Prompt for Causal Argument essay: Using the techniques we have discussed this semester (thesis statement, active verbs, unity and coherence, refutation of a counterargument, the “funnel” approach to introductory and concluding paragraphs, etc.), trace the causes and effects of an issue. Potential subjects include: climate change, the unemployment rate, the cost of health insurance or …
She tells me that she is sitting in her office chair on a spring afternoon, and the windows are warm and yellow from the sun and the vinyl is cold on her neck. There is a tiffany lamp on her desk, lit, and underneath her feet are bare. Her client is on the couch with …
In the garage, you show your fiancé Clara what you have made for your child’s gender reveal party. It is heavy, built from the scavenged metal base of a lawn umbrella and a four-foot length of pipe. You felt ingenious in the process of welding it, using equipment you borrowed from a friend, but in …
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You try to make sure and leave the assisted living center before 7:00 p.m., otherwise your Japanese mother has a mood crash and initiates a hostile litany of grievances against your stroke-addled father, which—even though she occasionally makes a good point—is still difficult for you to stomach. Nonetheless, you sometimes don’t manage to make it …
There were thirty-two of us that first day, standing in a sloppy circle as Miss Lindskoog spoke of cubby holes and taking turns, none of us doubting that we would soon become friends. We were children after all. Children like other children. Over the next thirteen years, Jane and I became—and remained—best friends, unlikely best …
On the other side, the hill descends into a thick patch of woods. The adults warn us not to go down there for reasons they can’t or won’t—and don’t—explain. We can but won’t—and don’t—listen. After the last bell rings, we evade teachers and security guards and sprint across the teeming playground. We stutter-run (try not …
I get a call on my work phone from a girl named Lyra who claims she’s my goddaughter. She might be, it’s not impossible. I have a couple of godchildren to whom I pay no attention: I’ve forgotten their names and I am long out of touch with their parents, and I don’t know how …
The day after Austin gets promoted to manager, he asks me to visit him at the store, late. He lands on the word late, as if I could come to the mall in the afternoon while a few customers pore over an array of cubic zirconia on the flashy tiara heads of wedding rings. I’ve …
We were multitudes, we were millions. We lived within dimensions up to fifty feet long, fourteen feet high, but never more than nine feet wide. We were drivers, asphalt-lickers, road-runners, gearheads: the denizens of motorhomes who rolled across the country en masse, a fleet of rubber-soled seekers. We were a city on wheels. A city …