Rereading America Cultural Contexts for Critical Thinking and Writing

Reexamine deeply held cultural assumptions as Rereading America engages you with content that builds your skils as critical thinkers and writers.

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 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 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).

*Asterisks indicate new selections

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

Gary Soto, "Looking for Work"

Stephanie Coontz, "What We Really Miss About the 1950s"

Melvin Dixon, "Aunt Ida Pieces a Quilt"

Naomi Gerstel and Natalia Sarkisian, "The Color of Family Ties: Race, Class, Gender, and Extended Family Involvement"

*Cris Beam, from To The End of June: The Intimate Life of American Foster Care

*June Carbone and Naomi Cahn, from Marriage Markets: How Inequality Is Remaking the American Family

*Sarah Boxer, "Why Are All the Cartoon Mothers Dead?"

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

*Diane Ravitch, "The Essentials of a Good Education"

John Taylor Gatto, "Against School"

Mike Rose, "I Just Wanna Be Average"

Jean Anyon, from Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work

Malcolm X, "Learning to Read" [Note: Due to copyright restrictions, this selection is not available in e-book versions of the text.]

Jonathan Kozol, "Still Separate, Still Unequal"

*Carmen R. Lugo-Lugo, "A Latina in Academia: A Prostitute, a Servant, and a Customer-Service Representative"

*William Deresiewicz, "Don't Send Your Kids to the Ivy League"

Chapter 3: The Wild Wired West: Myths of Progress on the Tech Frontier

*Eric Schmidt & Jared Cohen, "Our Future Selves"

*Sherry Turkle, "Growing Up Tethered"

*Laurie Penny, "Cybersexism"

*Michael Harris, "Hooking Up"

*Charles Seife, "The Loneliness of the Interconnected"

*danah boyd, "Inequality: Can Social Media Resolve Social Divisions?"

Lori Andrews, "George Orwell—meet Mark Zuckerberg"

*Patrick Tucker, "Crime: Predicting the Who"

Chapter 4: Money and Success: The Myth of Individual Opportunity

*George Packer, "Sam Walton / Jay-Z "

Barbara Ehrenreich, "Serving in Florida"

*Gregory Mantsios, "Class in America — 2012"

*Robert B. Reich, from Beyond Outrage

*Alan Aja, Daniel Bustillo, William Darity, Jr., and Darrick Hamilton, "From a Tangle of Pathology to a Race-Fair America"

Diana Kendall, "Framing Class, Vicarious Living, and Conspicuous Consumption"

Kevin Bales and Ron Soodalter, "Slavery in the Land of the Free"

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

Jamaica Kincaid, "Girl"

Aaron H. Devor, "Becoming Members of Society: Learning the Social Meanings of Gender"

*Mona El-Ghobashy, "Quandaries of Representation"

Jean Kilbourne, "Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt: Advertising and Violence"

*Rebecca Solnit, "The Longest War"

Joan Morgan, "From Fly Girls to Bitches and Hos"

Michael Kimmel, "'Bros Before Hos':　The Guy Code"

*Ruth Padawer, "Sisterhood is Complicated"

Chapter 6: Created Equal: The Myth of the Melting Pot　

*Ta-Nehisi Coates, "The Case for Reparations"

*Linda Holtzman and Leon Sharpe, "Theories and Constructs of Race"

*Sherman Alexie, "Gentrification"

Cheryl I. Harris and Devon W. Carbado, "Loot or Find: Fact or Frame?"

*Alex Tizon, "Land of the Giants"

David Treuer, "Rez Life"

*Marcelo M. Suarez-Orozco and Carola Suarez-Orozco, "How Immigrants Become 'Other'"