Many instructors prefer to teach critical reading and writing without using a full-scale rhetoric. For them, Axelrod and Cooper have adapted the immensely successful approach of The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing and applied it to a reader, creating a book that provides both structure for students and flexibility for instructors. Chapter One introduces two general approaches to critical reading, showing students how to "read for meaning" and "read like a writer." Each of the following chapters then provides step-by-step guides to applying this knowledge in reading and writing a specific genre, ranging from autobiography to argument.