Message:  Based on the premise that literature liberates thinking, and argument disciplines it. This anthology features a critical thinking, analytical approach that students in turn will apply to their own thought and writing processes. It introduces and explains the tools of argument, and presents students with reading selections centered on four enduring themes—Individuality and Community, Nature and Place, Family and Identity, and Power and Responsibility.

Story:  Reading Literature and Writing Argument springs directly from the authors' experiences as teachers of two college composition courses:  "Writing Argument and Persuasion" and "Writing about Literature."  In both courses, students are enriched, as readers and as writers, through their active engagement with ideas in written text.  With the authors' students experiences in the two composition courses as their guide, they harnessed the courses' complementary strengths in Reading Literature and Writing Argument.  The result is a book that provides students with a range of reading experiences-fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama-that will immerse them in critical and creative thinking as they address problems and issues from multiple perspectives.  This book prompts students to see language as a way to create meaning in their lives and to see themselves as writers with a purpose and an audience.