The Simon and Schuster Short Prose Reader

The text brings back fond memories of essay writing in school. All the timeless advice about how to write a concise article is here. Exemplified by passages from a wide variety of short stories, some of which must surely get any reader's interest. The main idea seems to be to transition the student from being a passive reader to becoming a writer. Part of this involves training the student to read a passage more analytically. With some purpose in mind. There are many exercises. Some are quite short, involving just writing a sentence or few about a topic. To gently get the student into the act of writing, without having her churn out an entire essay off the bat.

With selections from writers as varied as Asimov and Dave Barry, this book has something for everyone. I used it as a writing text to teach my eighth grader at home. It has excellent writing prompts, grammar and punctuation lessons, pre-reading hints, vocabulary, and great questions about each prose selection to point out HOW the writer achieved the effect he/she wanted. I highly recommend this for homeschoolers and others who just enjoy good writing.