Language: A Reader for Writers

by Gita Dasbender

Read. Write. Oxford.

A Reader for Writers focuses on the central and complex topic of language, exploring the reality of our multilingual world and the complexities of writing in a multilingual college classroom. It takes on key issues including the nature of language; the effects of globalization; endangered languages; multilingualism and language diversity; language, politics, and power; language and writing; language correctness; and the ways in which language shapes identity. The articles embody a range of experiences, ideas, and strategies-from scientific research and powerful arguments to poetic reflection and playful celebration.

Developed for the freshman composition course, A Reader for Writers includes an interdisciplinary mix of public, academic, and scientific reading selections, providing students with the rhetorical knowledge and compositional skills required to participate effectively in discussions about language, learning, and the writing process.

A Reader for Writers is part of a series of brief single-topic readers from Oxford University Press designed for today's college writing courses. Each reader in this series approaches a topic of contemporary conversation from multiple perspectives.

416 pages, Paperback

First published November 29, 2013

Reviews

[Xeni · Rating 3 out of 5]

Now that I’ve officially finished my FYS, I can write my review! So yes, this was a textbook for my First Year Seminar, which was called “The Hidden Power of Language.” I absolutely loved the class, and this book was full of some amazing articles. We didn’t have the time to read all of them, and I’m not sure anyone would ever pick this book up outside of assigned readings, but I really enjoyed studying linguistics for a semester. I had never really given much though to the thousands of words that I read, write, speak, and hear everyday, so this anthology really made me examine of the most basic elements of communication, which we usually take for granted.

[David Rodriguez · Rating 4 out of 5]

I used this book as a textbook for Advanced Composition in Spring 2016. I got A's on all my papers, but slacked drastically in the daily work portion of the class. It was hard for me to do the daily work, because most of the daily work in the class was based upon the "social justice" perspective of the world as outlined by the book. I own it is nearly impossible to remove or include all perspectives, but I think it is possible that the book distracted from the technical aspects of writing, and focused more on the characterization of language in culture with chapters such as "Multilingualism," "Language and Writing," "Language and Correctness," and "Language and Race," to name a few. Overall I learned little about improving my writing from this book. My University and Professor at least did us the favor of including a writing handbook as text for the course, with which I still learn writing techniques and edit my papers.

-David

https://davidfrodriguez.wordpress.com/