America Now: Short Readings from Recent Periodicals - Tapa blanda

A key challenge in the first-year composition course is to inspire students as readers and to spark the kind of thoughtful classroom discussion that leads to solid academic writing. As series editor of The Best American Essays Robert Atwan constantly scours a wide range of print and online periodicals, bringing to America Now an unrivaled awareness of the best writing on today's hottest issues. To make these issues especially relevant for students, Atwan also explores hundreds of campus newspapers on the Internet to find the best student writing on current topics. These models by their peers from across the country show students that they, too, can share ideas through their own discussion and writing.

ROBERT ATWAN is director of The Blue Hills Writing Institute at Curry College and the series editor of the annual Best American Essays, which he founded in 1985. His essays, reviews, and critical articles have appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Iowa Review, Denver Quarterly, Kenyon Review, River Teeth, and many other publications. For Bedford/St. Martin's, he has also edited Ten on Ten: Major Essayists on Recurring Themes (1992), Our Times (1998), and Convergences (2005). He has coedited (with Jon Roberts) Left, Right, and Center: Voices from Across the Political Spectrum (1996), and is coeditor with Donald McQuade of The Writer's Presence (2006).