The River Reader

The River Reader, 12th Edition, written by Joseph F. Trimmer, is an expository essay reader formerly published under the title The Riverside Reader. The volume organizes selections by rhetorical modes, presenting professional essays and short stories as structural models for student composition.

Readings are arranged across primary rhetorical modes, including narration and description, process and analysis, comparison and contrast, division and classification, definition, cause and effect, and persuasion and argument.

Contextual headnotes and post-reading materials analyze each selection to help students understand writing craft. The entries also supply subjects for classroom discussion and writing assignments.