McGraw-Hill Higher Education Brings Literature to Life With Online Video Content

Recent studies have found that today's students spend more time reading online than they do reading print material. In response to this shift in learning styles, McGraw-Hill Higher Education has developed new literary content that engages students with reading in an entirely new way, leading them to view literary passages in a new light.

Literature: Craft & Voice, a revolutionary new introductory-level English composition resource, is designed to encourage students to interact with their coursework. By enhancing traditional literature content in design and format and supplementing it with online video interviews of world-renowned authors, students are intimately connected with literature from all genres, such as fiction, poetry and drama, in a format they recognize and understand. This approach, used by authors Nicholas Delbanco and Alan Cheuse, is completely different from all other approaches to introductory literature resources currently available to students.

"Encouraging students to become advanced readers and writers is critical in helping them succeed academically and professionally," said Steve Debow, president of McGraw-Hill Higher Education's Humanities, Social Sciences and Languages Group. "Literature: Craft & Voice brings writers and readers together in a familiar format so students can interpret meaning and truly understand a writer's point of view. Just as a student learns the craft of architecture from an architect, Literature's print and online video content aims to teach literature students first-hand, using the writing experiences of some of literature's greatest authors."

The online counterpart to Literature: Craft & Voice offers students access to 30 informative videos, titled "Conversations on Writing." Each video is a recording of an interview between the text's authors and a modern literary luminary, including John Updike, Amy Tan, Joyce Carol Oates in fiction, Li-Young-Lee, Al Young, and Carolyn Forche in poetry, and actors and playwrights Marian Seldes, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, and Arthur Kopit in drama. Because the interviews were conducted exclusively for this project, each corresponds to a specific chapter in the text. The selected 30 writers speak directly to students about the craft of writing, their own work and writing process, and the selection in Literature: Craft & Voice - as well as their personal passion for writing.

The print portion of Literature: Craft & Voice is designed to make reading and interpreting literature as easy as possible for today's students. Through their own experiences in the classroom and through a series of ethnographic research studies conducted by McGraw-Hill, Delbanco and Cheuse were able to understand the teaching goals of professors who teach introductory composition as well as learn about the kind of material, concepts and ideas that motivate students to read, write and learn. The authors of Literature: Craft & Voice are committed to helping students become engaged in their introduction to literature courses by using content that is both visually appealing and intellectually stimulating.

The soft-cover resource, reminiscent of a literary magazine, is divided into three volumes, so that students can carry each easily in a backpack like a favorite magazine. The book is also visually rich - using color, inviting images, author profiles, quotations, and an open design with wide margins for annotating a selection to draw students into reading. This approach helps students pay attention to specific passages and pick up on the author's main idea, purpose and tone. "Writing from Reading" sections encourage students to summarize, analyze, synthesize and interpret what they have just read so they become involved with each passage and can apply its techniques to their own writing.

Excerpts of the recorded interviews are also included within the text, connecting the traditional content with digital media and creating an opportunity for students to fully immerse themselves in their reading and writing.

Nicholas Delbanco, the author of 24 fiction and non-fiction books, is the Robert Frost Distinguished University Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Michigan. Alan Cheuse has been reviewing books on National Public Radio's All Things Considered program since the 1980s, and has written three novels and two collections of short fiction.

About McGraw-Hill Higher Education:

McGraw-Hill Higher Education, a unit of McGraw-Hill Education, is a premier provider of teaching and learning solutions for 21st century post-secondary and higher education markets worldwide. Through a comprehensive range of traditional and digital education content and tools, McGraw-Hill Higher Education empowers educators and prepares professionals and students of all ages to connect, learn and succeed in the global economy. McGraw-Hill Education, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies (NYSE: MHP), has offices in 33 countries and publishes in more than 65 languages. Additional information is available at http://www.mheducation.com/.

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SOURCE: McGraw-Hill Higher Education

CONTACT: Tom Stanton of McGraw-Hill Education, +1-212-904-3214,
tom_stanton@mcgraw-hill.com

Web Site: http://www.mheducation.com/