Rereading America: Cultural Contexts for Critical Thinking and Writing » (8th Edition)

Gary Colombo is professor of English at Los Angeles City College. He has 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 is professor of English at San Jose State University. He supervises Teaching Associates in the university’s lower-division writing sequence and has taught a wide range of courses in American literature, American Studies, composition, and pedagogy.

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).

Rereading America remains the most widely adopted book of its kind because of its unique approach to the issue of cultural diversity. Unlike other multicultural composition readers that settle for representing the plurality of American voices and cultures, Rereading America encourages students to grapple with the real differences in perspectives that arise in our complex society. Selections model writing from a wide variety of disciplines and genres, and each chapter features a selection that explores how the media sells the myth in question. With extensive editorial apparatus that puts readings from the mainstream into conversation with readings from the margins, Rereading America provokes students to explore the foundations and contradictions of our dominant cultural myths.

Chapter 1: Harmony at Home: The Myth of the Model Family

A Family Tree, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear

Norman Rockwell

Looking for Work

Gary Soto

What We Really Miss About the 1950s

Stephanie Coontz

Aunt Ida Pieces a Quilt

Melvin Dixon

An Indian Story

Roger Jack

*The Color of Family Ties: Race, Class, Gender, and Extended Family Involvement

Naomi Gerstel and Natalia Sarkisian

Visual Portfolio

Reading Images of American Families

*Proposition 8: The California Marriage Protection Act

*8 Is Not Hate: The Meaning of a Proposition

Jennifer Roback Morse

*Proposition 8 Hurt My Family - Ask Me How

Marriage Equality USA

What Is Marriage?

Evan Wolfson

*My Big Fat Straight Wedding

Andrew Sullivan

Chapter 2: Learning Power: The Myth of Education and Empowerment

From Report of the Massachusetts Board of Education, 1848

Horace Mann

Idiot Nation

Michael Moore

Against School

John Taylor Gatto

"I Just Wanna Be Average"

Mike Rose

From Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work

Jean Anyon

Visual Portfolio

Reading Images of Education and Empowerment

The Achievement of Desire

Richard Rodriguez

Para Teresa

Inés Hernández-Ávila

Learning to Read

Malcolm X

Still Separate, Still Unequal

Jonathan Kozol

*In the Basement of the Ivory Tower

Professor X

Chapter 3: Money and Success: The Myth of Individual Opportunity

From Ragged Dick

Horatio Alger

The Lesson

Toni Cade Bambara

Horatio Alger

Harlon L. Dalton

*Living It: Tim Blixseth

Robert Frank

Serving in Florida

Barbara Ehrenreich

*Class in America – 2006

Gregory Mantsios

Visual Portfolio

Reading Images of Individual Opportunity

Framing Class, Vicarious Living, and Conspicuous Consumption [Media Selection]

Diana Kendall

*From The Missing Class

Katherine S. Newman and Victor Tan Chen

*Tent City, USA

Maria L. LaGranga

*From America’s New Working Class

Kathleen R. Arnold

Stephen Cruz

Studs Terkel

Chapter 4: Created Equal: The Myth of the Melting Pot

From Notes on the State of Virginia

Thomas Jefferson

Causes of Prejudice

Vincent N. Parrillo

C.P. Ellis

Studs Terkel

*School

James McBride

*Loot or Find: Fact or Frame? [Media Selection]

Cheryl I. Harris and Devon W. Carbado

Visual Portfolio

Reading Images of The Melting Pot

Models of American Ethnic Relations: A Historical Perspective

George M. Fredrickson

Assimilation

Sherman Alexie

*Deconstructing America

Patrick J. Buchanan

The Crossing

Rubén Martínez

*The End of White America? [Media Selection]

Hua Hsu

Child of the Americas

Aurora Levins Morales

Chapter 5: True Women and Real Men: Myths of Gender

How the Americans Understand the Equality of the Sexes

Alexis de Tocqueville

Girl

Jamaica Kincaid

Becoming Members of Society: Learning the Social Meanings of Gender

Aaron H. Devor

The Story of My Body

Judith Ortiz Cofer

"Two ways a Woman Can Get Hurt": Advertising and Violence [Media Selection]

Jean Kilbourne

From Fly-Girls to Bitches and Hos [Media Selection]

Joan Morgan

Visual Portfolio

Reading Images of Gender

*"Bros Before Hos": The Guy Code

Michael Kimmel

*The Descent of Men

Dan Kindlon

*The Death of Macho

Reihan Salam

*A Boy's Life

Hanna Rosin

Chapter 6: This Land is Your Land: American Myths of Nature

*From Walking

Henry David Thoreau

*From An American Childhood

Annie Dillard

*Climbing the Tree of Health

Richard Louv

*The Artifice of the Natural [Media Selection]

Charles Siebert

*From As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial

Derek Jensen & Stephanie McMillan

*The End of Nature

Bill McKibben

*Visual Portfolio

Reading Images of Nature

*Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp

Joy Williams

*Moving Heaven and Earth

Graeme Wood

*In Search of Justice

Nydia M.Velasquez

*Talking to the Owls and Butterflies

John (Fire) Lame Deer and Richard Erdoes

* new to this edition