Achieve for Rereading America (2-Term/Twelve-Months Online; International Edition)

Cultural Contexts for Critical Thinking and Writing

Twelfth Edition

Publication Date: May 24, 2022

Achieve ISBN: 9781319511630

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 theyve watched their students grow as critical thinkers and writers as they grapple with diverse readings that not only engage them, but also challenge them to...

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ISBN: 9781319511630
Achieve for Rereading America (2-Term/Twelve-Months Online; International Edition)

$91.95

*Asterisks indicate new selections

Introduction: Thinking Critically, Challenging Cultural Myths
1. Equal Protection: Myths of Justice
*“The New Jim Crow,” Michelle Alexander
“The Case for Reparations,” Ta-Nehisi Coates
“How Immigrants Become ‘Other,’” Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco and Carola Suárez-Orozco
*“The Land Before Laws,” Dina Gilio-Whitaker
*Visual Portfolio: Reading Images of Justice
*“Two Worlds,” Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac
From Loving: Interracial Intimacy in America and the Threat to White Supremacy, Sheryll Cashin
*“The Accidental Citizen,” Parker J. Palmer

2. Learning Power: The Myth of Education and Empowerment
“Against School,” John Taylor Gatto
“‘I Just Wanna Be Average,’” Mike Rose
“Choosing a School for My Daughter in a Segregated City,” Nikole Hannah-Jones
Visual Portfolio: Reading Images of Education and Empowerment
“Education: Attentional Disarray,” Sherry Turkle
*From Educated, Tara Westover
“Blurred Lines, Take Two,” Peggy Orenstein
“City of Broken Dreams,” Sara Goldrick-Rab

3. The Wired West: Myths of Progress on the Tech Frontier
“Our Future Selves,” Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen
“Has the Smartphone Destroyed a Generation?” Jean M. Twenge
“Let’s Get Lost,” Kenneth Goldsmith
*“The Tech We Throw Away,” Tatiana Schlossberg
Visual Portfolio: Reading Images of Wired Culture
*“Why Are Black and Latino People Still Kept Out of the Tech Industry?” Sam Dean and Johana Bhuiyan
“How We Sold Our Souls—and More—to the Internet Giants,” Bruce Schneier
“Big Data, Google, and the End of Free Will,” Yuval Noah Harari

4. Money and Success: The Myth of Individual Opportunity
“Class in America,” Gregory Mantsios
“Serving in Florida,” Barbara Ehrenreich
“From a Tangle of Pathology to a Race-Fair America,” Alan Aja, Daniel Bustillo, William Darity, Jr., and Darrick Hamilton
From How the other Half Banks, Mehrsa Baradaran
Visual Portfolio: Reading Images of Individual Opportunity
“Framing Class, Vicarious Living, and Conspicuous Consumption,” Diana Kendall
“Why We Should Give Free Money to Everyone,” Rutger Bregman

5. True Women and Real Men: Myths of Gender
“How to Do Gender,” Lisa Wade and Myra Marx Ferree
From The Gender Knot: “Patriarchy,” Allan G. Johnson
*“The Gendered Waters in Which We Swim--the Pink and Blue Tsunami,” Gina Rippon
Visual Portfolio: Reading Images of Gender
“Guys’ Club: No Faggots, Bitches, or Pussies Allowed,” Carlos Andrés Gómez
*“Blind Spots: On Subconscious Sex and Gender Entitlement,” Julia Serano
“Sisterhood Is Complicated,” Ruth Padawer
From Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change, Ellen K. Pao

6. Created Equal: Myths of Race
“Theories and Constructs of Race,” Linda Holtzman and Leon Sharpe
*“Definitions,” Ibram X. Kendi
*“How Does Race Shape the Lives of White People?” Robin DiAngelo
Visual Portfolio: Reading Images of Race
From Muslim Girl, Amani Al-Khatahtbeh
*“The Reality of Asian American Oppression,” Rosalind S. Chou and Joe R. Feagin
*“Myths about Native Americans,” Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Dina Gilio-Whitaker
“Passport to the New West,” José Orduña

Acknowledgments
Index of Authors and Titles

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) U.S. laws provide equal protection and justice for all; (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 diverse readings. In the chapter introductions, the authors explain and examine the foundations of each cultural myth and offer pre-reading questions to help students reflect on their own experiences and assumptions. The 41 readings throughout the text challenge those myths with thought-provoking ideas and diverse points of view such as these:

Ta-Nehisi Coates, in “The Case for Reparations,” makes a persuasive argument as to why reparations for Black Americans are necessary and just.
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.
Sara Goldrick-Rab, in “City of Broken Dreams,” studies the impact of college costs on working-class students and finds that colleges often reproduce the social inequities that place a special burden on these students.

These diverse 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) to the popular (journalistic accounts, cartoons, 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 additional research on each chapter’s myth.

Achieve with Rereading America provides a dedicated composition space to guide students through drafting, peer review, Source Check, reflection, and revision. Achieve is a flexible, integrated suite of tools for designing and facilitating writing assignments, paired with actionable insights that make students’ progress toward outcomes clear and measurable. Developed to support best practices in commenting on student drafts, Achieve includes an e-book, fully editable pre-built assignments that support the book’s approach, reading comprehension quizzes, assignable Engaging the Text questions and Visual Portfolios, and other interactive materials--all designed to facilitate student engagement.

A new chapter, “Equal Protection: Myths of Justice,” explores the complexity of creating a truly just society in the United States. Writers such as Ta-Nehisi Coates, Michelle Alexander, Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco, Sheryll Cashin, and Parker J. Palmer challenge students to consider justice in the context of economic and racial equity, immigration, and the environment.

Thirteen new selections (30%) offer powerful voices speaking on issues of race, gender, class, education, and technological progress. Provocative and timely new selections include these:

Julia Serano, in “Blind Spots: On Subconscious Sex and Gender Entitlement,” explores the roots of bias against transgender people through the lens of her personal experience.
Rosalind S. Chou and Joe R. Feagin, in “The Reality of Asian American Oppression,” expose how the myth of the “model minority” obscures a long history of racism against Asian Americans.
Ibram X. Kendi, in “Definitions,” examines what it means to be antiracist rather than “not racist.”

New selections challenge students to focus on environmental issues. New readings on the environment are integrated with other chapter themes:

Dina Gilio-Whitaker, in “The Land Before Laws,” challenges the notion of national parks as sites of environmental conservation, exploring their history as Indigenous lands.
Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac, in “Two Worlds,” invite us to imagine alternative futures in which we either take action to combat climate change or, to our peril, we do not.
Tatiana Schlossberg, in “The Tech We Throw Away,” explores the unseen impact of discarding rather than recycling personal devices.

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.

Uzzie T. Cannon

Uzzie T. Cannon is an Associate Professor of English at Norfolk State University. She earned a Ph.D. from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she specialized in African American Literature and Composition and Pedagogy. She went on to earn a second M.A. in Digital Humanities from Loyola University Chicago. As a teaching scholar, Dr. Cannon enjoys teaching first-year composition, where she sharpens students’ critical reading, thinking, and writing skills. In her literary research, she explores the intersection of race, gender, and narrative form in contemporary African American fiction. She has published in journals such as African American Review and CEA Critic and has published book chapters on Black masculinity. Dr. Cannon also loves building digital humanities tools and applications for research in the humanities. When not teaching or writing, she loves to travel and to create black-and-white images in photography.

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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