Sparks: a Reader to Energize Writing

Whether you teach a traditional or accelerated developmental writing course Sparks: A Reader to Energize Writing offers a blend of reading strategies, essays, punctuation exercises, basic research documentation, and rhetorical modes―all in one text and written in a tone that speaks directly to students. Each essay is accompanied by cultural and historical references as part of the pre-reading strategy, vocabulary and usage, discussion questions for critical thinking and discussion, style analysis and practice, group activities designed to complement writing assignments, writing ideas, and essay connections. How to craft a thesis statement, work in groups, evaluate a peer’s writing, reduce wordiness, correct shifts in tense, survive in college, and more provide students with numerous tools to improve writing, reading, and thinking skills.
Sparks throws out the traditional workbook-style bulky text for a less cumbersome, more college-level looking text while retaining the necessary practice exercises, though using them as a way to approach style and sentence variety rather than as simple grammar drills. The apparatus focuses on encouraging students to think about how writers write. The essays range from brief –one or two pages ―to lengthy―nine or ten. All contain a complex element to encourage critical thinking, helping students move to the college level reading and analysis they need to succeed. Topics range from nature, science, and art, to technology, social issues, and cultural analysis. From the humor of David Sedaris to the warnings of Mark Bauerlein, the essays provide a wide range of styles and tones to fit most any instructional method.