Text Book: Writing Through Literature

by Robert Scholes, Gregory L. Ulmer, Nancy R. Comley

Designed for literature-based writing courses, Text Book introduces students to the idea that literary texts and ordinary spoken and written language share many of the same features. By providing imaginative methods and unique assignments that let students work with those features in their writing, Text Book involves students in the processes of exploring literature creatively, not simply consuming and analyzing it, helping them understand literature "from the inside out."

Genres: Writing

384 pages, Paperback

First published December 21, 2001

About the author

Robert E. Scholes was an American literary critic and theorist. He is known for his ideas on fabulation and metafiction.

Reviews

[Marian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun book at times, and incredibly boring at other times. I enjoyed the excerpts from the stories, and the analysis that was made of them.

[Courtney · Rating 3 out of 5]

For the most part, I guess I could say that this book was pretty interesting, and compared to the other books I've had to read for this semester, it definitely was, but it was just hard to keep up with and a lot of the stories weren't all that interesting. I actually didn't read it completely, I was supposed to, but I defintely haven't been really reading it for about half the book. Most of it was all going right over my head, so I figured why waste my time when I wouldn't know what was happening anyway? This was probably my second favorite textbook/required text of this semester.

[Erin Quinney · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun, but sometimes maddening, book. This book explores the many different ways that readers read and make judgments on what they are reading. Frankly, I think some people are just nuts in how they approach a text but I'm sure they could say the same thing about me. It was interesting to see a different perspective. I did learn more about my particular reading preferences and learned to look at text differently. The writing exercises at the end of each chapter will, without a doubt, help me write better papers.

I recommend this for any book/literary theory nerd.

[Ruth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a selection of excerpts from all different sorts of texts from nonfiction to poetry that are posed to the reader to play with and use in thinking about what texts do and creating new texts. I especially love the parts about metaphor and about reinterpretations of fairytales, but the whole thing is a wonderful work of curation and even though I think it's meant for a freshman expository writing course it's not elementary or boring at all.