Literature and the Writing Process - Softcover

Elizabeth McMahan

is professor emerita of English at Illinois State University. She holds a Ph.D. in nineteenth-century literature from the University of Oregon. While still in graduate school, she wrote her first book, A Crash Course in Composition, published by McGraw Hill. She has taught on every level, from freshman composition to graduate seminars, and has published critical articles on works of literature and teaching composition. She served as the director of writing programs for seven years at Illinois State University. During her academic career, she received an NDEA Title IV Fellowship, the Kester Svendson Dissertation Grant, and the 1978 Illinois Arts Council Essay Award. Since taking early retirement, she has devoted her energies to writing and revising textbooks.

Robert W. Funk taught high school for 10 years before receiving his Ph.D. at the University of Illinois in 1974. He is currently a professor of English at Eastern Illinois University and lectures in grammar, advanced composition, Shakespeare, and methods for teaching English in the secondary school. He has co-authored a number of college-level textbooks with Elizabeth McMahan and Susan Day, including Literature and the Writing Process (6th ed., 2001), The Simon & Schuster Short Prose Reader (2nd ed., 2000), Strategies for College Writing (2000)

He has also lectured at Eureka College and Richland Community College and has presented numerous workshops on composition and the teaching of literature at national and regional conferences, including CCCC and NCTE, and for state and local in-service training sessions. His current research interests include contemporary rhetoric, composition theory, and reader-response criticism.

Susan X Day is an assistant professor of psychology at Iowa State University of Science and Technology in Ames. She pursues two research programs, one concerning personality and the development of interests, and one concerning the use of distance technology in psychotherapy. Dr. Day taught English at Illinois State University for 20 years before beginning her Ph.D. in psychology at University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. Her specialties in English studies are writing and pedagogy, and she has done research on the practices of dissertation writers and the identity development of creative writers. In 1999, Dr. Day won the national American Psychological Association-sponsored Outstanding Graduate Student Award for excellence in scholarship and professional development in her field. She is the author and co-author of more than a dozen college textbooks in rhetoric, grammar, and literature, and her research has appeared in prestigious journals such as American Psychologist and Psychological Science.

I very much like the support for the writing process. This text has the best support of any introduction to literature text that I have seen.  I think it is good to divide the discussion of the writing process among several chapters.  I like the reminders of the process throughout all chapters.

–Denise Nemec, NorthwestArkansasCommunity College

Literature and the Writing Process, Eighth Edition reinforces the writing process in every chapter and is designed to guide you through the complementary processes of active reading and critical writing.  Literary selections promote active reading and are used to help you read, analyze, and write about literature.  Critical writing coverage, including responsive writing topics, critical writing topics, and researched writing topics, are featured in every chapter.   A Handbook for Correcting Errors rounds out the book and offers important grammatical pointers for writers. 

New to this edition:

• Chapter 4 features updated and expanded research coverage, including additional material on the use of quotations, paraphrases, and summaries.
• Chapter 18 on cultural analysis helps you understand and interpret literature
• Discussion and writing questions follow all selections in the three anthologies, and at the end of the portfolios, casebooks, and the “Paired Poems for Comparison”
• Additional visuals include an updated color insert and several new photographs and images chosen to enhance the reader’s understanding and appreciation of particular literary works.
• New casebook on interpreting Troy Maxson, the lead character in August Wilson’s Fences.

• Two new groupings of related works for thematic or genre study: a Portfolio of Humorous Stories and a Portfolio of War Poetry