Grassroots with Readings: The Writer's Workbook, Eighth Edition [Paperback]

Susan Fawcett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 4, 2005 | ISBN-10: 0618508538 | ISBN-13: 978-0618508532 | Edition: 008

A long-standing bestseller, Grassroots remains the preeminent worktext for developmental writers. With its excellent writing instruction, well-crafted and evenly paced exercises, and engaging writing activities, Grassroots has taught several generations of students how to write correct sentences and effective paragraphs.The four-color Eighth Edition offers proofreading practice, a focus on critical thinking, and practice exercises linked to high-interest topics. WriteSpace, an interactive online writing program and course management system, accompanies Grassroots to motivate students with carefully developed writing modules and exercises, innovative writing assignments, and online tutoring.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"I hope our developmental English program will continue to re-adopt Grassroots for a long time to come. It is so very accessible for our instructors and students alike. I encourage my students to keep this book with them throughout their college days as a valuable resource in their subsequent college-credit writing projects. I also tell them that I plan to be buried with my copy of Grassroots."

"One of the strongest features of this text is the Writer's Workshop at the end of each unit and the following Writing Assignments page. The variety of suggested topics and points of view suggested for student writings I found IMPRESSIVE. The writing assignments in the text are STRONG.... With the changes [mentioned] above, I definitely would push for adoption in Independent Studies."

"The great strength of Grassroots is its high-interest content. I know this is a selling point of the textbook, but it's just plain true. I would feel very comfortable assigning almost every exercise in Grassroots, which I cannot say without reservation about the other textbooks I've encountered."

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing; 008 edition (January 4, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618508538
• ISBN-13: 978-0618508532
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #414,602 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Writing for the people..., October 12, 2005

By 

FrKurt Messick "FrKurt Messick" (Bloomington, IN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Grassroots with Readings: The Writer's Workbook, Eighth Edition (Paperback)

'Grassroots' by Susan Fawcett is the book we use at the community college where I work for some of our introductory reading courses. We also use this text in our Tutoring Center to help students get up to speed for exams, reading and writing in other courses (as almost every course on campus requires proficiency in reading and writing to a good degree).

'Grassroots' is in many ways a writing workshop in a book. It is not a creative writing text, but rather one that sets a firm foundation from which one can go on to creative writing, technical writing, business writing, website writing, and more.

The first chapter explores the writing process - what is one writing for? Who is the likely or intended audience? How should a finished paper look? Believe it or not, it is on this last point that so many grades have risen or fallen - a paper can be wonderfully written, but if it is scribbled on scrap paper rather than typewritten and neatly printed, it may suffer in grading, just as a letter from a business will not be as well received if it has spelling errors and problems with formatting.

The first major section looks at developing paragraphs, which is a basic building block of letters, stories, articles, essays and other kinds of writing. This includes brainstorming, freewriting, journaling, and outlining to make sure that ideas flow in a logical pattern.

Units 2 - 8 are essentially grammar sections, looking at the mechanics of writing. This includes sentence structure (including avoiding sentence fragments), verbs, joining ideas together properly, being consistent across the sentences, dealing with punctuation (does that comma belong here?), and some spelling review.

Unit 9 has a good selection of short readings that can be used to exemplify the issues presented earlier in the book. These include writing from well-known people such as Maya Angelou, Malcolm X, Dave Barry, Amy Tan, Leo Buscaglia and others.

The book is very colourful, with lots of user-friendly adaptations throughout the text. There are Writers' Workshop and Writing Assignments after each unit, and many Exploring Online sections, including links to many OWL sites (OWL is the acronym for Online Writing Labs). This text also has an appendix dedicated to ESL instruction, and there are pieces throughout the text that link to ESL instruction.

One of the best parts of this text is the incorporation of humour. According to Fawcett, 'Humour is a fine instructional tool.' There are comics, classified-ad bloopers, short stories and jokes throughout the text that make the reading and writing experience more fun.

This is a very good text.