Understanding Ourselves is a multicultural reader for basic writers built around the theme of personal identity. This flexible text encourages active reading through high interest, accessible essays, short stories, and poems on the theme of identity, and links the complementary functions of reading and writing.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Strategies for Active Reading in the Writing Class. Strategy 1: Marking Your Books (What Others Never Told You). Strategy 2: Writing a Response Statement. Strategy 3: Recording Thoughts in a Reading Journal. I. MAKING CHOICES: ESTABLISHING AN ADULT IDENTITY. The End of My Childhood, N. Scott Momaday. Salvation, Langston Hughes. Growing Up, Russell Baker. Fifth Chinese Daughter, Jade Snow Wong. Daddy Tucked the Blanket, Randall Williams. My Papa’s Waltz, Theodore Roethke. My Father’s Song, Simon J. Ortiz. The Terrible Twenties, Daniel Smith-Rowsey. Teenagers in Dreamland, Robert J. Samuelson. Predictable Crises of Adulthood, Gail Sheehy. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Joyce Carol Oates. II. ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN: ACHIEVING IDENTITY AS A MEMBER OF A MINORITY GROUP. Theme for English B, Langston Hughes. Knoxville, Tennessee, Nikki Giovanni. Back Again, Home, Don L. Lee. The Handicap of Definition, William Raspberry. Hispanics Come with Many Voices, Roger E. Hernandez. Like Mexicans, Gary Soto. The Culture of Silence, Maxine Hong Kingston. For My Indian Daughter, Lewis P. Johnson. The Enemy’s Eyes, Emma Lee Warrior. The Red Convertible, Louise Adroit. Jon Will’s Aptitudes, George F. Will. III. THE MEANING OF MALE AND FEMALE: ESTABLISHING IDENTITY IN THE FACE OF GENDER CONFLICTS. Abortion Fight Is Over Choice, Victoria Bissell Brown. Hills Like White Elephants, Ernest Hemingway. The Most Influential Investment, Lawrence Summers. Hidden Lessons, Clare Safran. Teacher’s Classroom Strategies Should Recognize That Men and Women Use Language Differently, Deborah Tannen. Living in Sin, Adrienne Rich. Daystar, Rita Dove. This Is Just to Say, William Carlos Williams. Why Marriages Fail, Annie Roiphe. A Serious Talk, Raymond Carver. Escaping the Daily Grind for Life as a House Father, Rick Greenberg. The Androgynous Male, Noel Perrin. IV. A CHANGING SENSE OF SELF: REDEFINING IDENTITY IN MID-LIFE. Mississippi Solo, Eddy Harris. The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost. I Stand Here Ironing, Tillie Olsen. The Neighborhood Mom, Ellen Goodman. Why Young Women Are More Conservative, Gloria Steinem. Richard Cory, Edwin Arlington Robinson. Real Trouble Ahead, Jack McClintock. The Doctor, Andre Dubus. V. WHAT DO I BELIEVE? DEFINING A NATIONAL IDENTITY. The Pretty Colored Snake, A Cherokee Story. The Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson. Indian Singing in 20th Century America, Gail Tremblay. I Have a Dream, Martin Luther King, Jr. Beyond the Melting Pot, William A. Henry, III. The Stream, Leonel I. Castillo. I Just Wanna Be Average, Mike Rose. King Death, Tess Gallagher. Longing to Die of Old Age, Alice Walker. On the Pulse of Morning, Maya Angelou. Allusions.