Rereading America by Gary Colombo; Robert Cullen; Bonnie Lisle - Eleventh Edition, 2019 from Macmillan Student Store
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Rereading America

Cultural Contexts for Critical Thinking & WritingEleventh Edition ©2019 Gary Colombo; Robert Cullen; Bonnie Lisle

Rereading America remains the most widely adopted book of its kind because it works: instructors tell us time and again that they've watched their students grow as critical thinkers and writers as they grapple with cross-curricular readings that not only engage them, but also challenge the...

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Rereading America by Gary Colombo; Robert Cullen; Bonnie Lisle - Eleventh Edition, 2019 from Macmillan Student Store

Teach students to critically examine the assumptions of American culture

Rereading America remains the most widely adopted book of its kind because it works: instructors tell us time and again that they've watched their students grow as critical thinkers and writers as they grapple with cross-curricular readings that not only engage them, but also challenge them to reexamine deeply held cultural assumptions, such as viewing success solely as the result of hard work. Extensive apparatus offers students a proven framework for revisiting, revising, or defending those assumptions as students probe the myths underlying them. Rereading America has stayed at the forefront of American culture, contending with cultural myths as they persist, morph, and develop anew.

The eleventh edition features a refreshed collection of readings with an updated chapter that introduces students to one of the most pervasive myths of our time: technological innovation fosters an improved society. Also in response to instructors' requests for more writing instruction, there are now more questions that help students apply to their own writing the strategies used in the readings.

Features

Critically examines 6 dominant myths of U.S. culture.  By focusing on myths that students themselves often accept uncritically, Rereading America challenges them to recognize their own assumptions and to defend or revise their views. The myths include: (1) the nuclear family is the only solid basis for society; (2) education empowers all citizens; (3) technology aids social and economic progress; (4) success is solely the product of hard work; (5) gender roles are biologically rather than culturally determined; and (6) America is a melting pot, where people from different cultures blend together to form a homogeneous whole.

Spurs critical thinking through culturally and politically diverse readings. In the chapter introductions, the authors explain and examine the foundations of each cultural myth. The 45 readings throughout include some selections that articulate the myths, such as "Our Future Selves," a paean to personal technology, by Google executives Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen. Other readings feature differing views from groups pushed to the margins of American society, such as people of color, women, and gays and lesbians, including these:

  • Gary Soto, in "Looking for Work," tells the story of a Mexican-American boy who wants his family to imitate the white families he sees on TV.
  • Jean Kilbourne, in "'Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt’: Advertising and Violence," examines the connection between violence and the objectification of women in advertisements.
  • Diana Kendall, in "Framing Class, Vicarious Living, and Conspicuous Consumption," shows how the mass media propagates middle class norms while denigrating working class values, fueling a consumer culture that drives economic inequality.

These alternative perspectives complicate the myths and prompt students to re-examine their own thinking and values.

Models different kinds of writing from a variety of disciplines and genres. Representing a wide array of forms and genres, selections range from the personal (memoirs, oral histories) to the popular (journalistic accounts, poems, short stories, cartoons, paintings, and photographs) to the academic (writings from the disciplines of sociology, history, education, political science, and psychology). Many selections are documented.

Supports critical thinking and writing through extensive editorial apparatus. The pedagogical apparatus provides instruction in thinking and writing critically as it offers multiple opportunities to do so after every selection. “Fast Facts” present provocative statistics to provide context and prompt discussion, and “Further Connections” assignments include suggestions for further research on each chapter’s myth.

New to This Edition

More than 50% of the selections are new, exploring contemporary aspects of each myth. Provocative and timely new selections include these:

  • Sherry Turkle’s “Education: Attentional Disarray” examines how technology is disrupting the classroom atmosphere and adversely impacting attention spans.
  • Rutger Bregman’s "Why We Should Give Free Money to Everyone" discusses the strikingly positive effects that offering a universal basic income—with no strings attached—can have on society.
  • Marc Lamont Hill’s “Nobody” argues that systematic violence against vulnerable social groups, notably African-Americans, is making them more unsafe at the hands of those who should be protecting them. As these groups face increasing injustices, they engage in stronger resistance movements—the calls for change and social justice grow louder and clearer.

Exciting new images help students visualize and challenge the myths. Infographics, screenshots, photographs, and other new images provide unique visual reflections of the dominant myths—as well as visible examples of how they can be confronted.

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Table of Contents

*Asterisks indicate new selections
 
1. Harmony at Home: Myths of Family
 
Gary Soto, “Looking for Work”
 
Stephanie Coontz, “What We Really Miss About the 1950s”
 
Naomi Gerstel and Natalia Sarkisian, “The Color of Family Ties: Race, Class, Gender, and Extended Family Involvement”
 
*Larissa MacFarquhar, “When Should a Child Be Taken from His Parents?”

Visual Portfolio: Reading Images of American Families
 
*Amy Ellis Nutt, From Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family
 
* Sheryll Cashin, From Loving: Interracial Intimacy in America and the Threat to White Supremacy
 
*Mimi Schippers, From Beyond Monogamy: Polyamory and the Future of Polyqueer Sexualities
 
2. Learning Power: The Myth of Education and Empowerment
 
 John Taylor Gatto, “Against School”
 
Mike Rose, “I Just Wanna Be Average”
 
Jean Anyon, From Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work
 
*Nikole Hannah-Jones “Choosing a School For My Daughter In a Segregated City”

Visual Portfolio: Reading Images of Education and Empowerment
 
*Sherry Turkle, “Education: Attentional Disarray”

*Peggy Orenstein, “Blurred Lines, Take Two”
 
*Sara Goldrick-Rab, “City of Broken Dreams”

 
3. The Wild Wired West: Myths of Progress on the Tech Frontier
 
Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen, “Our Future Selves”

*Jean M. Twenge, “Has the Smartphone Destroyed a Generation?”

*Kenneth Goldsmith, “Let’s Get Lost”

*Noreen Malone, “Zoë and the Trolls”

*Jessie Daniels, “Twitter and White Supremacy, A Love Story”

Visual Portfolio: Reading Images of Wired Culture

*Bruce Schneier, “How We Sold Our Souls—and More—to the Internet Giants”

*Kevin Drum, “You Will Lose Your Job to a Robot—and Sooner Than You Think”

*Yuval Noah Harari, “Big Data, Google, and the End of Free Will”
 
 
4. Money and Success: The Myth of Individual Opportunity
 
Gregory Mantsios, “Class in America”
 
Barbara Ehrenreich, “Serving in Florida”
 
Alan Aja, Daniel Bustillo, William Darity Jr., and Darrick Hamilton, “From a Tangle of Black Pathology to a Race-Fair America”
 
*Mehrsa Baradaran, From How the Other Half Banks

Visual Portfolio: Reading Images of Individual Opportunity
 
Diana Kendall, “Framing Class, Vicarious Living, and Conspicuous Consumption” 

*Ellen K. Pao, From Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change
 
*Kate Aronoff, “Thank God It’s Monday”
 
*Rutger Bregman, “Why We Should Give Free Money to Everyone”
 
 
5. True Women and Real Men: Myths of Gender
 
Jamaica Kincaid, “Girl”
 
*Lisa Wade and Myra Marx Ferree, “How to Do Gender”
 
*Carlos Andrés Gómez, “Guys’ Club:  No Faggots, Bitches, or Pussies Allowed”
 
Ruth Padawer, “Sisterhood is Complicated”

Visual Portfolio: Reading Images of Gender
 
*Allan G. Johnson, From The Gender Knot: “Patriarchy”

Jean Kilbourne, “‘Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt’:  Advertising and Violence” 

Rebecca Solnit, “The Longest War”
 
*Jackson Katz, “From Rush Limbaugh to Donald Trump: The Defiant Reassertion of White Male Authority”

 
6. Created Equal: The Myths of Race
 
Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The Case for Reparations”
 
Linda Holtzman and Leon Sharpe, “Theories and Constructs of Race”
 
Sherman Alexie, “Gentrification”

*Marc Lamont Hill, “Nobody”

Visual Portfolio: Reading Images of Race
 
*Amani Al-Khatahtbeh, From Muslim Girl
 
*José Orduña, “Passport to the New West”
 
Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco and Carola Suárez-Orozco, “How Immigrants Become ‘Other’” 

Gary Colombo

Gary Colombo is professor emeritus of English and ESL at Los Angeles City College. He has also published Mind Readings: An Anthology for Writers (2002), and with Bonnie Lisle and Sandra Mano, Frame Work: Culture, Storytelling and College Writing (1997), both for Bedford/St. Martins.

Robert Cullen

Robert Cullen is professor emeritus of English at San Jose State University, where he taught a wide range of courses in writing, rhetoric, composition pedagogy, and American literature..

Bonnie Lisle

Bonnie Lisle teaches in the UCLA Writing Programs. With Gary Colombo and Sandra Mano, she is the author of Frame Work: Culture, Storytelling, and College Writing (Bedford/St. Martins, 1997).

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