This semester, your independent reading book should be non-fiction. You can choose anything that is a full-length, high quality non-fiction book; it can be on any subject you like. However, keep in mind that you will write a rhetorical analysis of the book's argument so you want to choose something that has a clear argument (memoirs are tougher for this than other kinds of non-fiction).
1. Choose a book (from my list or on your own):
Non-Fiction Recommendations
(These have been read and recommended by me, Ms. Southall, or former students)
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
Born On A Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant by Daniel Tammet
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Stiff by Mary Roach
The Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process by Colin Beaven
Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr
The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan
Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Safe Area Gorazde by Joe Sacco
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Riding with Rilke: Reflections on Motorcycles and Books by Ted Bishop
Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner by Dean Karnazes
Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft, Miriam Brody
Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster OR Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell
Woman: An Intimate Geography by Natalie Angier
2. Read and take notes. "Over what?" you might ask. All of the things you should pay attention to in an argument (purpose, audience, appeals, rhetorical devices, tone, fallacies, holes in the argument, strengths in the argument) AND evidence of these things you can use to back up the claims you make about each of those things.
3. Be finished reading your book by the time you get back from spring break...because we'll be starting our novels then and you don't want to be reading them at the same time...probably. =)
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