Collection 6
Being There!
My ambition was to embrace those general qualities that Ernest Hemingway, a former newspaperman, once said should be present in all good books: “the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was.”
—Pete Hamill
Right now you have access to more information about the past and present than people have ever had. In print, on television, by computer, you can witness history being made and find out almost anything you want to know about the past.
The writers represented in this collection make you an eyewitness to events aboard the Titanic one icy night in 1912 and to the horrors of Auschwitz in 1944. A reporter’s story of his involvement in a tragic climbing expedition on Mt. Everest gives literal meaning to the term cliffhanger, and a report about beached whales puts you on a stench-filled, windswept beach in Oregon.
The reports in this collection are examples of nonfiction at its best—they capture our imagination and, like other kinds of literature, help us share experiences we would otherwise never have.
Writing Focus: Research Paper
Writer’s Notebook
Think of some famous people you’d like to interview or an event you wish you could have witnessed. In your Writer’s Notebook, list five or six people or events that you’d like to know more about. Then, rank your choices. Keep your list. Reviewing it may help you choose a topic for the research paper you’ll write for the Writer’s Workshop in this collection.