Suzanne Britt, "Neat People vs. Sloppy People". Bruce Catton, "Grant and Lee: A Study in Contrasts". Rachel Carson, "A Fable for Tomorrow". Cause and Effect. E. M. Forster, "My Wood". Stephen King, "Why We Crave Horror Movies". Lewis Thomas, "The Lie Detector". Division and Classifiation. Alleen Pace Nilson, "Sexism in English: A 1990s Update". Susan Allan Toth, "Cinematypes". William Zinsser, "College Pressures". Definition. Bruno Bettelheim, "The Holocaust". Barbara Ehrenreich, "Cultural Baggage". Richard Rodriguez, "Growing Up Old". Argumentation. Martin Luther King, Jr., "I Have a Dream", Shelby Steele, "Affirmative Action: The Price of Preference". Jonathan Swift, "A Modest Proposal". Student Essay. VOLUME 2: Childhood Memories: Families and Children. Judith Ortiz Cofer, "Casa: A Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican Childhood". Scott Russell Sanders, "The Inheritance of Tools". E. B. White, "Once More to the Lake". Education: Literacy and Learning. James Thurber, "University Days". Richard Rodriguez, "None of This Is Fair". Jonathan Kozol, "The Human Cost of an Illiterate Society". Language: Race and Gender. Gloria Naylor, "The Meanings of a Word". Amy Tan, "Mother Tongue". Nature: Animals and Landscapes. Alexander Petrunkevitch, "The Spider and the Wasp". Mark Twain, "Two Views of the Mississippi River". George Orwell, "Shooting an Elephant". Psychology and Behavior. Desmond Morris, "Territorial Behavior". Lars Eighner, "My Daily Dives in the Dumpster". Marie Winn, "Television Addict". Public Policy: Government and Law. Thomas Jefferson, "The Declaration of Independence". Stephanie Coontz, "A Nation of Welfare Families". Martin Luther King, Jr., "Letter from Birmingham Jail in Response to Public Statement by Eight Alabama Clergymen". Relationships: Women and Men. Judith Viorst, "Friends, Good Friends-and Such Good Friends". Ellen Goodman, "The Tapestry of Friendships". Barbara Ehrenreich, "What I've Learned from Men". Science and Medicine. Isaac Asimov, "Those Crazy Ideas". Stephen Jay Gould, "Sex, Drugs, Disasters, and the Extinction of Dinosaurs". Richard Selzer, "The Discus Thrower". Social Roles and Customs. Judy Brady, "I Want a Wife". Maya Angelou, "Finishing School". Nikki Giovanni, "On Holidays and How to Make Them Work". Student Essay.