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Mosaics: Reading and Writing Paragraphs, 8th edition

Published by Pearson (February 1, 2019) © 2020

  • Kim Flachmann California State University, Bakersfield

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For courses in developmental writing.

Helps students discover and develop their own writing processes

Mosaics: Reading and Writing Paragraphs is the first in a 2-book series on reading and writing comprehension. The text helps students build confidence in their personal and academic writing by exploring the relationships among thinking, reading and writing on progressively more difficult levels. Author Kim Flachmann demonstrates how these skills are integrated at every stage of communication.

The 8th Edition features an intuitive reorganization of content, a new design that better supports the material, and several new reading selections.

Hallmark features of this title

Reading and writing, clearly connected

  • Writing process topics are color-coded to easily locate reading, composition, revising, and editing content.
  • Rhetorical mode chapters apply reading strategies to professional essays, writing prompts, and student writing.

A writing process for many modes of writing

  • Progressive instruction covers personal, academic, and professional writing using a systematic color-coded process and relatable examples.
  • Students write, revise, edit, and track their process with peer evaluation forms and progress logs.

Grammar

  • A color-coded grammar handbook offers quick reference checks, grammar practice, and pre- and post-tests for each unit.
  • Appendixes teach and track skills with chapters referencing related coverage in the appendixes.
  • Free download: The Pearson Guide to the 2021 MLA Handbook.

New and updated features of this title

  • NEW: An inviting new design supports the pedagogy by connecting related instructional material and drawing attention to key takeaways.
  • NEW: Sample paragraphs are now embedded within the guidelines for writing paragraphs in each rhetorical mode. These samples exemplify the guidelines at work and help students build effective paragraphs themselves. (Consistent with previous editions, rhetorical modes are taught as patterns of thought, highlighting the need for multimodal writing in college and beyond.)

Features of MyLab for the 8th Edition

  • A complete color-coded grammar handbook provides students with quick reference checks and plenty of grammar practice along with MyLab Writing prompts that direct students to pertinent mastery-based instruction, exercises and activities.

PART I: Reading and Writing for Success in College

  1. Reading and Writing as Critical Thinking
  2. Reading Critically
  3. Writing Critically
  4. Revising and Editing

PART II: Essays: Paragraphs in Context

  1. How to Read an Essay
  2. How to Write an Essay
  3. Writing Workshop

PART III: Reading and Writing Effective Paragraphs

  1. Describing
  2. Narrating
  3. Illustrating
  4. Analyzing a Process
  5. Comparing and Contrasting
  6. Dividing and Classifying
  7. Defining
  8. Analyzing Causes and Effects
  9. Arguing

PART IV: The Handbook

  1. Parts of Speech
  2. Phrases and Clauses
  3. Subjects and Verbs
  4. Fragments
  5. Fused Sentences and Comma Splices
  6. Regular and Irregular Verbs
  7. Verb Tense
  8. Subject-Verb Agreement
  9. More on Verbs
  10. Pronoun Problems
  11. Pronoun Reference and Point of View
  12. Pronoun Agreement
  13. Adjectives
  14. Adverbs
  15. Modifier Errors
  16. End Punctuation
  17. Commas
  18. Apostrophes
  19. Quotation Marks
  20. Other Punctuation Marks
  21. Capitalization
  22. Abbreviations and Numbers
  23. Varying Sentence Structure
  24. Parallelism
  25. Combining Sentences
  26. Standard and Nonstandard English
  27. Easily Confused Words
  28. Spelling

About our author

Kim Flachmann teaches at the California State University, Bakersfield, where she also administers the Composition Program, from remedial English through the Graduate Teaching Assistants. She was chosen Outstanding Professor at CSUB in 1998 to 1999. She also was Rhetorician of the Year for the Young Rhetoricians' Conference in 2007 and was the recipient of the California Association of Teachers of English Excellence in Teaching Award in 2009. She has published numerous articles on rhetoric and American literature and has written seven textbooks, among them a college reader (The Prose Reader in its 11th Edition), a series of 3 books for developmental English called Mosaics: Reading and Writing Sentences, Mosaics: Reading and Writing Paragraphs, and Mosaics: Reading and Writing Essays, and Nexus: A Rhetorical Reader for Writers, which combines traditional rhetorical modes with students' interest in technology.

Kim has dedicated her career to helping students achieve their goals in life through communication.  Her mission has always been to teach others how to write well, which she believes is one of the most important gifts we can give our students.  She believes that reading and writing are the gateways to each student's full potential and success in life.

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