Ways of Reading: An Anthology for Writers

This tremendously rich and rewarding book is probably the best collection of essays, with the best apparatus (the most interesting questions, the best ideas for writing) of any teachable collection out there.I teach at the University of California, Berkeley, and use this book, as do a number of my colleagues. Each one of these essays will unlock a world. Some of them, like Clifford Geertz or Paolo Freire or John Edgar Wideman or Adrienne Rich are centerpieces of my courses. History, anthropology, literature (the new addition of Alice Munro is a brilliant stroke), fieldwork, sociology... but to say that one can introduce any of these fields using this book doesn't do it justice. These essays are complex and balanced, representing a wide variety of world views, whether political or aesthetic. Reading them requires some effort, but the essays will well repay that effort. They will transform any reader's ideas of what an essay can be.

I highly recommend David Bratholomae and Anthony Petrosky's anthology for writers, Ways of Reading. As a student in a college level freshman English course, I found this book a wonderful way to broaden my perspective on life through various literary works. The essays challenged me to find several different interpretations. Although my English course focused on a few of these writings, rather than the entire book, I have a good understanding of the content of Ways of Reading through the works that we did read. Bratholmae and Petrosky's introduction to Ways of Reading offers students valuable suggestions on how to approach literary works with an open mind. The authors, Bratholmae and Pertosky, discuss the importance of reading with and against the grain, and making connections between the reading and life experiences. They encourage readers to be aggressive since an essay is what the "reader makes of it" (Ways of Reading, 7). At the beginning of each essay in Ways of Reading is an introduction which includes a brief biography about the author's accomplishments and interests as well a helpful description of the following story. At the end of each essay, Bratholmae and Petrosky include questions for the reader on which to reflect. This is a valuable tool which aids students in understanding and probing deeper into the text. Ways of Reading is comprised of essays written by twenty-four well-known and award-winning writers who offer unique viewpoints from diverse cultures and backgrounds. Some of these authors include Harriet Brent Jacobs, James Baldwin, Susan Griffin, W.J.T. Mitchell, and Mary Louise Pratt, who discuss subjects such as slavery, reproductions of art, history in peoples' daily lives, photographic case studies, and contact zones. Each writer offers his/her own experience in various literary styles. Gloria Anzaldua writes in English and Spanish in order to show the complexity of the Chicano language, Marianne Hirsch uses photographs from the Holocaust, and Susan Griffin shows the impact of history on her life by writing in different time periods. These works create intense and interesting discussions in the classroom as students analyze the texts and share their opinion with their classmates. Ways of Reading is a wonderful textbook for the classroom because it provides students with a wide variety of essay styles, subject matters, and valuable perspectives which can come from the authors as well as teachers and fellow classmates. The reader learns to read with and against the grain. This book can improve readers' ability to comprehend and analyze complex essays and formulate strong opinions. One can develop and define one's identity by evaluating one's opinions on the important topics discussed. Ways of Reading gives readers various flavors of literary essays from which one can further develop and focus one's interests and talents. This collection of essays is excellent for readers who have been or are eager to be exposed to various cultu

As a student enrolled in a college freshman English course, I found Ways of Reading to be an excellent textbook. The book brings up a wide range of interesting topics, while at the same time introducing students to new forms of writing style. Ways of Reading is an anthology of shorter essays of a variety of authors, including Gloria Anzaldua, John Berger, Melanie Griffin and Mary Louise Pratt. Many of the essays included in Ways of Reading are excerpts from longer writings, while others have been adapted from speeches or other forms of presentation conducted by the author. For example, Pratt's essay was originally an address that Pratt gave at the Modern Language Association Literacy Conference, and Berger's is a section from a book that began as a television series. At the end of each, Ways of Reading provides questions about the text that are designed to point the reader towards the main points of the essay, helping to further understanding. The theme of my English class was point of view, and Ways of Reading was used to show different kinds of perception. We did not read the entire book, but rather several of the individual selections. The writings served as the jumping off point for most of the discussions held in class and always managed to spark lively debate. The class I took lasted only a semester, making it difficult to read and discuss very many longer pieces. Because of this, Ways of Reading was perfect. It allowed us to cover a broader spectrum of topics without compromising the ideas presented by each author. However, this could be a possible limitation for a longer course or for one wishing to concentrate more in depth on very specific things. The essays included in Ways of Reading were complex and sometimes difficult to understand. The textbook does, however, do a good job of clarifying the writing and showing the reader how to break the work down into manageable sections. Ways of Reading exposed my class to twentieth century authors and some modern writing styles different from the kinds I was used to. It increased my experience with unconventional writing and made me more interested in reading unusual forms of writing. Also, while my class used the textbook primarily as a method of beginning discussions, Ways of Reading gives suggestions for assignments and explains important concepts such as close and analytical reading, as well. One problem with the way Ways of Reading is set up might be that it does not seem to include an example of a more standard essay. As I had previously worked only with typical kinds of academic essays, I found this to be a good thing. That might not, however, be the case for everyone. Every textbook has both strengths and weaknesses, and Ways of Reading is no exception. However, I found that the positives of Ways of Reading outweighed the negatives and I think that most people who have worked with the textbook would agree. Overall, Ways of Reading was a good choice for an introduct

Do you want to be exposed to various ways of reading? Would you like to learn about yourself though reading twenty-three award-winning authors from different points of view? Do you want to read a text that allows you to make your own interpretations? If you answered yes to any of these questions then David Batholomae and Anthony Petrosky's Ways of Reading may be a beneficial text for you. After using this book for a college level freshman English course. I would recommend this book to be taught in a freshman academic setting because the additional materials that were added to the text of the book challenges you to think harder and in new ways. The book is appropriate for freshman level of academia because even though the authors express their own points of view they also allow the reader to make their own interpretation. The book has an excellent introduction that tells you what to expect while reading the book. This book encourages you to "read with the grain" and "read against the grain." (11) "Reading with the grain" is when you work within an authors point of view and see your world through someone else's ideas.(11) "Reading against the grain" is when you read the text critically and test the limits of the ideas expressed in the readings. (11) An example of each can be showed through John Berger's text Ways of Seeing. After reading his essay, I began to examine how I view replicas verses original works, which is an example of "reading with the grain." In "reading against the grain," I thought about the different levels of respect that people show for replicas verses originals and how the placement of words with a painting can distort the original meaning. The book layout also encourages readers to think more analytically about the text. Three sections that encourage further thought and understanding of the text follow each essay. The first section is Questions For A Second Reading. In this section the reader is guided through points that tell them what to think about during a second reading of the text. This gives the reader ideas about the text that they may not have gotten on their own. For example, after reading Gloria Anzaldua's essay How to Tame a Wild Tongue, I did not have a complete understanding of the text. I read the questions for a second reading and it helped me to understand why they included Spanish in the text when all of her readers may not be Spanish-speaking. The question stated:"The most immediate challenge to many readers of these chapters will be the sections that are written in Spanish. Part of the point of the text that mixes languages is to give non-Spanish-speaking readers the feeling of being lost, excluded, left out." (45)After reading this question, I understood why she wrote the essay in the chosen style and my second reading. I was now able to think in the same mindset as Anzaldua. The second section that the book presents the reader with to provoke more thought about the text is

This book contains great argumentative writing in it. We used this book when I was a freshman in college for my argumentative class at the Universoty of Florida. It has classic scenarios of critics and advocates of movements expressing themselves in essay form. This book contains arguments about real life events that occured recently and discusses them in a very intellectual level. One of the best things about this book is that you can compare the essays within with other essays in the book. Sometimes the essays are foils of one another and through this you can see their subjective viewpoint more clearly. Most of the time the essays do compliment one another and intensify the other's argument tenfold.