The Thomson Reader Conversations in Context

Grounded in the belief that reading and writing always occur in context, THE THOMSON READER helps student writers improve their critical reading and writing skills by teaching them the value of contextual awareness. This first-ever, full color thematic reader teaches students to employ audience-centered writing strategies as they explore ongoing conversations about cultural, academic, political, and personal ideologies. THE THOMSON READER also provides students with a fully-integrated library, containing over 300 traditional, image, audio, and video "texts" that teaches them how to recognize, assess, and manage the rhetorical situations of a variety of engaging themes-regardless of the medium, or context.

PART I: WRITING IN CONTEXT. Introduction. 1: Understanding the Contexts of Writing. What is "Good" Writing? Defining Context in Writing. Discourse and Why It Is Important. 2: Understanding Media as Contexts for Writing. Reading Images. Using Images in Your Writing. Combining Text and Image. 3: Entering the Conversation. Theme Into Thesis. Assessing the Rhetorical Situation. Knowing Your Audience. Managing the Writing Process. Using Technology. 4: Engaging in Research and Inquiry. Writing as Inquiry. Conducting Research. Tools for Your Inquiry. Other Source Material. Citing Sources. PART II: THEMES FOR WRITING AND INQUIRY. 5: Identity. Cluster 1: Creating Our Selves. Sojourner Truth, Ain''t I a Woman? N. Scott Momaday, The Way to Rainy Mountain. Bobbie Ann Mason, Being Country. Cluster 2: Defining Each Other. Maxine Hong Kingston, No Name Woman. Dagoberto Gilb, You Know His Labors, But Not His Face. Gregory Jay, Who Invented White People? Cluster 3: Diverse Selves, Multiple Identities. Erin Aubry Kaplan, Black Like I Thought I Was. Oscar Casares, Crossing the Border Without Losing Your Past. Bharati Mukherjee, American Dreamer. Ranjani Nellore, The Girl With the Red Dot. 6: Understanding. Cluster 1:Learning. Helen Keller, The Day Language Came Into My Life. Richard Wright, The Library Card. Annie Dillard, Living Like Weasels. Susan Sawyer, On Being Proved Wrong. Cluster 2: Schooling. Maya Angelou, Graduation. Paulo Freire, The Banking Concept of Education. Richard Rodriguez, The Achievement of Desire. Adrienne Rich, Taking Women Students Seriously. Cluster 3: Knowing and Believing. Thomas Moore, Satisfying the Thirst of the Soul and the Needs of the Body. Langston Hughes, Salvation. Shunryu Suzuki, Waterfall. 7: Relationships. Cluster 1: Exploring Love. Kristin van Ogtrop, Attila the Honey I''m Home. Richard Selzer, Love Sick. Mark Doty, Sweet Chariot. bell hooks, On Building a Community of Love. Cluster 2: Complicating Relationships. Laura Kipnis, Off Limits: Should Students Be Allowed To Hook Up With Professors? David Brooks, The Power of Marriage. Anna Quindlen, Say Farewell to Pin Curls. William Jelani Cobb, The Other L-Word. Cluster 3: Rethinking Relationships. Judy Syfers Brady, Why I Want a Wife. Michael Bérubé, Should I Have Asked John to Cool It? Peter Sauer, The Crows of War: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Relations of Species. 8: Communication. Cluster 1: The Politics of Language. Amy Tan, Mother Tongue. Deborah Tannen, Sex, Lies and Conversation. Gloria Anzaldúa, How to Tame a Wild Tongue. Gary Sloan, Sleuthing Patriotic Slogans. Cluster 2: Writing Matters. June Jordan, Nobody Mean More to Me Than You and the Future Life of Willie Jordan. Min Zhan Lu, From Silence to Struggle. Michael Chabon, Solitude and the Fortress of Youth. Jimmy Baca Santiago, Becoming a Poet. Cluster 3: Beyond Words. Steve Earle, In Praise of Woodie Guthrie. Beatriz Sarlo, Zapping. Bakari Kitwana, The Challenge of Rap Music. 9: Power. Cluster 1: The Process of Power. George Orwell, Politics and the English Language. Lani Guinier, The Tyranny of the Majority. Donna Ladd, I Hold These Truths to be Self-Evident. Wendell Berry, Thoughts in the Presence of Fear. Cluster 2: The Consequences of Power. Paula Gunn Allen, Where I Come From Is Like This. Wole Soyinka, Every Dictator''s Nightmare. Bill of Rights Pared Down to a Manageable Six. Cluster 3: Challenging Power. Henry David Thoreau, Resistance to Civil Government. Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail. bell hooks, Talking Back. Chisun Lee, American Splendor. 10: Spaces. Cluster 1: Creating Spaces. Jack Turner, Economic Nature. Rhonda Chriss Lokeman, Minimalist Memorial Can Do Justice to 9/11. Will Yandik, Ridding the American Landscape of Lawn. Cluster 2: Using Spaces. Scott Russell Sanders, Stillness. Verlyn Klinkenborg. Keeping a Lost World Alive. Diane Dufva Quantic, Uncommon Buffalo and the Buffalo Commons. Paul Goldberger, Disconnected Urbanism. Cluster 3: Valuing Place. Wallace