Signs of Life in the USA by Sonia Maasik; Jack Solomon - Tenth Edition, 2021 from Macmillan Student Store
VALUE

Signs of Life in the USA

Readings on Pop Culture for WritersTenth Edition ©2021 Sonia Maasik; Jack Solomon

Signs of Life in the USA works in the classroom because students love to talk and write about popular culture. Signs of Life teaches students to read and write critically about pop culture by providing them with a conceptual framework known as semiotics, a field of study develop...

Read more
Students - Buy or Rent

ISBN:9781319322823

ISBN:9781319213664

ISBN:9781319455798

ISBN:9781319388669

ISBN:9781319521974

ISBN:9781319452865

Signs of Life in the USA by Sonia Maasik; Jack Solomon - Tenth Edition, 2021 from Macmillan Student Store

Go digital with the e-book of this text and package with Achieve for Readers and Writers

The only popular culture reader with a critical edge

Signs of Life in the USA works in the classroom because students love to talk and write about popular culture. Signs of Life teaches students to read and write critically about pop culture by providing them with a conceptual framework known as semiotics, a field of study developed specifically for the interpretation of culture and its signs.

Written by a prominent semiotician and an experienced writing instructor, the text has been extensively updated to account for the rapid evolution of contemporary trends and student interests. It features insightful themes with provocative and current reading selections that ask students to think analytically about America’s popular culture with questions such as: How have explicit and implicit signals about gender expectations affected our lives? How have television and the Internet shaped our current political climate? Signs of Life provides students with the academic language necessary to analyze the significance of our shared cultural experiences.

Achieve for Readers & Writers
Combining diagnostics with formative and summative assessments, Achieve for Readers & Writers is a quick, flexible solution for targeting instruction on critical reading, the writing process, grammar, mechanics, style, and punctuation to each individual student. New Achieve Writing Tools allow instructors and peer reviewers to easily comment on student writing, while fully editable writing assignments pair with powerful analytics to track student progress.

Features

Readings provide examples of, and opportunities for, critical analysis of American culture. The 79 culturally diverse readings include exemplary, accessible semiotic analysis drawn from academic and mainstream publications as well as materials for students to analyze themselves (scholarly articles, book chapters, online postings, student papers, advertisements, photographs, reportage, editorials, reviews, and op-ed pieces).

Thematic chapters help students look critically at the popular culture that surrounds them.  Seven updated chapters and one new chapter examine the most important manifestations of our popular culture—culture and contradiction, identity and ideology, consumption, advertising, the cloud, television, film, and music—to prompt students to think and write critically about the signifiers all around them, carrying important messages about American culture.

Editorial apparatus presents a critical approach designed for the composition classroom. Book and chapter introductions present popular culture as a text open to decoding through semiotic analysis, with an introductory section on "Writing about Popular Culture" that includes three sample student papers, two of which are new to the tenth edition. Reading and writing activities after each selection prompt analysis. And a glossary of key terms provides even more support.

An expert author team makes the method accessible to composition students. Sonia Maasik, an experienced composition instructor and textbook author, and Jack Solomon, author of a popular introduction to semiotics for general readers, bring to the book a unique combination of expertise on semiotics and how it can be used in introductory writing courses. Jack Solomon’s blog on the Macmillan Community site provides regular updates from the field of popular culture analysis and offers additional support for making popular culture a subject of inquiry in the composition classroom.

New to This Edition

New readings on today’s leading issues. Signs of Life in the USA helps promote lively teaching and high student interest—as well as strong student writing—by keeping up with the fast pace of popular culture, with new selections on the most current topics.  The following are some highlights of the tenth edition:

  • Judith Shulevitz asks, “Alexa, how will you change us?”
  • Jacob Silverman examines that famous refrain, “Pics or it didn’t happen.”
  • Wesley Morris believes that romantic comedies were “corny and retrograde,” but wonders, “Why do I miss them so much?”

A new chapter on music.  Titled "Tangled Roots: The Cultural Politics of Popular Music," this new chapter explores the increasing role of music as a medium for the expression of our current political and cultural moment.  Engaging readings on country, hip-hop, country-trap, K-Pop, and more provide multiple avenues for discussion and writing.

Vibrant art throughout the book.  Nearly all of the art in the tenth edition is new, offering a visual perspective designed to enhance the critical understanding modeled by the text.

A practical and intuitive new organization. In response to instructor feedback, the tenth edition is now divided into three sections of related readings: Foundations, Everyday Life, and Entertainment.  This new organization reinforces the text’s position, and the authors’ conviction, that American popular culture permeates almost everything we do—even as it reflects who we are and what we are becoming as a society.

“Signs of Life gives students permission to write on topics they love while challenging them to think critically about their world and about who they are, and when students like the subject matter, they write their best.” —Patricia Cullinan, Truckee Meadows Community College

"Signs of Life is a challenging yet engaging text that will tap into your students' deep well of knowledge about the texts they read, the heroes they adore, and the tools they use." —Tammy Cherry, Florida State College at Jacksonville, South

"Signs of Life has an effective, student-driven approach in that it leverages students’ familiarity with popular culture to lead them into analysis and critical thought." —Wallace Cleeves, University of California at Riverside

Digital Options

ACHIEVE icon

Achieve

Achieve is a comprehensive set of interconnected teaching and assessment tools that incorporate the most effective elements from Macmillan Learning's market leading solutions in a single, easy-to-use platform.

Schedule Achieve Demo

EPUB3_EBOOK icon

E-book

Read online (or offline) with all the highlighting and notetaking tools you need to be successful in this course.

Learn About E-book

Table of Contents

[* Indicates material new to this edition]

Contents
Preface for Instructors 

INTRODUCTION
Popular Signs: Or, Everything You Always Knew about American Culture (but Nobody Asked) 
It’s the End of the World as We Know It 
From Folk to For-Profit 
Pop Culture Goes to College 
The Semiotic Method 
Abduction and Overdetermination 
Interpreting Popular Signs: The Revolution will be Reiterated 
The Classroom Connection 
Cultural Mythologies　　　
Getting Started 
Writing about Popular Culture 
Using Active Reading Strategies 
Prewriting Strategies 
Developing Strong Arguments about Popular Culture 
Conducting a Semiotic Analysis 
Reading Visual Images Actively 
Reading Essays about Popular Culture 
AMY LIN: Barbie: Queen of Dolls and Consumerism [STUDENT ESSAY]
*IRINA BODEA: Banks: Progressive or Traditional [STUDENT ESSAY]
*JEREMY CREEK: The Anglerfish in the Machine: Horror and Re-enchantment in Stranger Things [STUDENT ESSAY]　　　
Conducting Research and Citing Sources 
SCOTT JASCHIK: A Stand against Wikipedia 
PATTI S. CARAVELLO: Judging Quality on the Web 
TRIP GABRIEL: For Students in Internet Age, No Shame in Copy and Paste 

SECTION 1: FOUNDATIONS

Chapter 1. American Paradox: Culture, Conflict, and Contradiction in the U.S.A. 
BARBARA EHRENREICH: Bright-Sided 
GEORGE PACKER: Celebrating Inequality 
*MARK MANSON: The Disease of More　　　
*MARK MURPHY: The Uncivil War: How Cultural Sorting of America Divides Us　　　
ALFRED LUBRANO: The Shock of Education: How College Corrupts 
MARIAH BURTON NELSON: I Won. I’m Sorry. 
WADE GRAHAM: Are We Greening Our Cities, or Just Greenwashing Them? 　

Chapter 2. My Selfie, My Self: Identity and Ideology in the New Millennium 
MICHAEL OMI: In Living Color: Race and American Culture 
*RACHELLE HAMPTON: Which People?
*ZAHIR JANMOHAMED: Your Cultural Attire　　　
AARON DEVOR: Gender Role Behaviors and Attitudes 
DEBORAH BLUM: The Gender Blur: Where Does Biology End and Society Take Over?　　　
MICHAEL HULSHOF-SCHMIDT: What’s in an Acronym? Parsing the LGBTQQIP2SAA Community 
RACHEL LOWRY: Straddling Online and Offline Profiles, Millennials Search for Identity 
*SOPHIE GILBERT: Millennial Burnout is Being Televised　　　
*DAVE PATTERSON: Shame By a Thousand Looks　
*KWAME ANTHONY APPIAH: What Does It Mean to Look Like Me

SECTION 2: EVERYDAY LIFE

Chapter 3. Consuming Passions: The Culture of American Consumption
LAURENCE SHAMES: The More Factor 
MALCOLM GLADWELL: The Science of Shopping 
*JORDYN HOLMAN: Millennials Tried to Kill the American Mall, But Gen Z Might Save It
MICHAEL POLLAN: Supermarket Pastoral
CHRIS ARNING, What Can Semiotics Contribute to Packaging Design?
TROY PATTERSON: The Politics of the Hoodie
THOMAS FRANK: Commodify Your Dissent
JAMES A. ROBERTS: The Treadmill of Consumption 　　

Chapter 4. Brought to You B(u)y: The Signs of Advertising
JACK SOLOMON: Masters of Desire: The Culture of American Advertising 
JAMES B. TWITCHELL: What We Are to Advertisers 
STEVE CRAIG: Men’s Men and Women’s Women
JIA TOLENTINO: How "Empowerment" Became Something for Women to Buy 
*DEREK THOMPSON: The Four-Letter Code to Selling Just About Anything
JULIET B. SCHOR: Selling to Children: The Marketing of Cool
JULIA B. CORBETT: A Faint Green Sell: Advertising and the Natural World 

Portfolio of Advertisements
Spotify
Buffalo Exchange
California Walnuts
Shinola Detroit
The Shelter Pet Project
Society of Grownups

Chapter 5. The Cloud: Semiotics and the New Media
*JUDY ESTRIN: I Helped Create the Internet, and I’m Worried about What It’s Doing to Young People　*ALICIA ELER: There’s a Lot More to a Selfie than Meets the Eye
*JUDITH SHULEVITZ: "Alexa, How Will You Change Us?"　　
*JESSE SELL: Gamer Identity
*DAVID COURTWRIGHT: How "Limbic Capitalism" Preys on Our Addicted Brains
NANCY JO SALES: From the Instamatic to Instagram: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers *JACOB SILVERMAN: "Pics or It Didn’t Happen"—The Mantra of the Instagram Era
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Influencing Machines: The Echo Chambers of the Internet
JOHN HERRMAN: Inside Facebook’s (Totally Insane, Unintentionally Gigantic, Hyperpartisan) Political-Media Machine

SECTION 3: ENTERTAINMENT

Chapter 6. On the Air: Television and Cultural Forms
NEAL GABLER: The Social Networks
BRITTNEY LEVINE BECKMAN: Why We Binge-Watch Stuff We Hate
*SAMANTHA ALLEN:  How Euphoria and Model Hunter Schafer Created the Most Interesting Trans Character on TV
CLAIRE MIYE STANFORD: You’ve Got the Wrong Song: Nashville and Country Music Feminism
EMILY NUSSBAUM: The Aristocrats: The Graphic Arts of Game of Thrones
MASSIMO PIGLIUCCI, The One Paradigm to Rule Them All: Scientism and The Big Bang Theory 　 　 　 　 *BRITTANY LEVINE BECKMAN, Why We Binge-Watch Stuff We Hate

Chapter 7. The Hollywood Sign: The Culture of American Film
ROBERT B. RAY: The Thematic Paradigm
CHRISTINE FOLCH: Why the West Loves Sci-Fi and Fantasy: A Cultural Explanation
LINDA SEGER: Creating the Myth
*MAYA PHILLIPS: The Narrative Experiment That Is the Marvel Cinematic Universe　　　
ABRAHAM RIESMAN: What We Talk about When We Talk about Batman and Superman
MATT ZOLLER SEITZ: The Offensive Movie Cliché That Won’t Die
*MIKHAIL LYUBANSKY: The Racial Politics of Black Panther
JESSICA HAGEDORN: Asian Women in Film: No Joy, No Luck
MICHAEL PARENTI: Class and Virtue
DAVID DENBY: High-School Confidential: Notes on Teen Movies
*WESLEY MORRIS: Rom-Coms Were Corny and Retrograde. Why Do I Miss Them so Much? 　

Chapter 8. Tangled Roots: The Cultural Politics of Popular Music
*NOLAN GLASER: Music Is Supposed to Unify Us.　 Is the Streaming Revolution Fragmenting Us Instead?
CLARA McNULTY-FINN: The Evolution of Rap
*NADRA NITTLE: Lil Nas X Isn’t an Anomaly
*JON MEACHAM and TIM MCGRAW: How Country Music Explains America’s Divided History
*CHRISTINA NEWLAND: A Cultural History of the Diva
*DJ LOUIE XIV: Has the Pop Star been Killed?
*DANIEL PERSON: When Did Pop Culture and Nature Part Ways?
*DANI DEAHL: Monsta X and Steve Aoki: How K-Pop Took Over YouTube　　　

Glossary 

Sonia Maasik

The coeditors are successful textbook authors who, between them, have over fifty years of teaching experience in the college classroom. Sonia Maasik, a lecturer in the UCLA Writing Programs, has taught writing from developmental to advanced levels, and coordinates training for UCLA writing programs' teaching assistants. Jack Solomon, a professor of English at California State University, Northridge, teaches literature and critical theory, along with his graduate and undergraduate classes on popular cultural semiotics, and is often interviewed by the media for analysis of current events and trends. He is the author of The Signs of Our Time (1988) and Discourse and Reference in the Nuclear Age (1988).  The two together have published Signs of Life in the U.S.A.: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers, Sixth Edition (Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009) and California Dreams and Realities, Third Edition (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005).

Jack Solomon

The coeditors are successful textbook authors who, between them, have over fifty years of teaching experience in the college classroom. Sonia Maasik, a lecturer in the UCLA Writing Programs, has taught writing from developmental to advanced levels, and coordinates training for UCLA writing programs' teaching assistants. Jack Solomon, a professor of English at California State University, Northridge, teaches literature and critical theory, along with his graduate and undergraduate classes on popular cultural semiotics, and is often interviewed by the media for analysis of current events and trends. He is the author of The Signs of Our Time (1988) and Discourse and Reference in the Nuclear Age (1988).  The two together have published Signs of Life in the U.S.A.: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers, Sixth Edition (Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009) and California Dreams and Realities, Third Edition (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005).

Instructor Resources

Need instructor resources for your course?

Unlock Your Resources

Instructor Resources

Download Resources

You need to sign in to unlock your resources.

request locked icon

Instructor's Resource Manual for Signs of Life in the USA (Online Only)

Sonia Maasik; Jack Solomon | Tenth Edition | ©2021 | ISBN:9781319322922
request locked icon

Sample Syllabus for Signs of Life in the USA

request locked icon

Transition Guide for Signs of Life in the USA 10e