The elements (and pleasures) of difficulty

1. Introducing Difficulty. What do we mean by difficulty?

Why difficulty merits attention

What about the "easy" text?

What do we mean by reading?

How this book is organized

Three tools of teaching and learning. The difficulty paper

The triple-entry notebook

Reflective questioning. Taking stock

Retrospective

2. The Difficulty of Poetry. Discovering your repertoire

Reading "one art"

Reading Elizabeth Bishop / Liza Funkhouser

Reading as participatory / Liza Funkhouser and Kim Woomer

Distinguishing between ordinary and metaphorical language

Moving beyond the literal / Katie Stamm

Taking stock

Retrospective

3. The Difficulty of Longer Texts. When a work seems long and boring

Introducing The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere

Where to begin with a longer text

Navigating the waters : Kristin Pontoski

Recuperating the past

Reading the hybrid text

Understanding genre

Viewing your own writing as hybrid genre

Reading as rewriting : Patrick Beh-Forrest

Taking Stock

Retrospective

4. Intermezzo. Moving from poetry to prose

Surveying the landscape

5. The Difficulty of Prose Narrative. What you already know about narrative

How narrative can be theorized / Gerard Genette

Using theory to reframe your understanding

Reading Krik? Krak!

Understanding strange texts

Reading the "story" in "history"

Understanding the language of prose. Tone in prose

Symbols in prose. Taking stock

Retrospective

6. Writing and Reading the Personal Essay. Writing about the self

Reflecting on personal writing

Uncovering the difficulty of personal writing

Uncovering the difficulty of personal writing

Exploring the self : the example of the Montaigne

Reading "of books"

Reading against the grain

Eriting about Montaigne / Tom Brennan

Making the move to the academic essay

Understanding the "reading and writing" transaction

Taking stock

Retrospective

7. A Provisional Conclusion. Reading a "great" author

Becoming aware of a Shakespeare's Aura

Hearing cultural noise

Understanding Shakespeare's characters

Considering the author function

Confronting Shakespeare's name. Heather Bastian

Brendan Cotter. Taking stock

Retrospective

Coda.

Glossary.

Works Cited.

Appendix A. About Difficulties. A list of difficulties

Strategies for dealing with them

Appendix B. Two Poems by Robert Bly. "Snowfall in the afternoon"

"Driving my parents home at Christmas"

Appendix C. Landscape for a Good Woman : A Story of Two Lives / Carolyn K. Steedman. "Stories"

"A thin man"

Appendix D. Krik? Krak! / Edwidge Danticat. "Night women"

"Between the pool and the gardenias"