Joining the Conversation: An Anthology for Developing Readers Book

(NOTE: Each chapter begins with an Introduction and ends with “Suggestions for Additional Reading” and “Suggestions for Family Reading.”)

Introduction to Students.

1. Looking Back: Memoirs and Personal Stories.

From Lost in Translation, by Eva Hoffman, NY: E.P. Dutton, 1989, pp. 3-5. From All Over But the Shoutin', by Rick Bragg, NY: Pantheon Books, 1997, pp. 105-107. From The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother, NY: Riverhead Books, 1996, pp. 1-10. From The Heart of a Woman, by Maya Angelou, NY: Bantam Books, 1981, pp. pp. 24-31. “The Horned Toad,” by Gerald Haslam from California Childhood: Recollections and Stories of the Golden State, ed. by Gary Soto, Berkeley, CA: Creative Arts Book Company, 1988. From Angela's Ashes, by Frank McCourt, NY: Scribner, 1996, pp. 96-102.

Memories in Poetry: A Selection.

“Storm Windows,” by Julia Alvarez from Homecoming: New and Collected Poems, NY: Penguin Books, 1996. “Things My Father Taught Me,” by Larry Smith, from Ohio Zen: Poems, by Larry Smith, Huron, OH: Bottom Dog Press. “Those Winter Sundays,” by Robert Hayden, from Robert Hayden: Collected Poems, ed. by Frederick Glaysher NY: Liveright Publishing Corp., 1985.

2. Truth and Fiction: The Narrative Art of Telling Stories.

“The First Day,” from Lost in the City, by Edward P. Jones, NY: Wm. Morrow & Co., 1992. “Splinter,” from A Scrap of Time and Other Stories, by Ida Fink, NY: Pantheon Books, 1987. “What My Mother Knows,” from Useful Gifts, by Carole L. Glickfeld, Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1988. “A Family Gathering,” from Dark Blue Suit, by Peter Bacho, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997. “Raymond's Run,” from Gorilla, My Love, by Toni Cade Bambara, NY: Random House, 1972. “The Man I Killed,” from The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990.

Poetry That Tells Stories.

“Impedimenta,” by Jim Nye, from After Shock: Poems and Prose from the Vietnam War, El Paso, TX: Cinco Puntos Press, 1991. “Latin Night at the Pawnshop,” by Martin Espada. from Walk on the Wild Side: Urban American Poetry Since 1975, ed. by Nicholas Christopher. NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1994. “The Red Wheelbarrow,” by William Carlos Williams, from The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams, Volume I, 1909-1939, ed. by A. Walton Litz and Christopher MacGowan, NY: New Directions Books, 1986.

3. Getting the Facts—and the Stories Behind the Facts: Reading Nonfiction.

“The Tryout,” from He Was a Midwestern Boy on His Own, by Bob Greene, NY: Atheneum, 1991, pp. 126-131. From Rosa Parks, by Douglas Brinkley, NY: Penguin, 2000, pp. 98-110. From A Woman of Egypt, by Jehan Sedat, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1987, pp. 181-190. “Panic in Brooklyn,” from The Bridge, by Gay Talese, NY: Harper & Row, 1964, pp. 16-27. “The Trouble with Fries,” by Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker, Mar. 5, 2001, pp. 52-57.

Poetry as Nonfiction.

“Monongah,” from Hill Daughter, by Louise McNeill, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991. “Refugee Blues,” by W.H. Auden, from Selected Poems: New Edition, NY: Vintage Books, 1979. “A Poem for Magic,” from Weather Reports: New and Selected Poems, by Quincy Troupe, NY: Harlem River Press, 1991.

4. Finding Lessons: The Art of the Personal Essay.

“Black Men and Public Space,” by Brent Staples, Harper's, Dec. 1987. “ The American Muslim,” from American Muslims: The New Generation, by Asma Gull Hasan, NY: Continuum, 2000, pp. 27-34. “Mother Tongue,” by Amy Tan, from The Norton Book of Personal Essays, ed. by Joseph Epstein, NY: W.W. Norton Co., 1997. “From The Way to Rainy Mountain, by N. Scott Momaday, Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1969, pp. 5-12. “The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria,” by Judith Ortiz Cofer, from The Latin Deli: Prose and Poetry, Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press, 1993. “One Virginian Who's Ready to Do His Part,” by Liam Callanan, The New York Times, Jan. 20, 1999, OpEd page.

Essays as Poetry.

“Digging,” by Seamus Heaney, from Poems: 1965-1975, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966. “Harlem ,” by Langston Hughes, from The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, ed. by Arnold Rampersad, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994. “We Wear the Mask,” by Paul Laurence Dunbar, from The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar, NY: Dodd, Mead, & Co., 1967. “Sympathy,” by Paul Laurence Dunbar, from The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar, NY: Dodd, Mead, & Co., 1967.

5. Taking a Deeper Look: Readings for the Spiritual Life.

Section I—Readings from Sacred Sources.

“The Story of Creation,” from Genesis: 1.1-2.3 The Holy Bible, New Revised Standard Version, Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1990. “The Creation,” from God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse, by James Weldon Johnson, NY: Penguin Books, 1927. “The Parable of the Prodigal Son and His Brother,” from Luke: 15.11-32, The Holy Bible, New Revised Standard Version, Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1990. “The Prodigal Son,” from God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse, by James Weldon Johnson, NY: Penguin Books, 1927. “Night” 92:1-92:22 and “Daylight” 93:1 - 93-11, from The Koran, trans. by N.J. Dawood, NY: Penguin Books, 1999.

Section II—Spiritual Themes in Poetry.

“Travel,” by Edna St. Vincent Millay, from Early Poems, by Edna St. Vincent Millay, NY: Penguin Books, 1998. “October,” “Fire and Ice,” and “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” by Robert Frost, from Complete Poems of Robert Frost, NY: Henry Holt & Co., 1949. Poems: #1544, #947, #1732, #1052, #431, #79 and #127 by Emily Dickinson, from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, ed. by Thomas H. Johnson, Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1957.

Section III—Spiritual Themes in Contemporary Nonfiction.

“Sitting by Fire,” from Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life, by Jon Kabat-Zinn, NY: Hyperion, 1994. “Hope Lives in a Sea of Death,” by James Carroll, The Boston Globe, Sept. 29, 1999, editorial page. From Ordinary Resurrections: Children in the Years of Hope, by Jonathan Kozol, NY: Crown Publishers, 2000, pp. 71-79.

6. Words that Endure: A Selection from the Classics.

Section I—Classics from Literature.

From Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself, ed. by William L. Andrews and William S. McFeely, New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1997, pp. 31-35.

“The Tell Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, from The Essential Poe: Tales of Horror and Mystery, Mt. Vernon, NY: Lantern Press, Inc., 1989. From “As You Like It,” by William Shakespeare, Act II, Sc VII, Lines 139-166 from The Arden Edition of the Works of William Shakespeare,by Agnes Latham, ed., London: Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1975. From The Merchant of Venice, by William Shakespeare, Act II, Sc. II, Lines 63-78 from The Folger Library General Reader's Shakespeare, ed. by Louis B. Wright and Virginia LaMar, NY: Washington Square Press, Inc. 1966. “Sonnet #18” and “Sonnet #29,” by William Shakespeare, from The New Cambridge Shakespeare, ed. by G. Blakemore, Evans, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. “I Hear America Singing,” from Leaves of Grass and Selected Prose, by Walt Whitman, Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle Co. Inc., Everyman's Library, 1993. “I, Too,” by Langston Hughes, from The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, ed. by Arnold Rampersad, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994. “The Road Not Taken” and “Mending Wall,” by Robert Frost, from Complete Poems of Robert Frost, NY: Henry Holt & Co., 1949.

Section II—Classic Documents.

“The Declaration of Independence,” by Thomas Jefferson, Taken from the Library of Congress website: http://memory.loc.gov/const/declar.html. “The Bill of Rights,” from The Essential Bill of Rights: Original Arguments and Fundamental Documents, ed. by Gordon Lloyd and Margie Lloyd, Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1998. “The Gettysburg Address,” by Abraham Lincoln, from 100 Key Documents in American Democracy, ed. by Peter B. Levy, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994. “I Have a Dream,” by Martin Luther King, from Speeches by Black Americans, comp. and ed. by Daniel J. O'Neil, Encino, CA: Dickenson Publishing Co., Inc., 1971.