Backpack Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing: Fifth Edition

by X.J. Kennedy

ACE 0134586441 ( 9780134586441)

Fiction. Talking with Amy Tan --
Reading a story --
The art of fiction --
Types of short fiction --
Death has an appointment in Samarra / Sufi Legend --
The north wind and the sun / Aesop --
The tortoise and the geese / Bidpai --
Independence / Chuang Tzu --
Godfather death / Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm --
Plot --
The short story --
A & P / John Updike --
Writing effectively --
Point of view --
Identifying point of view --
Types of narrators --
How much does a narrator know? --
Stream of consciousness --
A Rose for Emily / William Faulkner --
The tell-tale heart / Edgar Allan Poe --
Why I live at the P.O. / Eudora Welty --
Girl / Jamaica Kincaid --
Writing effectively --
Character --
Characterization --
Motivation --
The jilting of Granny Weatherall / Katherine Anne Porter --
Bullet in the brain / Tobias Wolff --
Everyday use / Alice Walker --
Cathedral / Raymond Carver --
Writing effectively --
Setting --
Elements of setting --
Historical fiction --
Regionalism --
Naturalism --
The storm / Kate Chopin --
To build a fire / Jack London --
The gospel according to Mark / Jorge Luis Borges --
A pair of tickets / Amy Tan --
Writing effectively --
Tone and Style --
Tone --
Style --
Diction --
A clean, well-lighted place / Ernest Hemingway --
Barn burning / William Faulkner --
Irony --
The necklace / Guy de Maupassant --
The story of an hour / Kate Chopin --
Writing effectively --
Theme --
Plot versus theme --
Summarizing the theme --
Finding the theme --
Dead men's path / Chinua Achebe --
The house on Mango Street / Sandra Cisneros --
The parable of the prodigal son / Luke --
Harrison Bergeron / Kurt Vonnegut Jr. --
Writing effectively --
Symbol --
Allegory --
Symbols --
Recognizing symbols --
The chrysanthemums / John Steinbeck --
The yellow wallpaper / Charlotte Perkins Gilman --
The ones who walk away from Omelas / Ursula K. Le Guin --
The lottery / Shirley Jackson --
Writing effectively --
Stories for further reading --
This is what it means to say Phoenix, Arizona / Sherman Alexie --
Happy endings / Margaret Atwood --
Young Goodman Brown / Nathaniel Hawthorne --
The gift of the magi / O. Henry --
Sweat / Zora Neale Hurston --
Saboteur / Ha Jin --
Araby / James Joyce --
Before the law / Franz Kafka --
Miss Brill / Katherine Mansfield --
Where are you going, where have you been? / Joyce Carol Oates --
The things they carried / Tim O'Brien --
A good man is hard to find / Flannery O'Connor --
Tell them not to kill me! / Juan Rulfo --
A haunted house / Virginia Woolf --
Poetry. Talking with Kay Ryan --
Reading a poem --
Poetry or verse --
How to read a poem --
Paraphrase --
The Lake Isle of Innisfree / William Butler Yeats --
Lyric poetry --
Those winter Sundays / Robert Hayden --
Aunt Jennifer's tigers / Adrienne Rich --
Narrative poetry --
Sir Patrick Spence / Anonymous --
"Out, out --" / Robert Frost --
Dramatic poetry --
My last duchess / Robert Browning --
Didactic poetry --
Writing effectively --
Ask me / William Stafford --
Listening to a voice --
Tone --
My papa's waltz / Theodore Roethke --
The wayfarer / Stephen Crane --
The author to her book / Anne Bradstreet --
To a locomotive in winter / Walt Whitman --
I like to see it lap the miles / Emily Dickinson --
For my daughter / Weldon Kees --
The speaker in the poem --
White lies / Natasha Trethewey --
Luke Havergal / Edwin Arlington Robinson --
Dog haiku / Anonymous --
Theme for English B / Langston Hughes --
The farmer's bride / Charlotte Mew --
The red wheelbarrow / William Carlos Williams --
Irony --
Oh no / Robert Creeley --
The unknown citizen / W.H. Auden --
Rite of passage / Sharon Olds --
Second fig / Edna St. Vincent Millay --
The workbox / Thomas Hardy --
For review and further study --
Deliberate / Amy Uyematsu --
To Lucasta / Richard Lovelace --
Dulce et decorum est / Wilfred Owen --
Writing effectively --
Words --
Literal meaning : what a poem says first --
This is just to say / William Carlos Williams --
Diction --
Cargoes / John Masefield --
Batter my heart, three-personed God, for you / John Donne --
The value of a dictionary --
Aftermath / Henry Wadsworth Longfellow --
That will to divest / Kay Ryan --
Friend, on this scaffold Thomas More lies dead / J.V. Cunningham --
Bread / Samuel Menashe --
Grass / Carl Sandburg --
Word choice and word order --
Upon Julia's clothes / Robert Herrick --
The ruined maid / Thomas Hardy --
Lonely hearts / Wendy Cope --
For review and further study --
anyone lived in a pretty how town / e.e. cummings --
Carnation milk / Anonymous --
English con salsa / Gina Valdés --
My heart leaps up when I behold / William Wordsworth --
Mutability / William Wordsworth --
Jabberwocky / Lewis Carroll --
Writing effectively --
Saying and suggesting --
Denotation and connotation --
London / William Blake --
Disillusionment of ten o'c...

Genres: Reference, Poetry, Fiction, School, Textbooks, Short Stories, Literature

1189 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Gia MarajaLove · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this in my second semester of college, and it had so many thought-provoking short stories in it, stories that still float around in my head sometimes. In an over-zealous attempt to minimalise, I resold my textbook once the course was over and done, and I’ve regretted it ever since; there were so many stories undiscovered.

Thankfully, Mr. Stroup remembered what text I was talking about and referred me back to this book, which I’ll be on the lookout for now. Highly recommend. Amazing for studying writing methods.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a novel, but a great refresher of the canon. The introductions to concepts and authors provides nice, brief, overviews for class.

[Larry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Had to read for a lit class I taught. Good introduction to lit for students. Lots of hidden treasures.

[The Grimm Reader · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hate writing negative reviews. They bring down my ch'i (only partially kidding).
However I feel it necessary to say that this is the most disorganized, confusing, and unhelpful textbook I have ever had the displeasure of using. While it is nice that most of the selected literature is included in the book, there is basically NO analysis of it, or anything that might help you truly understand it or explain it. As a literary buff, this book was annoying at most. However, if I were taking a class as a novice to the field and in need of guidance, this book would hinder and downright confuse me more than help me.
Pearson should stick with math and stay out of the literary department. You (Pearson I am talking to you!) confuse people enough with the SATs; there is no need to follow them to college and make that a perplexing mess as well.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a handy anthology of assorted literature. For my Comm III class we only ended up reading a small sampling of them, but I enjoyed most of the pieces. It's a nice book with essays and short stories from a variety of authors and I would probably recommend as a good college textbook.

*Taken from my book reviews blog: http://reviewsatmse.blogspot.com/2009...

[Kiya · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hate this book I was forced to read it for my English 102 class and I hated everything about it it was so boring half the time I was ready to tear my eyes out with the nearest fork or knife too bad I was in a class room there was none

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

By far the best collection of short stories, and poetry from famous writers. This book also inspects the writing process and elaborates on writing techniques. Wonderful from page one, a great resource to have.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the variety. I had it for my Analyzing Literature class and we read through a lot of different short stories and poems. It's so nice to have everything in one place instead of having to either find them online and print them out or buy a bunch of different books.

[Bridger Hibbert]

NOTE: I believe I was using an updated copy of this book, so if there are any stories you never heard in this review, be sure to check the following texts:

-Death Has an Appointment in Samara


(I cannot rate this book since I never finished it)

[Loo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a terrific anthology. I found lots of poetry, short stories and plays to looooove. The overview of textual elements wasn't bad either.

[Janin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good collection of classic short stories, poems and plays.

[Lena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good textbook; broad in scope and material presented but also very succinct in its explanations. I definitely didn't sell it back.

[Shivase · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a good book

[Angelina Dominguez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Makes English Lit easy to understand.

[Amanda]

I'm reading this anthology for english class... only because it is mandatory :)