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List of contents
1. Some Ways of Knowing
Adrienne Rich, Claiming an Education
Samuel Scudder, Learning to See
Carol Bly, Growing Up Expressive
Jacob Bronowski, The Creative Mind
William G. Perry, Jr., Examsmanship and the Liberal Arts
Vincent G. Dethier, Extracting Information from a Fly
Linda Hogan, Hearing Voices
William L. Rodman, When Questions Are Answers
2. Some Reasons for Writing
George Orwell, Why I Write
David Bradley, The Faith
Richard Rodriguez, Mr. Secrets
Adrienne Rich, When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision
George Orwell, Politics and the English Language
Joan Didion, Why I Write
3. Community
Scott Russell Sanders, The Common Life
Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital
Katha Pollitt, For Whom the Ball Rolls
H.D.F. Kitto, The Polis
James Baldwin, Fifth Avenue, Uptown: A Letter from Harlem
Jane Jacobs, The Uses of Sidewalks
Susan Glaspell, Trifles (drama)
4. Femininity and Masculinity
Susan Brownmiller, Femininity
Annie Dillard, Samson in Chains
Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff
Katha Pollitt, The Smurfette Principle
Jan Morris, To Everest
Noel Perrin, The Androgynous Man
JoAnn Wypijewski, A Boy's Life
Gloria Steinem, Sex, Lies, and Advertising
John Steinbeck, The Chrysanthemums (fiction)
5. What's So Bad About Being Poor?
Charles Murray, What's So Bad About Being Poor?
Gary Soto, Black Hair
E.M. Forster, My Wood
John Kenneth Galbraith, How to Get the Poor Off Our Conscience
Clarence Darrow, Address to the Prisoners in Cook County Jail
Sallie Tisdale, Good Soldiers
Lars Eighner, On Dumpster Diving
Alice Walker, Everyday Use (fiction)
6. On the Job
Dorothy L. Sayers, Living to Work
Studs Terkel, Two Prefaces from Working
Carol Bly, Getting Tired
Sue Hubbell, Beekeeper
Paul Roberts, Virtual Grub Street
Perri Klass, Learning the Language
William Carlos Williams, Jean Biecke (fiction)
7. Faith and Practice
E.M. Forster, What I Believe
Patricia Nelson Limerick, Believing in the American West
Huston Smith, The Straight Path of Islam
Robert Kegan, The Mitzvah of Kaporis
Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail
Flannery O'Connor, Revelation (fiction)
8. Progress and Its Price
Daniel Boorstin, Technology and Democracy
Alice Bloom, On a Greek Holiday
C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
Barbara Ehrenreich, Spudding Out
Randall Jarrell, A Sad Heart at the Supermarket
E.M. Forster, The Machine Stops (fiction)
9. Their Lives and Times
Lytton Strachey, Florence Nightingale
Joan Didion, Slouching Toward Bethlehem
Roger Angell, In the Country
Katherine Boo, After Welfare
Summary
When this flagship thematic reader first appeared in the 1980s, instructors appreciated its rigorous approach and challenging essays. This revision harks back to the classic Dolphin Reader, with its timeless selections, lengthier readings, and streamlined apparatus. Compiled by a longtime freshman composition coordinator and current director of a writing-across-the-curriculum program, The Dolphin Reader is designed to engage students and provide instructors with flexibility and variety. The 87 carefully selected readings are arranged in thematic units that prepare students to face some of the central questions in a wide range of academic disciplines.
