One of Houghton Mifflin's flagship readers, The Riverside Reader is a collection of expository essays arranged by rhetorical modes--narration and description, process analysis, comparison and contrast, division and classification, definition, cause and effect, and persuasion and argument--with a final thematic unit illustrating all of the modes. The readings represent diverse voices and views from some of the most respected professional essayists working in the English language, along with short stories and student examples. Essays in the Ninth Edition serve as both structural models for students to emulate in their own writing and as sources of content for classroom discussion and paper topics. The carefully developed apparatus--including headnotes and post-reading material--analyzes each reading in context, helping students better understand the craft of writing and apply what they learn to their own work.