Writing about Literature is the first undergraduate text to integrate recent genre theory and a "writing in the disciplines" approach to the teaching of critical writing. While encouraging students to develop and value their own interpretations, the text helps undergraduates understand the rhetorical and institutional conventions of critical writing. A cross between a rhetoric and a casebook, Writing about Literature provides clear, practical advice and accessible models for writing critical essays on literature—on prose fiction in particular. This book offers students an insider's guide to the language, issues, approaches, styles, assumptions, and traditions that inform the writing of successful critical essays.

Special Features of the Text:

Writing about Literature: A Guide for the Student Critic

 - Contains examples of student work and new professional essays written especially for Writing about Literature.

- Includes a selection of "field notes," professional and pedagogical statements designed to help students get a feel for the kind of issues, attitudes, and practices that define English as a field of study.

Comments:

"For every student who has stared hopelessly at a blank screen, waiting for a literary essay miraculously to appear; and for every instructor who has looked upon a set of just-graded student essays with a sense of failure verging on despair—W.F. Garrett-Petts's Writing about Literature: A Guide for the Student Critic offers immediate help. In lucid, straightforward prose, Garrett-Petts demystifies literary criticism and invites student critics to 'join the conversation' of literary students and scholars already underway. From the opening instruction on how to move effectively from reading to response to criticism (punctuated with an engaging interview with Professor Harold Kolb), through guided reading of Stephen Crane's 'The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky' (produced in its original form, including the wonderful illustrations), through modeling responses to this classic short story, Garrett-Petts deftly initiates students into 'talking the talk' and 'walking the walk' of literary criticism. This brief, accessible, and easy-to-use book is bound to be a hit with students and instructors alike." - Andrea Lunsford, Stanford University

"More than any other textbook that I know of, Writing about Literature successfully bridges that gap between literature and composition, rhetoric and poetics, theory and practice, reading and writing." - David B. Downing, Indiana University of Pennsylvania

"Writing about Literature gives students a stake in their own education by making them active interpreters of texts, fields, and university culture." - Marsha Bryant, University of Florida

W.F. Garrett-Petts is Associate Professor of English at the University College of the Cariboo, where he teaches literature, rhetoric and composition, and critical theory. He has published widely on reading theory, contemporary literature, composition, and interdisciplinary practices.

Supplementary Materials: [Back to Top]

Academics please note: This text has an instructor's website featuring handouts, discussion questions, additional reading, teaching resources, and sample syllabi. An access code to this website is included with all examination copies.

Table of Contents: [Back to Top]

Acknowledgements

Preface to the Instructor:

   1. Initiating Students into Literary Study

   2. A Brief History of English Studies

   3. This Book’s Form and Philosophy

Preface to the Student:

   1. An Introduction to the Critical Conversation

   2. What is Academic Discourse?

   3. A Method for Learning Academic Discourse

   4. How to Use this Book

I. Getting Started: From Personal Response to Field Stance

   1. Overview

   2. Writing is Rhetorical

   3. Documenting Your Personal Response

   4. How To Use Your Personal Response

   5. Field Notes from Critical Theory and Psycholinguistics: "How We Read"

   6. Becoming a Literacy Researcher

   7. New Contexts for Reading and Writing

         1. The Social Stance

         2. The Institutional Stance

         3. The Textual Stance

   8. Field Notes from Composition Studies: The Five-Paragraph Theme

         1. The Field Stance

   9. Summary: Why It Is So Important to Become Aware of All Four Stances

  10. Field Notes from Linguistics: The Effect of Context on Reading

  11. An Interview with a Literary Critic

  12. Exercises

II. Reading and Responding to Stephen Crane’s "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky"

   1. Overview

   2. "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky," by Stephen Crane (as first published in 1898)

   3. Response Notes

   4. The Critical Conversation

   5. Field Notes from Literary Criticism: How Readers Have Responded to Crane’s "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky"

   6. "Fielding" Some Questions

   7. Exercises

III. Writing the Critical Essay: Form and the Critical Process

   1. Overview

   2. Form

   3. Field Notes from the Visual Arts: "Visual Mapping"

   4. Exercises

   5. How to Move from an "F" to an "A": Modelling the Process

   6. Writing and Rewriting

   7. Commentary

   8. The Six Common Places of Literary Criticsm

         1. Contemptus Mundi and Complexity

         2. Appearance/Reality

         3. Everywhereness

         4. Paradigm

         5. Paradox

   9. Critical Approaches

         1. New Criticism and Deconstruction

         2. Reader-Response Criticism

         3. Cultural Criticism

  10. Finding a Place for Your Interpretation in the Critical Conversation

  11. Exercises

IV. Model Essays

   1. Student Essays

         1. Michelle Demers

         2. Ryan Miller

         3. Lydia Marston

   2. Professional Essays

         1. Alice Farley

         2. Katherine Sutherland

         3. Harold Kolb, Jr.

   3. Exercises

V. Some Final Words on Writing about Literature

   1. Four Critics Speak on Their Personal Approaches to Writing

         1. Alice Farley

         2. Katherine Sutherland

         3. Michael Jarrett

         4. Helen Gilbert

Appendix: Language Use in English Studies

Resources for Further Reading

Works Cited in Writing About Literature

Index