A prolific painter of portraits before and after the French Revolution ...

ch07.qxd 12/2/04 11:59 AM Page 341
explaining:
A Startling Statement, Fact, or Statistic
the writing process
341
Embalming is indeed a most extraordinary procedure, and one must wonder
at the docility of Americans who each year pay hundreds of millions of
dollars for its perpetuation, blissfully ignorant of what it is all about, what
is done, how it is done.
—“To Dispel Fears of Live Burial,” Jessica Mitford
A Statement from a Book
The American novelist John Barth, in his early novel The Floating Opera,
remarks that ordinary, day-to-day life often presents us with embarrassingly
obvious, totally unsubtle patterns of symbolism and meaning—life in
the midst of death, innocence vindicated, youth versus age, etc.
—“I’m O.K., but You’re Not,” Robert Zoellner
A Striking Question or Questions
Do non-human animals have rights? Should we humans feel morally
bound to exercise consideration for the lives and well-being of individual
members of other animal species? If so, how much consideration, and by
what logic?
—“Animal Rights and Beyond,” David Quammen
A Common Error or Mistaken Judgment
There was a time when, in my search for essences, I concluded that the
canyonland country has no heart. I was wrong. The canyonlands did have
a heart, a living heart, and that heart was Glen Canyon and the golden,
flowing Colorado River.
—“The Damnation of a Canyon,” Edward Abbey
Combined Strategies
Last December a man named Robert Lee Willie, who had been convicted
of raping and murdering an 18-year-old woman, was executed in the
Louisiana state prison. In a statement issued several minutes before his
death, Mr. Willie said: “Killing people is wrong....It makes no difference
whether it’s citizens, countries, or governments. Killing is wrong.”
—“Death and Justice,” Edward Koch
L EAD-IN ,THESIS, AND E SSAY M AP The introduction to an explaining
essay—whether one paragraph or several—usually contains the following features:
TEACHING TIP
Teachers may usefully distinguish
between the writer’s
thesis sentence and map
(a working version intended
to help the writer
focus on a subject and start
a draft) and a reader’s thesis
and map (a revised version
intended to help the reader
construct meaning). The
distinction helps some writers
as they compose and
revise.
PROFESSIONAL COPY—NOT FOR RESALE