Textbook reviews

Here are my reviews of the textbooks I'll be presenting in class today:

Bullock, Richard and Maureen Daly Goggin. The Norton Field Guide to Writing with Readings. New York: Norton, 2007.

The Norton Field Guide is easy to use and offers many options for teachers, being adaptable for many different class plans. It states in the preface that it “aims to offer the guidance new teachers and first year writers need and the flexibility experienced teachers want” (iii), and it does a reasonably good job meeting these goals. In the preface, it gives examples of different ways to use the book, giving teachers the opportunity to “teach with a rhetoric,” “Organize [the] course thematically,” and “focus on particular strategies,” among other options (vi-vii). To facilitate this flexibility, the Field Guide has chapters offering guidelines for specific paper types such as literacy narratives and analyzing texts, but it also includes guidelines for writing lab reports, proposals, and résumés, making it applicable to other types of writing that students will most likely do at some point.

However, the Field Guide does not only focus on these specific types of writing but also on rhetorical situations (such as purpose and audience), processes (including collaborative writing, brainstorming, and revising, among others), strategies (such as analyzing causes and effects, defining, and reading analytically), research (offering guidance on finding, using, and documenting sources), and media and design (focusing not only on the written word but also on spoken and electronic works, including some guidelines for website design). To facilitate use, the Field Guide is color coded, with each section being assigned a specific color. Throughout the book, certain words function somewhat like hyperlinks, as they are highlighted in the color of the section where students can find more information on the subject, with page numbers listed to the side.

The Field Guide concludes with a selection of readings. These readings are primarily nonfiction essays, offering examples of the types of writings students might be asked to engage in (literacy narratives and arguments, among others). There are few—four poems and one short story, to be exact—examples of poetry and fiction to analyze. The usefulness of these readings would depend on the purposes of the individual class. There is also a version of the Field Guide that does not include these extra readings, for classes in which they are not applicable.

The Field Guide has other limitations, as well. While it contains some editing and proofreading guidelines, it does not contain a handbook, requiring students to look elsewhere for specific grammar and punctuation guidelines. Additionally, although the Field Guide does offer some guidance for composing electronic texts, it lacks information on alternative forms of argumentation, such as Rogerian or feminist perspectives.

Although it is lacking in some respects, the Field Guide provides a good basic text for first-year composition. It offers many ways of approaching composition, even though it neglects some others.

Axelrod, Rise B. and Charles R. Cooper. The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008.

The St. Martin’s Guide provides another fairly comprehensive and detailed guide to first year composition. Nine of the first 10 chapters are devoted to different types of “writing activities,” complete with assignments, examples of the genre, and “critical reading guides” that would be useful for peer review. The given examples help with the Guide’s stated goal of “Systematic Integration of Reading and Writing” (vii)—an integration that I find useful, as it gives the students an idea of what successful papers in each genre look like. The “critical reading guides” are also useful; they offer guidelines for students to evaluate their own papers as well as detailed questions appropriate for peer review of each specific assignment. “Of the “writing activities” listed, the majority of them could be written as argumentative papers appropriate for English 1000 (“Arguing a Position,” “Proposing a Solution,” “Interpreting Stories,” etc). A couple of them (like “Explaining a Concept” and “Explaining Opposing Positions”) run the risk of being mere summaries rather than arguments, but, with guidance from the teacher, they could also be useful. The first two writing activities listed (“Remembering an Event” and “Writing Profiles”) seem less useful for English 1000, with its emphasis on argumentation, but they could be used for short writing assignments. While these chapters oriented toward specific assignments would be an excellent way for first year teachers to begin, especially if they are not certain how to structure their own classes, they may be a bit too structured for some. These chapters would be applicable for similar assignments, but, for teachers whose assignments do not come close to fitting these categories, these first chapters could be less than helpful.

With that said, however, the chapters over specific assignments only comprise the first section of the book. The second section contains useful brainstorming and reading strategies which would be applicable for any assignment. The third section is devoted to “writing strategies” such as narrating, describing, and defining. While some of these may not be useful for English 1000 papers, others will be, such as the section on “Cueing the Reader,” which has information on topics such as thesis statements, topic sentences, and transitions. The fourth section describes research strategies and using sources, covering everything from interviewing to MLA style. Part five contains information about writing essay examinations (which may be helpful for our students after English 1000) and compiling portfolios (which could be useful, depending on class structure). Part six focuses on document design, oral presentations, collaborative writing, and writing as service. The book closes with a useful handbook, which contains help for speakers of English as a second language, in addition to basic grammatical information for native speakers. This handbook would be helpful for pointing out specific grammar and punctuation errors in students’ work, without having to spend excessive time in explaining the problem; for example, a student whose paper has multiple shifts in verb tense could be directed to handbook section E2a.

Overall, this book seems like a good basic composition text. It lacks assignments that utilize some of our more theoretical readings—there is no mention of Rogerian argument, feminist argument, or box logic—but it does have good basic assignments and helpful advice on issues ranging from reading to document design. Furthermore, Bedford/St. Martin’s offers the possibility of designing a custom book for your course, using parts of the book that you find helpful and leaving others out. There is also a wide selection of possible readings that you can include.