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Higher Learning: Reading and Writing About College, 2/E
Patti See, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
Bruce Taylor, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire

ISBN-10: 0131141635
ISBN-13: 9780131141636

Publisher: Prentice Hall
Copyright: 2006
Format: Paper; 304 pp
Published: 05/05/2005

Suggested retail price: $34.67
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For courses in Freshman Orientation/Student Success/Freshman Composition.

 

This anthology of imaginative literature–by student as well as professional writers–contains stories, poems, drama, essays, letters, and memoirs about all aspects of college life in order to motivate students, especially first year students, to read, discuss, write, and think critically about the problems and challenges of succeeding in college. Historical and cultural diversity offers students a broader context in which to appreciate and understand the college experience. This 2nd edition includes 13 new pieces that have been class-tested.

NEW—New pieces of literature and different Critical Thinking points for reading, discussing, and writing.

~Gives students a text that includes more student-written pieces than any competitor.

Quality writing—Offers a large quantity and variety of readings that explore contemporary issues. One third of the text is written by students(Ex. pp 70, 104).

~Gives students pieces that are generally short enough to be read in one sitting, and many take their subject seriously enough to know how humorous life can be.

Readings about diversity—Includes the issues of ethnicity; class; age; gender; and sexual preference(Ex. pp 2, 112).

~Promotes students’ tolerance by helping them realize how much of a college education involves not only learning about but from other people, cultures, and customs.

Transitional experiences—Includes the “Where We're Coming From” section that addresses such issues as deciding to go to college, leaving high school and home behind(Ex. pp 19, 30).

~Helps students recognize the importance of their history through readings on formal and informal education.

Everyday student life—Includes the “School Daze” section that covers such issues as roommates; failing grades; balancing home and school; applying course work to real life; homesickness; and instructors' expectations(Ex. pp 58, 75).

~Keeps students interested in learning with readings capturing the personal, daily lives of their contemporaries.

Retrospectives from former students—Includes the“Been There, Done That” section that offers a valuable reflection on who some students have become and how, as well as what college looks like to them now(Ex. pp 234, 263).

~Encourages students to work toward completion of a degree and find the future that awaits them.

Coverage of interpersonal relations—Includes the “Student Relations” section, which looks at such issues as friendship, first love, virginity, rape, AIDS, and sexual discovery(Ex. pp 141, 143).

~Provides students with material on current social issues so that they can ponder the effects of romantic relationships, platonic friendships, gender, love, and sexuality in their lives.

Coverage of student/teacher relations— Includes the “Teacher, Teacher” section (Ex. 63, 181).

~Shows students that instructors are real people with the same challenges and problems that they may face, enabling them to see the classroom experience from both sides of the desk.

Writing exercises—Gives high quality and quantity questions pertaining to all aspects of college life(Ex. pp 106, 133).

~Offers students a variety of writing opportunities from journal entries to formal and informal essays to research papers.

A co-learner approach to teaching.

~Promotes instructor-student and student-instructor dialogue that is meaningful to all involved.

A broad historical perspective.

~Fosters in students a sense of what is different and what has stayed the same about college life with pieces dating from 1860 (Ex. pp 66) to the present(Ex. pp 37).

“Critical Thinking Points”—Includes the sections “As You Read;” and “After You've Read” and “Some Possibilities for Writing.”(Ex. pp 112, 184).

~Offers students opportunities for personal analysis, reflection, class discussion and/or collaborative writing.

“Further Suggestions for Writing”—Addresses the larger issues of each chapter with hundreds of additional writing prompts(Ex. pp 275).

~Offers students assignments based on traditional writing strategies for persuasion/argumentation, comparison/contrast, cause/effect, classification and process, as well as issues for extended research.

“Selected Films”—Offers an annotated filmography of selected films for each chapter depicting college life from 1927 to the present, as well as a variety of writing prompts(Ex. pp 277).

~Enhances students' understanding of the college experience through the use of film and popular culture.

New pieces of literature and different Critical Thinking points for reading, discussing, and writing.

~Gives students a text that includes more student-written pieces than any competitor.

(NOTE: Each part concludes with Further Suggestions for Writing and Selected Films.

* = New selections.)

 

1. WHERE WE'RE COMING FROM: LEAVING OTHER LIVES.

From Up from Slavery, Booker T. Washington. Incurring My Mother's Displeasure, Zitkala-Sa. *From One Writer’s Beginnings, Eudora Welty. *Saved, Malcolm X. Miss Rinehart's Paddle, Jeri McCormick. 50% Chance of Lightning, Cristina Salat. Somewhere in Minnesota, Peter Klein. *LD, Jeff Richards. *School’s Out: One Young Man Puzzles Over His Future Without College, Lara Sessions Stepp. *8th Grade Final Exam (1895).

2. SCHOOL DAZE: LIFE IN THE FIRST YEAR.

A Day in the Life Of, Greg Adams. My First Week at Mizzou, Andrew Hicks. From Diary of a Freshman, Charles Macomb Flandreau. Take This Fish and Look at It, Samuel H. Scudder. Hunters and Gatherers, Jennifer Hale. Theme for English B, Langston Hughes. *From Lummox: Evolution of a Man, Mike Magnuson. The English Lesson, Nicholasa Mohr. Outside In: The Life of a Commuter Student, Patti See. From I Walk in Beauty, Davina Ruth Begaye Two Bears. From The Freshman Year Thrill Ride, Missy Loney and Julie Feist.

III. STUDENT RELATIONS: FAMILY, FRIENDS, AND LOVERS.

Raspberries, Jennifer Fandel. Ten Commandments for a College Freshman, Joseph McCabe. First Love, R.A. Sasaki.  Carmen, Jennifer Sheridan. “Who Shall I Be?” The Allure of a Fresh Start, Jennifer Crichton. What It's Really Like, Frank Smoot. No More Kissing–Aids Everywhere, Michael Blumenthal. The Blue-Light System, Katie Roiphe. *Dear Concerned Mother, Jill Wolfson. *The Undeclared Major, Will Weaver. The Good Student Apologizes to His Professor and to the Girl in Room 303, Ron Watson. Homeward Bond, Daisy Nguyen. *Everyday Use, Alice Walker.

IV. TEACHER, TEACHER: WILL THIS BE ON THE TEST?

*Did I Miss Anything?, Tom Wayman. Grading Your Professors, Jacob Neusner.      *From Tales Out of School, Susan Richards Shreve. No Immediate Danger, Mary McLaughlin Slëchta. Teachers: A Primer, Ron Wallace. Open Admissions, Shirley Lauro. *What Teachers Make, Taylor Mali.

V. BEEN THERE, DONE THAT: LOOKING FORWARD, LOOKING BACK.

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer, Walt Whitman. *The Art of Regret, Jonathon Ritz. Raising My Hand, Antler. The Eighty-Yard Run, Irwin Shaw. Reunion, Dawn Karima Pettigrew. Scarlet Ribbons, Michael Perry. Signed, Grateful, Kate Boyes. Passion, Monica Coleman. *On the Radio, Richard Terrill.

Appendix: Thinking and Writing About Film.

"Higher Learning serves the purpose of bridging the student's past with his/her present and potentential future, and initial bridge between personal narrative and the academic world."  --Sherry L. Wynn, Oakland University

"The reading selections in Higher Learning are engaging from first to last...I found myself reading every selection with pleasure.  The editors have collected an exceptional group of essays, stories, and poems, each representative of a unique perspective on college experience."  --Amy D'Antonio, Arizona State University

Patti See teaches courses in critical thinking, learning strategies, transitions to college, and third-wave feminism.  She also supervises tutoring programs for students of color; students with disabilities; and first-generation, low-income students.

Her stories, poems, and essays have appeared in Salon Magazine, Women's Studies Quarterly, Journal of Developmental Education, The Wisconsin Academy Review, The Southwest Review, as well as other magazines and anthologies.  She speaks at universities and conferences on a variety of topics, including First-Year Experience, Third-Wave feminism, women in popular films, critical thinking, and creative writing.  Patti was the recipient of the 2004 Academic Staff Excellence in Performance Award from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.  

Bruce Taylor teaches courses in First-Year Experience, Introduction to College Writing, Creative Writing, and American Literature in the Honors Program.  He is the author of five chapbooks of poetry; he is the editor of seven anthologies.  His poetry, prose, and translations have appeared in such places as Carve Magazine, The Chicago Review, The Exquisite Corpse, The Nation Nerve, The New York Quarterly, The Northwest Review, Poetry, and E2ink-1: the Best of the Online Journals 2002.

He has also served as a member of the Literature Panel of the Wisconsin Arts Board and host of The Writer's Workshop: Wisconsin ETN, and he has served as program scholar and consultant for the Wisconsin Humanities Council, the Lila Wallace Foundation, the L.E. Phillips Library, and the Annenberg/CPB Project.  Bruce has won awards and fellowships from the Wisconsin Arts Board, Fullbright-Hayes, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Bush Artist Foundation, and he was the recipient of the 2004 Excellence in Scholarship Award from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

 

College students, especially first-year students, often feel isolated on campuses.  The degree to which they feel a sense of place and find a way of fitting in determines how well they perform.  Higher Learning offers "inside" stories of college life and university culture, addressing the difficult issues that students face in their transition to college.  It also provides students and teachers a vehicle to explore, reflect on, and perhaps even discover issues about ethnicity, class, age, gender, and sexual diversity.

Features include:

  • Quality readings written by both students and professionals
  • Critical thinking points for each of the readings
  • Recommended films

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