This compact text-reader offers 46 brief selections (primarily essays, but also short stories and poetry) that focus on connections across our nation's cultures. Part One is a solid introduction to the reading and writing processes, including a clear explanation of ways to develop an essay, with models of student writing; Part Two is an anthology divided into seven themes, each introduced by a pair of photographs.

Table of Contents:
What Does It Mean to Think in Cultural Contexts? PART I. CRITICAL READING AND WRITING 1. Critical Reading and Thinking: Recognizing Cultural Contexts What Is Culture? / Why Read and Think in Cultural Contexts? / Strategies for Reading and Thinking across Cultures 2. Reading to Respond The Process of Responding / Responding by Making Marginal Notes / Responding by Writing Journal Entries 3. Reading to Understand Understanding Unfamiliar Words / Summarizing to Understand the Main Idea and Supporting Ideas / Reading to Understand Inferences 4. Reading to Evaluate Understanding the Distinctions: Response, Summary, Inference, and Evaluation / Establishing Criteria for Evaluating / Using Criteria to Evaluate: Journal Entries / Using Criteria to Evaluate: Discussions / Summary: A Critical Reading Process 5. A Writing Process Writing for a Purpose / Developing a Writing Process / A Sample Writing Process PART II. ANTHOLOGY 6. Arrivals, Roots, and Memories Mary Antin, The Promised Land / Toshio Mori, The Woman Who Makes Swell Doughnuts / Joe Klein, The Education of Berenice Belizaire / Miguel Torres, Crossing the Border / John Tarkov, Fitting In / Patricia Hampl, Parish Streets / Fiction: Isaac Bashevis Singer, The Son From America 7. Families Tran Thinga, Letter to My Mother / Doris Kearns Goodwin, From Father, with Love / Gary Soto, Like Mexicans / Lindsy Van Gelder, Marriage as a Restricted Club / Sue Horton, Mothers, Sons, and the Gangs / Poem: Seamus Heaney, Midterm Break 8. Questions of Language Janice Castro with DanCook and Cristina Garcia, Spanglish / Gloria Naylor, A Question of Language / Barbara Ehrenreich, Zipped Lips / Chang Rae Lee, Mute in an English-Only World / Joseph Telushkin, Words That Hurt, Words That Heal: How to Choose Words Wisely and Well / Poems: Emily Dickinson, Three Poems on Words 9. Ways of Learning Jacques D’Amboise, I Show a Child What Is Possible / Isaac Asimov, What Is Intelligence, Anyway? / Maya Angelou, Finishing School / Nicholas Gage, The Teacher Who Changed My Life / Mike Rose, “I Just Wanna Be Average” / Malcolm X, Prison Studies / Fiction: Grace Paley, The Loudest Voice 10. Health: Mind and Body Paul Aronowitz, A Brother’s Dreams / Florida Scott Maxwell, Going Home / Eric Bigler, Give Us Jobs, Not Admiration / Anna Quindlen, The War on Drinks / Richard Seltzer, The Discus Thrower / Jacqueline Navarra Rhoads, Nurses In Vietnam / Fiction: William Carlos Williams, The Use of Force 11. Women and Men Brent Staples, Just Walk on By: A Black Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public Space / Jon Katz, How Boys Become Men / Judith Ortiz Cofer, The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria / Charles Osgood, “Real” Men and Women / Susan Jacoby, Unfair Game / Scott Russell Sanders, The Men We Carry in Our Minds … and How They Differ from the Real Lives of Most Men / Fiction: Kate Chopin, The Storm 12. Choices, Actions, and the Future Charles Krauthammer, Of Headless Mice … and Men / Rene Schanchez, Surfing’s Up and Grades Are Down / Lore Segal, Modern Courtesy / Samuel Francis, Illegal Motives / Linda Chavez, There’s No Future in Lady Luck / Meghan Daum, Safe-Sex and White Lies in the Time of AIDS / Fiction: Kurt Vonnegut, Harrison Bergeron Glossary of Terms Subject and Title Index