Juxtapositions: Connections and Contrasts

PERSONAL OBSERVATION AND NARRATION 1. Facing Social Pressure Langston Hughes, Salvation / George Orwell, Shooting an Elephant / Anna Quindlen, The Name Is Mine / 2. Three Diaries from States of Siege Anne Frank, from The Diary of a Young Girl / Zlata Filipovic, from Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Sarajevo / Latoya Hunter, from The Diary of LaToya Hunter / 3. Fathers E. B. White, Once More to the Lake / Sylvia Plath, Daddy / Raymond Carver, Photograph of My Father in His Twenty-Second Year / Theodore Roethke, My Papa's Waltz / 4. From Story to Film: "Paul's Case" Willa Cather, Paul's Case: A Study in Temperament / Ron Cowen, screenplay excerpt from Paul's Case / 5. To Die by Law Charles Dickens, Among the Condemned / George Orwell, A Hanging / H. L. Mencken, Hangings I Have Known / Norman Mailer, Let's Do It / 6. Mothers Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens / David James Duncan, Ma / Maxine Hong Kingston, Photographs of My Mother / Jamaica Kincaid, Girl / Carolyn Kizer, from The Blessing / 7. Fact and Fiction: Two Accounts of One Disaster Stephen Crane, News Account of the Disaster / Stephen Crane, The Open Boat / 8. An Ancient Story Told and Retold King James Bible, The Book of Ruth / Thomas Hood, Ruth / Lucille Clifton, naomi watches as ruth sleeps / 9. Immigrants: Horror and Hope Charles Ball, Slave Ship / Mary Gordon, More Than Just a Shrine: Paying Homage to the Ghosts of Ellis Island / Vo Thi Tam, A Boat Person's Story / ANALYSIS AND EXPLANATION / 10. Twentieth-Century Homelessness Jack London, Among the London Poor / Scott Shuger, Who Are the Homeless? / 11. Imagining the End of the World Robert Frost, Fire and Ice / Sir Frederick Hoyle, The Next Ice Age / Carl Sagan, The Warming of the World / 12. Thought for Food M. F. K. Fisher, The Indigestible: The Language of Food / William Safire, A Bottle of Ketchup / 13. Mickey Mouse: An American Myth Walt Disney, The Story of Mickey Mouse / Stephen Jay Gould, A Biological Homage to Mickey Mouse / John Updike, The Mystery of Mickey Mouse / George Vlahogiannis, Weird World of Disney / 14. Why Is Weight So Weighty? Anne Hollander, Why It's Fashionable to Be Thin / Sallie Tisdale, A Weight That Women Carry / Joseph Epstein, A Fat Man Struggles to Get Out / 15. Meaning on the Mall Bob Greene, 15 / Joyce Carol Oates, Shopping / William Geist, Sport Shopping in Suburbia / 16. Reimagining a Fairy Tale Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm, Red Riding Hood / James Finn Garner, Little Red Riding Hood / Russell Baker, Little Red Riding Hood Revisited / Bruno Bettelheim, Fairy Tale versus Myth: Optimism versus Pessimism / ADVOCACY AND ARGUMENT 17. Language and Manners Thomas H. Middleton, Freshman Class? / Ellen Goodman, Vulgarity May Be Common, but It's Not Okay / Barbara Lawrence, Four-Letter Words Can Hurt You / 18. The Power of Naming Itabari Njeri, What's in a Name? / Richard Crasta, What's in a Name? / 19. Two Visions of Freedom Martin Luther King, Jr., I Have a Dream / Malcolm X, The Ballot or the Bullet / 20. Einstein's Brain Steven Levy, My Search for Einstein's Brain / Roland Barthes, The Brain of Einstein / 21. When the Earth Shook William James, On Some Mental Effects of the Earthquake / Susanna Styron, Risk Management: Men versus Women in the L. A. Earthquake / Isak Dinesen, The Earthquake /22. Regulating Speech Russell Baker, Don't Mention It / David G. Savage, Forbidden Words on Campus / Gloria Naylor, A Question of Language / 23. Language as Power Frederick Douglass, Learning to Read and Write / Amy Tan, Mother Tongue / Leonard Q. Ross, Mr. K*A*P*L*A*N, the Comparative, and the Superlative / 24. Mirror, Mirror Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Birth-Mark / Molly O'Neill, The Anatomy Lesson / Marjorie Rosen, New Face, New Body, New SelfWilliam Vesterman is the author of 'Juxtapositions: Connections and Contrasts', published 1995 under ISBN 9781559344494 and ISBN 1559344490.