The Call to Write,   ISBN:9780321207784

Customer Rating: 

I used THE CALL TO WRITE as supplementary material for an upper-class high school writing class. The book is aimed at helping students learn "real world" writing: letters, memos, memoirs, public documents, profiles, reports, commentaries, proposals, reviews, etc. The book provides examples of the different types of writing being discussed along with lots of useful information about what makes a piece of writing in a particular "genre" good.

THE CALL TO WRITE is not intended to be a book that is read for fun. It's a writing textbook for "real life" writing. As far as writing textbooks like this go, there's not a whole lot that stands out to separate it from other writing textbooks other than the illustrations and the emphasis on revision. To break up some of the more monotonous parts of the book, the book includes a variety of pictures and illustrations, such as old-time photographs or the covers of unusual magazines and comics, that enliven the text.

When I was teaching writing, I had a difficult time getting across to students the importance of revision. Good writers revise their writing. Some have to write it out constantly, others do it through visuals, some are able to do it in their minds while talking aloud. However they do it, good writers revise constantly. THE CALL TO WRITE does a good job of emphasizing, in a way students should be able to comprehend, how important revising is.

The textbook is geared towards entry level writing classes, but can also be used as a supplement for upper-class high school writing classes.

Customer Rating: 

...About writing.

The copy I received didn't look like the one pictured. It has a plain cover, and some pages look like they're photocopied. I'm okay with that though, because everyone in my classes says it looks like the "indie version". So that's cool. It's got everything I need for class, and I'm happy with it.

Customer Rating: 

We are a freshmen English class in college who are using this book in our English 101 class. We haven't finished using the book yet, but so far it has been helpful in writing specific papers such as memoirs, profiles, and reviews. It gives examples of each of the genres of papers and then further gives specific information of what makes a good paper in that genre. It also suggests ways to go about writing one of these types of genres. One of the main focuses is on the revision process which is helpful because many people have trouble revising papers. The tone is easy to understand. We like that it is geared towards real world writing but we would have liked to see more creative writing tools such as poetry, fantasy, sci-fi, etc. We also would like to see broader examples like student essays that are easier for us to relate to. Overall, we think it's good for use in a classroom with a teacher but it would be difficult to learn from alone.