Odysseyfocuses on helping students build paragraph and essay writing skills while treating the writing process as a voyage of self-discovery, confidence building, and competence building. As with most traditional paragraph to essay writing books, Odyssey begins with a thorough overview of the writing process, introduces the various patterns of development, then demonstrates each pattern of development with various essay samples. Parts I -- VI include a three-prompt portfolio feature while parts IV -- VI focus on improving grammar and paragraph development. The book concludes with an anthology of readings that take students on a "reading odyssey," where selections cross genres and professions.