Seeing and Writing

The first full-color composition reader truly to reflect visual culture,Seeing & Writingis based on a simple principle: Careful seeing leads to effective writing. Students actively and critically see the details of each verbal and visual text, think about its composition and the cultural context within which it operates, and then write thoughtfully and convincingly about it. With a new look, new features, and new essays and images,Seeing & Writing 4continues to lead the way as a visual, flexible, and above all, inspiring tool for the composition classroom.

Donald McQuade is professor of English and former dean of undergraduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He just finished a term serving as Vice Chancellor-University Relations. A past chair of CCCC, he has directed the writing program at Berkeley and at Queens College, CUNY, and has published widely on American literature, American culture, and composition theory and practice. With Bob Atwan, he is co-author of The Writer’s Presence (2009).

Christine McQuade graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, and joined modern dance company STREB, with whom she toured internationally for five years. She has taught freshman composition at Queens College and currently lives in New York City.

Preface for Instructors How This Book Works Introduction: Writing Matters       EXERCISES: Walker Evans. Subway Passengers, New York, NY       Making Observations       EXERCISE: Mark Peterson, Image of Homelessness        Drawing Inferences       EXERCISE: David Ignatow, My Place        Drafting       EXERCISE: Peter Arkle        Revising       EXERCISE: Robert Frost, In White and Design        Composition Toolkit             Purpose             Structure             Audience             Point of View             Tone             Metaphor             Context       EXERCISE: Joel Sternfeld, Warren Avenue at 23rd Street, Detroit Michigan, October 1993  Chapter One: Observing the Ordinary  Introduction Opening Portfolio NEW Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio, Hungry Planet [4 photographs]  Pair NEW Annalee Newitz, My Laptop [essay]+ NEW Matthew Pillsbury, Penelope Umbrico (with her Daughters), Monday, February 3rd, 2003 7 – 7:30PM [photograph]  Larry Woiwode, Ode to an Orange [essay]  Sequoia Citrus Association, Have One [label]       + California Orange Growers, Orange Crate Labels [3 labels]  NEW Retrospect: Phone Home [5 advertisements]       1933 Bell System, Within the Reach of Millions       1958 Bell System It’s Fun to Talk by Telephone       1980 Bell System Reach Out and Touch Someone       1992 Sony Don’t Be Bound by Convention       2007 TMobile Google phone   QUOTE NEW Lizet Gaytan and Saul Bellow  Tracey Baran, Mom Ironing [photograph]  Tillie Olsen, I Stand Here Ironing [short story]  NEW Visualizing Composition: Slowed-Down Reading  QUOTE NEW Elizabeth Hardwick and Nii Martey Codjoe  Portfolio Gueorgui Pinkhassov from Moments of Silence [4 photographs]:       + Pre-Game Prayer, Billy Ryan High School, Denton, Texas       + Salat-ul-Zuhr (Noon) Prayers, Mardigian Library, University of Michigan-Dearborn       + Day of Miracles Ceremony, Land of Medicine Buddha, Soquel, CA       + Satnam Waheguru Prayer, Minar's Taj Palace, New York  Brian Doyle, Joyas Volardores [essay]  K.C. Cole, A Matter of Scale [essay]  Pepón Osorio, Badge of Honor, 1995 (detail) [installation]       + Context  Annie Dillard, Seeing [essay]  

LOOKING CLOSER: Unpacking Our Stuff  NEW Pablo Neruda, Ode to Things [poem]  NEW Siri Hustvedt, Unknown Keys [essay + photograph]  NEW George Skelcher, Magic Money Box [3 drawings]  NEW Akiko Busch, Introduction to The Uncommon Life of Common Objects [essay]  NEW Trujillo-Paumier, This is Daphne and Those Are Her Things [2 photos]  NEW Annie Leonard, The Story of Stuff [screen shot + quotation]    Chapter Two: Coming to Terms With Place  Introduction  Opening Portfolio Joel Sternfeld, On This Site [4 photographs]  Pair Edward Hopper, House by the Railroad [painting] + Edward Hirsch, Edward Hopper and the House by the Railroad [poem]  Eudora Welty, The Little Store [short story]       + Eudora Welty, Storekeeper, 1935 [photograph]       + Eudora Welty, Storekeeper [excerpt]  Retrospect: Camilo Jose Vergara, 65 East 125th St., Harlem [12 photographs]       December 1977       January 1980       December 1983       November 1988       March 1990       September 1992       March 1994       June 1997       August 2001       April 2003       February 2004       May 2008  QUOTE: NEW Adrian Varner and Salmon Rushdie  David Guterson, No Place Like Home [essay]  Mark Peterson, Image of Homelessness [photograph]       + Norman Mailer, Three Seconds or Less [excerpt]  Scott Russell Sanders, Homeplace [essay]  NEW The Road to Success [map]       + NEW CONTEXT: Katharine Harmon, You Are Here  NEW Richard Ford, At Home. For Now [essay]  NEW Visualizing Composition: Tone  NEW Kenji Jasper, The Streets Change, But the Memories Endure, [essay]  NEW Portfolio Flickr Student Spaces [4 photographs]:  NEW Julia Alvarez, Neighbors, [fiction]       + NEW Pobilio Diaz, Camino a Manabao [photograph]

LOOKING CLOSER: Envisioning America  Introduction  Bharati Mukherjee, Imagining Homelands [essay]  NEW Samantha Appleton, A Mexican-American Family Celebrates a Quinciniera [photograph]  NEW Monica Almeida, A Mother Walks Home with Her Children after School in Dearborn, Michigan [photograph]  NEW Jon Lowenstein, Man with Cuban flag in mouth [photograph]  NEW Alex Webb, Little India [photograph]  Amy Tan, Fish Cheeks [essay]       +Amy Tan, Fish Cheeks [photograph]  Jesse Gordon, What is America? [op-art]  NEW Angela M. Balcita, Americano Dream [essay]  NEW Pat Mora, Immigrants [poem]  Chapter Three: Capturing Memorable Moments  Introduction  Opening Portfolio: Martin Parr [4 photographs]       +Paris, 18th District, 2000       + Greece, Athens, Acropolis, 1991       + Latvia Beaches, 1999       + Italy, Pisa, Leaning Tower, 1990  Pair: Ethan Canin, Vivian, Fort Barnwell [short story and photograph]  Sarah Vowell, The First Thanksgiving [essay]  Retrospect: Yearbook Photos [18 photographs]  N. Scott Momaday, The Photograph [essay]  Steve McCurry, Sharbat Gula [2 photographs]       + NEW CONTEXT: National Geographic cover June 1985  QUOTATION: NEW Anne Trent and Will Self  Dorothy Allison, This is Our World [essay]  NEW Clive Thompson, This Just In: I’m Twittering [essay]       + Front page of USA Today, Anchorage Daily News, The Commercial Appeal, and The Oregonian [newspaper pages]  NEW Visualizing Composition: Structure  Portfolio Andrew Savulich [4 photographs]:       + People watching jumper on hotel roof       + man complaining that he was attacked after he gave his money to robbers       + taxi driver explaining how an argument with his passengers caused him to drive into the restaurant       + woman laughing after car wreck  James Nachtwey, Crushed Car [photograph] and Ground Zero [essay]  NEW Bill McKibben, Year One of the Next Earth [essay]       + NEW Chris Jordan, In Katrina’s Wake [4 photographs]   LOOKING CLOSER: Shaping Memory  Susan Sontag, On Photography [essay]  Joe Rosenthal, Marines Raising the Flag on Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima [photograph]  Joe Rosenthal, Marines Raising the Flag on Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima [essay]  U.S. Postal Service, Three Cent Stamp, 1945 [stamp]  NEW New Yorker June 6, 1994 cover [illustration]  Thomas E. Franklin, Flag Raising, World Trade Center, 2001 [photograph]  J. Phillip, Superbowl XXXVI, 2002 [photograph]  Chapter Four: Projecting Gender  Introduction  Opening Portfolio Robert Mapplethorpe, Self-Portrait [2 photographs]  Pair Jacinto Jesus Cardona, Bato con Khakis [poem] and CesarA. Martinez, Bato con Khakis [painting]  Jamaica Kincaid, Girl [fiction]       + William H. Johnson, Li’L Sis [painting]  Judith Ortiz Cofer, The Story of My Body [essay]  Marjane Satrapi, The Veil [comic]       + CONTEXT: Marjane Satrapi, Introduction to Persepolis, The Story of a Childhood  Retrospect: Building the Male Body [magazine cover and 3 advertisements]  QUOTE NEW Andy Coen and Nadine Gordimer  NEW Visualizing Composition: Purpose  Portfolio  Nancy Burson He/She [6 photographs]:  Susan Bordo, Never Just Pictures [essay]  Pirelli, Power is Nothing Without Control [advertisement]   LOOKING CLOSER: Engendering Identity  Lauren Greenfield, Ashleigh, 13, with Her Friend and Parents, Santa Monica [photograph]  Art Spiegelman, Nature vs Nurture [comic]  Katha Pollitt, Why Boys Don’t Play with Dolls [essay]  Brain Finke, Untitled (Cheerleading #81) and Untitled (Football #75) [2 photographs]  NEW U.S. Army, Today’s Military [advertisement]  Chapter Five: Examining Difference  Introduction  Opening Portfolio Nikki S. Lee [5 photographs]  Pair NEW Stefano Giovannoni [images] and NEW Michael Hsu, The Squint and the Wail [essay]  NEW Luc Sante, Be Different (Like Everyone Else!) [essay]  Donnell Alexander, Cool Like Me [essay]  Roger Shimomura, 24 people for Whom I Have Been Mistaken [24 photographs]  NEW Yang Liu, Party and Ich [graphics]  Retrospect: Reel Native Americans [3 movie posters + 4 stills]  QUOTE NEW Brittany Mann and Kurt Vonnegut  Tibor Kalman, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Queen Elizabeth [2 images]  NEW Visualizing Composition: Audience  Portfolio NEW Carlton Davis, Hueman [5 photographs]       + NEW CONTEXT: Carlton Davis artist statement  NEW Ta-Nehisi Coates: This is How We Lost to the White Man [essay]   LOOKING CLOSER: Doubling Consciousness  NEW W.E.DuBois Double Consciousness [essay]  NEW Guillermo Gomez Pena, Authentic Cuban Santera [photograph]  NEW James McBride, What Color is Jesus? [memoir]  NEW Kip Fulbeck, Part Asian 100% Hapa [4 photographs]  NEW Naomi Schaefer Riley, The Risks of Multiracial Identification [essay]  Chapter 6: Confronting Class  Introduction  Opening Portfolio NEW Brooks Jensen [5 photographs]  Pair: NEW Auguste Renoir, The Waitress at Duval’s Restaurant [painting] + NEW Billy Collins, The Waitress [poem]  Paul Fussell, A Touchy Subject [essay]  Margaret Bourke White, The Louisville Flood 1937 [photo]       +Dorothea Lange, Billboard on US Highhway 99 [photograph]  Grant Wood, American Gothic [painting]  Guy Davenport, The Geography of the Imagination [essay]       + Jane Yolen, GrantWood: American Gothic [poem]       + Context: Gordon Parks, American Gothic  RETROSPECT: NEW An American Classic Revisited [2 illustrations + 1 magazine cover + 1 advertisement]  NEW William Deresiewicz, The Dispossessed [essay]  PORTFOLIO NEW New York Times, How Class Works [6 graphs/illustrations]  NEW Barbara Ehrenreich, This Land Is Their Land [essay]       + NEW Woody Guthrie, This Land is Your Land [lyrics]  Tina Barney, The Reunion [photo]  NEW Visualizing Composition: Metaphor   LOOKING CLOSER: Re-reading an Icon  Sally Stein, Passing Likeness: Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother and the Paradox of Iconicity [essay]  The Nation cover January 2005 [magazine cover]  NEW Dorthea Lange, Eloy, Pinal County, Arizona [photograph]  Chapter Seven: Taking A Stand  Introduction  Opening Portfolio  Collaborate [5 advertisements]  Pair Frank Fournier, Omayra Sanchez [photograph] + Isabel Allende, Omayra Sanchez [essay]       + Context: Frank Fournier [interview]  NEW Michael Pollan, Farmer in Chief [letter]  Portfolio: NEW World Wildlife Fund [3 advertisements]  NEW Michael Lewis, Serfs of the Turf [essay]  Quote: NEW Andy Coen and Tim Carvell  NEW Clay Bennett, Phone Guy [cartoon]  NEW Steven Johnson, Watching TV Makes You Smarter [essay]  James Rosenquist, Professional Courtesy [mixed media]       + NEW Robert Unell, 33 More Missed [cartoon]       + NEW Wayne Stayskal, [cartoon]  NEW Rev. John P. Minogue, The 20th Century University is Obsolete [essay]  NEW Visualizing Composition: Point of View  Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others [essay]  Retrospect: Picturing War [6 images]  Looking Closer: Altering Images  Mitchell Stephens, Expanding the Language of Photographs [essay]  George Hunt, Untitled [photograph]  John Long, Ethics in the Age of Digital Photography [essay]  Lance Cheung, Members of the 129th Rescue Squadron, Moffitt Federal Airfield, CA [photograph]  Charles Maxwell, Breaching Great White Shark [photograph]  "THE Photo of the Year" [photograph]  NEW Barry Blitt, The Politics of Fear [illustration]  NEW Virginia Postrel, The Politics of the Retouched Headshot [essay]  Rankin, Bootiful [2 photograph]  Appendix B: On Reading Visual and Verbal Texts Glossary Rhetorical Table of Contents Index of Verbal and Visual Texts