The World is a Text: The Writing, Reading, and Thinking About Culture and Its Contexts (2nd Edition) Review

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(More customer reviews)Using poetry, fiction, photos, and essays, the book offers a colorful tour of the subtle and not-so-subtle influences Americans deal with every day, and it guides the reader through the process of 'reading' these 'texts' that make up our world. The texts include not just the written variety but also television, movies, popular music, and public space.
The readings include essays on 'Seinfeld,' 'The Simpsons,' and the Rosie O'Donnell show, in addition to choice works by Neruda, Langston Hughes, Chris Haven, Kate Chopin, and many others. I haven't found a dry one in bunch, honestly, though at first glance I was afraid the section on public space would be a snooze. Not so! It's actually pretty thought-provoking.
The book's pedagogical emphasis is on getting readers to find and analyze the subtexts that run through cultural influences of all kinds and to explore their reactions through writing. I think this aspect of the book is very well done and would be effective in getting students to think critically about the world.
The strange and beautiful (not to mention utterly surprising) thing about this work is that it makes for consistently fascinating reading despite its status as a composition/cultural studies text. I've been leafing through the selections for pleasure reading, and from that perspective, it's an uncommonly tasty collection.
As a reader for a class, I think this book would be tremendously effective, and were I to teach a composition or cultural studies class, it would be my first choice.

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The book teaches readers the usefulness of learning to actively "read" their surroundings. The new edition features a greatly expanded section on writing, editing, and making arguments. This cultural studies reader directly engages the process of writing about the "texts" one sees in everyday life. Its comprehensive and inclusive approach focuses on the relationship between reading traditional works–such as short stories, and poems–and other less-traditional ones–such as movies, the Internet, race, ethnicity, and television. For anyone who enjoys provocative and engaging material, and is interested in developing an appreciation for diverse cultural literary works.

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