The Freshman Writer as Artist: A Reader, Rhetoric, and Stylebook

This work was conceived as a result of over eighteen years of teaching Freshman Composition at Orange Coast College, Golden West College and Santa Ana College. There are myriad essay collections (i.e., "readers") out there of every variety, and there are rhetorics which teach the rhetorical modes. Most readers are also rhetorics. Yet there are few books which teach more than the standard descriptive, narrative and expository writing types, which teach in fact what is called 'style.' Most books on style are designed for more advanced classes on rhetoric and composition, but there are very few books on style for Freshman Composition. It seems to be assumed that all a freshman can manage is a basic, flat, toneless but anatomically correct expository paper. In my experience, freshmen are capable of much more. This book endeavors to fill the gap between the two, because in fact, most Freshman Composition students are capable of more than simple description and augmented five-paragraph themes. James Prothero has taught writing and literature at Orange Coast College, Santa Ana College, Golden West College and California Baptist University since 1991. He is author of the young adult novel, Maggie of Long Hollow, and numerous articles in scholarly and professional journals. He also co-edits an online poetry journal "The Road Not Taken: the Journal of Formal Poetry." He is a fellow of the University of California at Irvine Writing Project and has also taught high school English in Santa Ana, California.