Resources for Teaching
A World of Ideas
Essential Readings
for College Writers
eighth Edition
Lee A. Jacobus
University of Connecticut
Bedford/St. Martin’s Boston/New York
,Copyright © 2010 by Bedford/St. Martin’s
All rights reserved.
Instructors who have adopted A World of Ideas: Essential Readings for College Writers, Eighth Edition,
as a textbook for a course are authorized to duplicate portions of this manual for their students.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
4 3 2 1 0 9
f e d c b a
For information, write: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 75 Arlington Street, Boston, MA 02116 (617-399-4000)
ISBN-10: 0-312-55474-5
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-55474-3
, PREFACE
This book is designed for first-year college English instruction in composition, the level at which
I use these essays for my own students. I am well aware of the problems involved in trying to teach
something other than writing while teaching writing. We usually ask our students to read compositions
while they are learning to write them, and I have found that using essays by significant writers is one of
the best ways to help students to write and keep writing. I do have to teach the essays, it is true. And I
am sure that you, too, will have to devote class time to a discussion of each of the essays you choose to
teach. But I am convinced that it is important time spent well. I find it exhilarating to discuss Freud,
Arendt, and Darwin with first-year college students. They sense that these are writers they ought to
know. And because they feel that way, I find it easier to hold their attention and show them how to learn
about writing — while learning about other things — from a discussion of the prose before them.
These Resources are arranged in three sections. The first section includes discussions of all forty-
seven readings in A World of Ideas and provides additional writing suggestions to supplement those in
the book. The second section consists of sentence outlines; each selection is outlined to ensure that the
main ideas stand out clearly. You should feel free to photocopy or download these sentence outlines and
hand them out to students as an aid to understanding. (I am grateful to Carol Verburg, Ellen Troutman,
Ellen Darion, Mike Hennessy, and Jon Marc Smith for preparing the sentence outlines.) The third sec-
tion includes alphabetically arranged bibliographies of all of the writers represented in the book. If
students wish to read more by and about these writers, you may want to distribute photocopies of these
as well. Finally, I include in an appendix two student papers written in response to essays in A World of
Ideas. You might want to use these as models or as prompts for discussion.
This manual is designed not to get in your way. I can’t pretend to explain these essays the way
you should explain them to your class. Students are all so different that no two discussions of, say, Ma-
chiavelli are ever the same. Even principal areas of focus change from discussion to discussion. There-
fore, you probably will not want to use all of the materials — discussion topics, writing assignments,
sentence outlines, and bibliographies — for each essay that you teach. But you may appreciate knowing
that all these options are available, particularly if some of the essays turn out to be more difficult than
you thought.
Using this book with first-year students implies that we respect their native intelligence. The
Brunerian hypothesis — that students who are treated as if they were geniuses will perform as such — may
not withstand the proof of experience, but I have found that even the most difficult students in an aver-
age class can derive benefit from assignments on this kind of material. Not every first-year class can
handle this approach. I have had extensive experience in remedial English and understand some of the
reading problems that even an average class contains. Yet I have been warmed by the enthusiasm my
students have shown for the approach I recommend here. Granted, one must work hard to help them
understand the ideas and grasp the basic rhetorical principles that they must apply. But I find the work
is well rewarded.
One genuine reward is the quality of class discussions. I am pleased with the ways my students
will pursue lines of argument or implications of a thought and then try to make sense of the essays they
have read. I find, for instance, that it is very interesting to discuss Machiavelli’s questions concerning ends
and means, particularly in a world in which the justification of certain means is still a primary subject.
Another reward of this approach is the belief that I am contributing to the education of beginning
students. Because most composition classes demand that some reading material be used for discussion
and models of good writing, I consider it important to provide the best there is. In this case, the best
thinkers, talking about some of the most vital ideas of all time, represent the best stimuli and models for
writing. It is surprising to see how each of these authors does provide a model.
iii
, iv Preface
Whether the essay posits an argument, employs image or metaphor, or examines a single idea
from many points of view, it remains a model with teaching potential for beginning students. Contem-
porary journalistic essays of the sort that appear in most anthologies available today are easy and fun
reading for my students. But they are also insubstantial in many cases and often do not really offer the
kind of model for writing that is truly useful. Most of the essays in this category— by Joan Didion, Tom
Wolfe, E. B. White, Joseph Wood Krutch, and other fine writers — fascinate the reader because of their
style. It is not the invention or the organization that stands out. It is style. And style is the one element
that first-year students simply cannot learn from such models. These students can learn in their first
semester how to use methods of development to help invention. They can also learn about argumenta-
tion, narrative, and other organizational principles. But they cannot hope to imitate or learn directly from
a mature polished style. That comes only with time. Meanwhile, the kinds of essays included here have a
great deal to offer beginning students of writing. I have tried to make the going as simple as I can to
maintain morale and give students the chance to make the most of this valuable opportunity.
The contents of this manual may be downloaded from bedfordstmartins.com/worldofideas.
A World of Ideas
Essential Readings
for College Writers
eighth Edition
Lee A. Jacobus
University of Connecticut
Bedford/St. Martin’s Boston/New York
,Copyright © 2010 by Bedford/St. Martin’s
All rights reserved.
Instructors who have adopted A World of Ideas: Essential Readings for College Writers, Eighth Edition,
as a textbook for a course are authorized to duplicate portions of this manual for their students.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
4 3 2 1 0 9
f e d c b a
For information, write: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 75 Arlington Street, Boston, MA 02116 (617-399-4000)
ISBN-10: 0-312-55474-5
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-55474-3
, PREFACE
This book is designed for first-year college English instruction in composition, the level at which
I use these essays for my own students. I am well aware of the problems involved in trying to teach
something other than writing while teaching writing. We usually ask our students to read compositions
while they are learning to write them, and I have found that using essays by significant writers is one of
the best ways to help students to write and keep writing. I do have to teach the essays, it is true. And I
am sure that you, too, will have to devote class time to a discussion of each of the essays you choose to
teach. But I am convinced that it is important time spent well. I find it exhilarating to discuss Freud,
Arendt, and Darwin with first-year college students. They sense that these are writers they ought to
know. And because they feel that way, I find it easier to hold their attention and show them how to learn
about writing — while learning about other things — from a discussion of the prose before them.
These Resources are arranged in three sections. The first section includes discussions of all forty-
seven readings in A World of Ideas and provides additional writing suggestions to supplement those in
the book. The second section consists of sentence outlines; each selection is outlined to ensure that the
main ideas stand out clearly. You should feel free to photocopy or download these sentence outlines and
hand them out to students as an aid to understanding. (I am grateful to Carol Verburg, Ellen Troutman,
Ellen Darion, Mike Hennessy, and Jon Marc Smith for preparing the sentence outlines.) The third sec-
tion includes alphabetically arranged bibliographies of all of the writers represented in the book. If
students wish to read more by and about these writers, you may want to distribute photocopies of these
as well. Finally, I include in an appendix two student papers written in response to essays in A World of
Ideas. You might want to use these as models or as prompts for discussion.
This manual is designed not to get in your way. I can’t pretend to explain these essays the way
you should explain them to your class. Students are all so different that no two discussions of, say, Ma-
chiavelli are ever the same. Even principal areas of focus change from discussion to discussion. There-
fore, you probably will not want to use all of the materials — discussion topics, writing assignments,
sentence outlines, and bibliographies — for each essay that you teach. But you may appreciate knowing
that all these options are available, particularly if some of the essays turn out to be more difficult than
you thought.
Using this book with first-year students implies that we respect their native intelligence. The
Brunerian hypothesis — that students who are treated as if they were geniuses will perform as such — may
not withstand the proof of experience, but I have found that even the most difficult students in an aver-
age class can derive benefit from assignments on this kind of material. Not every first-year class can
handle this approach. I have had extensive experience in remedial English and understand some of the
reading problems that even an average class contains. Yet I have been warmed by the enthusiasm my
students have shown for the approach I recommend here. Granted, one must work hard to help them
understand the ideas and grasp the basic rhetorical principles that they must apply. But I find the work
is well rewarded.
One genuine reward is the quality of class discussions. I am pleased with the ways my students
will pursue lines of argument or implications of a thought and then try to make sense of the essays they
have read. I find, for instance, that it is very interesting to discuss Machiavelli’s questions concerning ends
and means, particularly in a world in which the justification of certain means is still a primary subject.
Another reward of this approach is the belief that I am contributing to the education of beginning
students. Because most composition classes demand that some reading material be used for discussion
and models of good writing, I consider it important to provide the best there is. In this case, the best
thinkers, talking about some of the most vital ideas of all time, represent the best stimuli and models for
writing. It is surprising to see how each of these authors does provide a model.
iii
, iv Preface
Whether the essay posits an argument, employs image or metaphor, or examines a single idea
from many points of view, it remains a model with teaching potential for beginning students. Contem-
porary journalistic essays of the sort that appear in most anthologies available today are easy and fun
reading for my students. But they are also insubstantial in many cases and often do not really offer the
kind of model for writing that is truly useful. Most of the essays in this category— by Joan Didion, Tom
Wolfe, E. B. White, Joseph Wood Krutch, and other fine writers — fascinate the reader because of their
style. It is not the invention or the organization that stands out. It is style. And style is the one element
that first-year students simply cannot learn from such models. These students can learn in their first
semester how to use methods of development to help invention. They can also learn about argumenta-
tion, narrative, and other organizational principles. But they cannot hope to imitate or learn directly from
a mature polished style. That comes only with time. Meanwhile, the kinds of essays included here have a
great deal to offer beginning students of writing. I have tried to make the going as simple as I can to
maintain morale and give students the chance to make the most of this valuable opportunity.
The contents of this manual may be downloaded from bedfordstmartins.com/worldofideas.
