Based on the most exhaustive study ever conducted of the reading selections that have actually been taught in freshman composition, The Arlington Reader is uniquely built on research into what essays -- and what kinds of essays -- work best for college writing classes. Lynn Bloom's research into the essay canon has identified not only the most enduringly popular essays but also the qualities that make them enduringly popular. Therefore, in addition to offering familiar selections that have long proven themselves in the classroom, The Arlington Reader includes an extensive selection of essays that have approached canonical status in the past five years, plus an abundance of new selections that exhibit the qualities that are likely to render them canonical in the future. Each of the ten thematic chapters includes a canonical "magnet essay" that is followed by about ten pages of contextual material, allowing students to get a sense of the original context from which these canonical essays sprung.