With a mix of humor and analysis, a collection of fresh readings, engaging assignments, and an enticing design, Remix is not your ordinary textbook. It asks students to re-examine everyday concepts (such as identity, entertainment, and technology), to question assumptions about everyday life and culture, and to respond critically and creatively to some of the most imaginative projects you’ll find in a composition reader.
Built on the idea that students live in a do-it-yourself world in which they are writers, designers, and inventors of identity and culture, Remix invites students to bring their own creativity into the composition classroom. It inspires them to ask: Why do I think the way I do? What is my relationship to the culture around me? This inquiry-based approach allows students to write about culture and identity in a meaningful way.
*new to the third edition
1. Identity… or, who do you think you are?Emily White, High School’s Secret Life
*Alex Kuczynski, Identity Crisis: Sign Your John Hancock Here. Or is it Your Lady Gaga?*Jennifer Ouellette, Tokens and Totems*COMIC: Gene Luen Yang, Forfeit Your Soul*Heather Havrilesky, Bobos*Roland Kelts, The Fifth FlavorLucy Grealy, Masks*W. Ralph Eubanks, Color Lines*COMICS: Jim Davis and Dan Walsh, Garfield Minus Garfield
Paired Readings: Focus on LanguageGloria Anzaldúa, How to Tame a Wild TongueFiroozeh Dumas, The "F Word"
2. Community… or, are these your people? Paired Readings: Focus on BeliefsSarah Adams, Be Cool to the Pizza DudeAzar Nafisi, I Believe in Empathy*Garrison Keillor, In Search of Lake WobegonDavid Berreby, It Takes a TribeJon Stewart, Commencement Address*Dinaw Mengestu, Home at Last
Paired Readings: Focus on Social Networks*
The Onion, New Facebook Notifications Alert Users When They Not Currently Looking at Facebook*Kat Ascharya, What Facebook Is Doing to Your Brain Is Kind of Shocking*SIDEBAR: Louis C.K. … On Why He Doesn’t Want to Get a Phone for His KidsShari Caudron, Befriending BarbieCOMIC: Aaron McGruder, The Boondocks *Alessandra Rizzotti, How Citizen Science Is Saving Our Oceans*Joan Didion, Where I Was From*Mackensie Griffin, 'No Place For Discontent': A History Of The Family Dinner In America
3. Competition… or, is it in you? *COMIC: Bill Watterson,
Calvin and Hobbes Bruce Glassman, We Can Work It Out: The Beatles’ Creative CompetitionSIDEBAR: George Martin and the Beatles, On Collaboration*Frank Bruni, How to Survive the College Admissions Madness
Paired Readings: Focus on Originality*Nitsuh Abebe, On the Far Slope of the Uncanny Valley*Scott Plagenhoef, The Tumblr Trap*Barbara Ehrenreich, On Post-Positive Thinking*Dave Barry, Representing a Country is a Great Feeling *Flinder Boyd, When Smush Parker Saved the World*
Clickhole, Science FTW: IBM Just Announced A Robotics Competition To Stop The Winner Of The Previous Competition
Clustered Readings: Focus on Tips for SuccessDale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence PeopleStephen R. Covey, The Habits of Highly Effective People: Think Win/WinLois P. Frankel, Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office: Mistakes and Coaching Tips
4. Romance… or, what’s love got to do with it? *Mira Jacob, The Arranged Marriage That Ended Happily Ever After: How My Parents Fell In Love, 30 Years LaterTim Neville, Once Upon a Time in a TentDavid Sedaris, The End of the Affair SIDEBAR: Chris Rock… on Marriage*Emma Court, A Millenial’s Guide to Kissing
Paired Readings: Focus on the Science of AttractionBenedict Carey, The Brain in Love*David Rothenberg, Come Up and See My Bowerbell hooks, Baby and Daddy Gus*Tim Gunn, Know What to Get off Your Chest and What to Take to the GraveJacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Cinderella
5. Entertainment… or, why are we so bored? Katie Roiphe, Profiles EncouragedSIDEBAR: Ellen DeGeneres… on Celebrity*Mindy Kaling, Types of Women in Romantic Comedies Who Are Not Real*Michael W. Clune, The Sun and the Stars SIDEBAR: George Will… on Entertainment and Progress
Paired Readings: Focus on Music*James McBride, Hip-Hop Planet *Tom Junod, How Beyoncé and Taylor Swift Conquered the World with Pop Music Peter Rojas, Bootleg CultureDavid Nasaw, The Pernicious "Moving Picture" Abomination*William A. Ward, Humor From the Tombs *PHOTO ESSAY: Harry Pointer, 1870s-1880s: Victorian Lolcats*Amy Poehler, Things They Don’t Tell You about the Biz*David Mitchell, Something More Boring Instead*David Samuels, The Night Before the Grammys *Patton Oswalt, You Can, Unfortunately, Go Home Again
6. Technology… or, what’s so great about progress? *Michael Wolff, Television and the Way We Live Now
Paired Readings: Focus on LanguageChristine Kenneally, The First Word: The Origins of Language*Rebecca Armendariz, Chat HistoryLangdon Winner, Technological Somnambulism*SIDEBAR: Vivek Wadhwa, Our Lagging Laws*Adam Gopnik, How the Internet Gets Inside UsScott McCloud, Words and PicturesHenry Petroski, The ToothpickDonald A. Norman, The Psychology of People and MachinesSIDEBAR: Malcolm Gladwell, On the Perfect Innovation*Gloria Jahoda, Marshes and Moonports*Teddy Wayne, The Microcomplaint: Nothing Too Small to Whine About*Marco Kaye, Son, It’s Time We Talk about Where Start-Ups Come From
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