Literature and the Writing Process

The service was wonderful, and the book was exactly how I expected it to be.

I teach Composition 111 and 112 at a community college along with a Dual Enrollment English class, which combines Comp I and Comp II for college credit, to high school college-bound seniors. Initially, I used this text for Eng 112, and when it came time to purchase anthologies for my Dual Enrollment Course, I explored every text I could get access to. After exhaustive research, I chose Literature and the Writing Process, 8th ed. because it combines writing--the process, the modes, and research--the list goes on and on--with a solid selection of fiction, drama, and poetry. In short, I can use one text for both parts of the course instead of separate texts for the two required college composition courses. If there is a change I'd like to see in the next edition, it would be the inclusion of multi-cultural, particularly Asian, selections.

This was a text book that I needed for Eng Comp II. It came as promised and in good condition.

Teaching an introduction to literature course can be a demanding job. One concern is that you have to find the book/s that provide/s you with the works you want and, at the same time, you want to try to not break the economic backs of your students. LITERATURE AND THE WRITING PROCESS is probably one of the better collections out there. For my purposes, it has most of what I need: dramas like OEDIPUS REX and MACBETH; short stories by Joyce, Carver, O'Connor, Achebe, Munroe, and Updike; and a vast array of poetry that spans centuries.While the price of this collection seems steep, it works out to be much cheaper than having your students buy a copy of MACBETH, of OEDIPUS REX, of DUBLINERS, of CATHEDRAL, etc. Another advantage of this book is that it provides students with guides on how to approach literature, and how to write about it. Not all of these guides are helpful, and some are extremely weak: this is why I give this book four stars instead of five. Still, I haven't found much else out there that compares to this book for the price!Rocco Dormarunno.Instructor, The College of New Rochelle

I chose to use McMahan's text because it saves me time as an instructor of English. Composition comprises the most significant portion of a student's grade in a college literature class, and this text teaches students how to write an essay about literature from the beginning of the process to the end. I also like the bonus of a novella, The Awakening, which is often taught at the intro. level but under separate cover. Such a deal.