Part rhetoric and part reader, the text is filled with practical guidelines designed to help students develop and intensify their thinking, reading, and writing abilities. Part I focuses on the issues of the writer's purpose. Part II addresses the technical matters of grammar and usage as they exist in the context of an accessible set of essays, stories and poems about themes relevant to students' lives.

Connections, Contexts, and Possibilities values thinking, reading, and writing as the prime activities of composition. This rhetoric and thematic reader centers on the purposes for writing, giving practical advice on paragraph and essay formation as it covers styles, types, and modes. The text teaches grammar in the context of the reading selections, empowering the student by helping them understand their options and choices.