Composition

• Brody, Steve - "How I Got Smart"

• Collier, James Lincoln - "Anxiety: Challenge by Another Name" 

• Gansberg, Martin - "38 Who Saw Murder Didn't Call Police"  

• Junger, Sebastian - "Blowup: What Went Wrong at Storm King Mountain"  

• Roy, Travis - Eleven Seconds (excerpts) 

• Sedaris, David - "Now We Are Five"

• Swanson, James L. Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer (excerpt)  

• Short narratives by Stuart Dybek, Tobias Wolff, and Ted Kooser

Britt, Suzanne - "That Lean and Hungry Look" 

Kline, Christina Baker - "Taking My Son to College, Where Technology Has Replaced Serendipity" 

Mukherjee, Bharati - "Two Ways to Belong in America" 

• Writing the Argument (Arguing a Painting)

• The Rhetorical Triangle

• "Slip or Trip" exercise

• Bailey, Isaac - "Why Dylann Roof shouldn't be killed for killing"

• Bidgood, Jess - "Boston Takes Step to Elevate Citgo Sign From LED Beacon to Landmark"

• de la Cretaz, Britni - "Is It Time to Reexamine the Larger Impact of Kiss Cams?"

• Limbaugh, Rush - "Condoms: The New Diploma"

• Schrager, Allison - "Daylight Saving Time Is Terrible..."

• Sherry, Mary - "In Praise of the F Word" 

• Simpson, Jake - "Why Tom Brady Is Already the Best Quarterback Ever"

• Intro to Descriptive Writing (from Models for Writers) 

• Excerpts from Diane Ackerman's A Natural History of the Senses

  • Hearing

  • Smell

  • Taste

  • Touch 

  • Vision

• Henig, Robin Marantz - "Something's Off"

• Russell, Ruth - "Wounds That Can't Be Stitched Up, The"

POETRY SELECTIONS:

• Heaney, Seamus - "Blackberry Picking" (poem)

• Redgrove, Peter - "On the Patio" (poem)

• London, Jack - "To Build a Fire" (short stories)