Integrating words, sentences, and either paragraphs or essays in each chapter, this brief text moves students from personal to expository writing as they progress through each of the five levels of the book.

1. SHARING BACKGROUNDS. Audience. Prewriting. Professional Writing. Maxine Hong Kingston, A Girl Among Ghosts. Using Computers for Writing. Combining Sentences: Method 1. Alice Walker, Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self. Correct Sentences. Run-on Sentence Pattern #1. George Orwell, Shooting an Elephant. Subject-Verb. Identification. Regular Past Tense Verbs. Using Pronouns. Internet Activity: Getting Started with Your Writing. Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston, Arrival at Manzanar. Spelling: Plurals. 2. SHARING INTERESTS AND PREFERENCES. Topic Sentences. Prewriting. Scot Suina, And Then I Went to School. Compound Sentences. Ralph Zimmerman, Mingled Blood. Combining Method #2. Run-on Sentence Pattern #2. Toshio Mori, The Woman Who Makes Swell Doughnuts. Revising Wordy Sentences. Internet Activity: Eliminating Wordiness. Subject-Verb Agreement. Sentences Beginning with There. Subject Pronouns. Gary Soto, Expecting Friends. Spelling: There, Their, They?re. 3. SHARING KNOWLEDGE. Types of Development. Internet Activity: Providing Detail. Prewriting. Peter Elbow, Freewriting. Using Transitions. Lillian Borgeson, Used Cars: Can You Tell When They?re Really Good Buys? Complex Sentences. Sentence Fragments. Jo Goodwin Parker, What It?s Like to Be Poor. Word Choice. H.L. Mencken, The Libido for the Ugly. Irregular Verb List #1. Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement. Bessie Head, Looking for a Rain God. Spelling: Contractions & Possessives. 4. SHARING PROBLEMS. The Composition. Basic Paragraphing. Prewriting: Formulating Questions. Larry King, The Old Man. Complex Sentences with Relative Clauses. Commas with Relative Clauses. Fragments from Split. Complex Sentences. Amy Tan, Communication is Language at Work. Misplaced Modifiers. Dangling Modifiers. Separated Subjects and Verbs. Irregular Verb List #2. Internet Activity: Proofreading Tips. Denise Gess, Underground. Spelling: Problems with a Single Letter. 5. SHARING OPINIONS AND JUDGMENTS. The Composition. Opening Paragraphs. Controlling Ideas. Internet Activity: Parts of a Composition. Conclusions. Stephanie Mansfield, Death of a Friendship. Compound/ Complex Combinations. Commas. Colons and Semicolons. Quotations Marks. Scott Suina, And Then I Went to School. Parallel Construction. Shifting Verb Tenses. Irregular Verb List #3. M. David Nassery, Afghani and American Education. Switching Pronouns. ?ly Adverbs. Spelling: Double-Letter Words. Appendix. Answer Key