Ideal Textbook for Introduction to Literature
11/10/2000
I chose to use McMahan's text because it saves me time as an instructor of English. Composition comprises the most significant portion of a student's grade in a college literature class, and this text teaches students how to write an essay about literature from the beginning of the process to the end. I also like the bonus of a novella, The Awakening, which is often taught at the intro. level but under separate cover. Such a deal.
Superb organization awful content
4/22/2006
The range of story and poetry selections is so limited, the materials bore students to death. The issues the texts are obsessed with--morbid existential guilt, death of a spouse or a parent ala Joyce, O'Connor, Cather, etc.,--no longer have the spell-binding effect they once had on the adult sensibility. We now live in an age where more dramatic problems occur. There has got to be some good literature that covers issues of our day, such as mass murder, rape, school-shootings, hysteria, incest, money problems, weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, religious intolerance, etc. This textbook is totally out of touch with the current realities of our lives in the 21st century.