| Preface | p. v |
| Thematic Contents | p. xvii |
| For Students | p. xxv |
| Introduction | p. 1 |
| From Reading to Writing | p. 1 |
| Writing as Conversation | p. 2 |
| Modes of Writing and Thinking | p. 3 |
| The Modes as a Continuum | p. 3 |
| Reflecting | p. 4 |
| Reporting | p. 8 |
| Explaining | p. 15 |
| Arguing | p. 23 |
| Writing across the Curriculum | p. 31 |
| Rereading and Rewriting | p. 33 |
| Using and Acknowledging Sources | p. 35 |
| Arts and Humanities | |
| Reflecting in the Arts and Humanities | p. 43 |
| Graduation | p. 43 |
| Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self | p. 54 |
| Mirrors | p. 62 |
| Learning to Read and Write | p. 74 |
| Mother Tongue | p. 80 |
| Unspeakable Conversations | p. 86 |
| The Work of Mourning | p. 104 |
| Don Ysidro (fiction) | p. 113 |
| Reporting in the Arts and Humanities | p. 117 |
| At Home, at School, in Hiding | p. 117 |
| A New Kind of War | p. 127 |
| Hatsuyo Nakamura | p. 133 |
| The Long Good-bye: Mother's Day in Federal Prison | p. 141 |
| Teaching Literature at the County Jail | p. 150 |
| Labor Day Hurricane, 1935 (fiction) | p. 158 |
| Problems of Art (fiction) | p. 176 |
| Explaining in the Arts and Humanities | p. 190 |
| On Keeping a Notebook | p. 190 |
| Memorywork (fiction) | p. 198 |
| Urban Legends: "The Boyfriend's Death" | p. 209 |
| What High School Is | p. 219 |
| Your Face in Lights: The Secrets of Cinematography | p. 230 |
| The Cave | p. 241 |
| Blocked | p. 247 |
| Language and Literature from a Pueblo Indian Perspective | p. 260 |
| Arguing in the Arts and Humanities | p. 268 |
| Hiroshima | p. 268 |
| If Black English Isn't a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is? | p. 276 |
| Politics and the English Language | p. 280 |
| Why We Hate Teachers | p. 292 |
| Watching TV Makes You Smarter | p. 301 |
| Something Borrowed | p. 313 |
| Social Sciences and Public Affairs | |
| Reflecting in the Social Sciences and Public Affairs | p. 329 |
| The Way to Rainy Mountain | p. 329 |
| The Story of My Body | p. 336 |
| Pilgrimage to Nonviolence | p. 346 |
| Shooting an Elephant | p. 354 |
| Tools of Torture: An Essay on Beauty and Pain | p. 361 |
| What Did You Do in the War, Grandma? A Flashback to August 1945 | p. 366 |
| Reporting in the Social Sciences and Public Affairs | p. 375 |
| "This Is the End of the World": The Black Death | p. 375 |
| Atomic Bombing of Nagasaki Told by Flight Member | p. 387 |
| First Observations | p. 395 |
| The Nature Faker (fiction) | p. 405 |
| U.S. Attacked: Hijacked Jets Destroy Twin Towers and Hit Pentagon in Day of Terror | p. 415 |
| Edgy First College Assignment: Study the Koran | p. 424 |
| Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America | p. 429 |
| Explaining in the Social Sciences and Public Affairs | p. 443 |
| The Futile Pursuit of Happiness | p. 443 |
| Some Conditions of Obedience and Disobedience to Authority | p. 453 |
| On the Fear of Death | p. 479 |
| Nonverbal Courtship Patterns in Women: Context and Consequences | p. 486 |
| Zeno and the Distance between Us (fiction) | p. 504 |
| Inside Dope | p. 511 |
| The Naked Face | p. 519 |
| I'm Right, You're Wrong, Go to Hell | p. 536 |
| Arguing in the Social Sciences and Public Affairs | p. 545 |
| A Modest Proposal | p. 545 |
| The Declaration of Independence | p. 554 |
| Letter from Birmingham Jail | p. 559 |
| Sifting the Ashes | p. 574 |
| Isn't Marriage for Procreation? | p. 588 |
| Fools' Paradise | p. 596 |
| Sciences and Technologies | |
| Reflecting in the Sciences and Technologies | p. 605 |
| A Mask on the Face of Death | p. 605 |
| Close Encounter of the Human Kind | p. 616 |
| Can We Know the Universe? Reflections on a Grain of Salt | p. 620 |
| Memoria ex Machina | p. 626 |
| Design | p. 632 |
| Reporting in the Sciences and Technologies | p. 634 |
| A Delicate Operation | p. 634 |
| A Delicate Balance Is Undone in a Flash, and a Battered City Waits | p. 638 |
| Joey: A "Mechanical Boy" | p. 657 |
| Why McDonald's Fries Taste So Good | p. 669 |
| Fun with Physics | p. 680 |
| The Other Stem-Cell Debate | p. 692 |
| Explaining in the Sciences and Technologies | p. 703 |
| Why the Sky Is Blue | p. 703 |
| Why Leaves Turn Color in the Fall | p. 706 |
| The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat | p. 711 |
| Our Picture of the Universe | p. 724 |
| Natural-Born Liars | p. 734 |
| Life Is a Narrative | p. 746 |
| Arguing in the Sciences and Technologies | p. 754 |
| The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles | p. 754 |
| Women's Brains | p. 771 |
| A Designer Universe? | p. 778 |
| Show Me the Science | p. 787 |
| The Case against Perfection | p. 793 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 810 |
| Rhetorical Index | p. 815 |
| Author and Title Index | p. 819 |
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