English

For freshman composition courses.

From Barbie to the Internet, the Simpsons to the malls, this engaging text on pop culture helps students develop critical and analytical skills and write clear prose while reading, thinking, and writing about subjects they find inherently interesting. Spanning a full range of topics, it provides key reading and writing strategies, and contains essays addressing a topic generally and then explores related material in depth. In addition to the readings, each section begins with a catchy cultural artifact that leads students into a detailed introduction, discussion questions, essay topics, and suggestions for further reading and research.

• NEW - World Wide Web Site: www.prenhall.com/petracca—A dedicated Web site for Common Culture features general links to information about popular culture, as well as links for each specific Internet Activity question.

  • Provides students with a convenient supplement to text content and serves as a starting point for their research in the field of popular culture. Ex.___

• NEW - 14 new readings.

  • Draws students easily into the text by featuring readings on the cutting-edge of today's popular culture. Ex.___

• NEW - Readings that represent more ethnically diverse perspectives—e.g., new readings on Latino music, on representations of minorities in advertising, on the portrayal of African-Americans on television, and on the participation of African-Americans on the Internet.

  • Makes the text meaningful and relevant to the wide cultural diversity of today's student population. Ex.___

• NEW - Several readings that analyze pop culture using methods from the social sciences.

  • Gives students the analytical tools they will need in either disciplines. Ex.___

• NEW - Internet Activity Questions—Two or three questions at the end of each chapter engage students in writing activities directly related to the Internet and World Wide Web.

  • Reinforces the Web as an important resource for information, particularly in regard to popular culture, and gives students hands-on practice in mining those resources. Ex.___

• A full range of topics in the field of popular culture—advertising, television, popular music, cyberculture, sports, movies and leisure.

  • Helps instructors avoid having to spend course-preparation time searching far and wide for readings appropriate to these individual areas. Gives students an opportunity to focus on specific pop-cultural areas that are especially appealing to them. Ex.___

• General and specific perspectives on each topic—The first section in each chapter presents essays that address a topic generally, while the second section explores the topic in depth.

  • Shows students how individual topics can be studied, discussed, and written about effectively in varying layers of complexity. Ex.___

• Models for student writing—The readings themselves demonstrate a range of rhetorical approaches (e.g., exposition, analysis, and argumentation) and offer varying levels of sophistication and difficulty in terms of content and style.

  • Offers the student a wide range of models from which to choose. Ex.___

• An introductory assignment walk-through—Ch. 1 walks students step-by-step through the process of reading a text critically and synthesizing material from multiple secondary sources. It moves students through a sequence of pre-writing activities, giving them concrete direction in formulating a first draft, reorganizing, and revising.

  • Orients students to the particular demands of university-level academic writing, specifically as those demands relate to the analysis of popular culture. Ex.___

• Casebooks on certain pop-cultural phenomena—e.g., the Barbie Doll, rap and hip-hop music, horror movies, and virtual communities.

  • Gives students an opportunity to make in-depth studies of certain pervasive artifacts and practices that they might otherwise take for granted, and gives them a chance to participate in spirited dialogues that surround the social impact of the phenomena to draw their own conclusions about them. Ex.___

• A rigorous, yet conversational (and sometimes even humorous) tone—Interspersed with pop-cultural artifacts, such as cartoons, advertisements, movie blurbs, etc.

  • Grasps and holds students attention. Ex.___

• Chapter-openers—Relevant and catchy cultural artifacts (e.g., a cartoon, an ad, an album cover).

  • Piques students interest and draws them into the material. Ex.___

• Questions for each article—Invites students to discuss, in class, the underlying meanings, purposes, and ideas in various pop-cultural artifacts and practices.

  • Helps students read the articles closely, understand their content, articulate the main points contained therein, and formulate a written response. Ex.___

• Writing assignments—Sequenced, yet flexible, assignments move from relatively basic concerns to tasks that require a greater degree of critical skill. They give students specific and pointed direction in writing college-level essays on the issues discussed in the readings.

  • Offers students opportunities for different kinds of writing (research, analysis, argument), perhaps with an interdisciplinary approach. Provides instructors with a broad range of assignments enabling them to easily adapt the book to meet the specific needs of their students. Ex.___

• World Wide Web Site: www.prenhall.com/petracca—A dedicated Web site for Common Culture features general links to information about popular culture, as well as links for each specific Internet Activity question.

  • Provides students with a convenient supplement to text content and serves as a starting point for their research in the field of popular culture. Ex.___

• 14 new readings.

  • Draws students easily into the text by featuring readings on the cutting-edge of today's popular culture. Ex.___

• Readings that represent more ethnically diverse perspectives—e.g., new readings on Latino music, on representations of minorities in advertising, on the portrayal of African-Americans on television, and on the participation of African-Americans on the Internet.

  • Makes the text meaningful and relevant to the wide cultural diversity of today's student population. Ex.___

• Several readings that analyze pop culture using methods from the social sciences.

  • Gives students the analytical tools they will need in either disciplines. Ex.___

• Internet Activity Questions—Two or three questions at the end of each chapter engage students in writing activities directly related to the Internet and World Wide Web.

  • Reinforces the Web as an important resource for information, particularly in regard to popular culture, and gives students hands-on practice in mining those resources. Ex.___

(NOTE: Each chapter concludes with Additional Suggestions for Writing About... and Internet Activities.)

1. Reading and Writing about American Popular Culture.

2. Advertising.

3. Television.

4. Popular Music.

5. Cyberculture.

6. Sports.

7. Movies.

8. Leisure.

Additional Suggestions for Writing about Leisure.Internet Activities.For Further Reading: A Common Culture Bibliography.Acknowledgments.Index by Rhetorical Mode.Index by Academic Discipline.Index by Author and Title.

First-Year Composition - Reader  [STYLE/RHETORICAL GRAMMAR]   (Composition)

• 
  Common Culture, 6/E
  Petracca & Sorapure
  ©2010 | Allyn & Bacon | Paper; 656 pp | Instock
  ISBN-10: 0205645771 | ISBN-13: 9780205645770
  Brief Description | Buy from myPearsonStore

  

   

  This efficient popular culture reader helps students develop critical and analytical skills and write clear prose while immersing themselves in subjects they find interesting: advertising, television, popular music, technology, sports, and movies.

• 
  Common Culture: Reading and Writing About American Popular Culture, 5/E
  Petracca & Sorapure
  ©2007 | Allyn & Bacon | Paper; 656 pp | Instock
  ISBN-10: 0132202670 | ISBN-13: 9780132202671
  Brief Description

  

  For Freshman Composition courses and Popular Culture courses.

  From Barbie to the Internet, the Simpsons to the malls, this engaging text on pop culture helps students develop critical and analytical skills and write clear prose while reading, thinking, and writing about subjects they find interesting. Spanning a full range of topics, this text provides key reading and writing strategies; it contains essays addressing a topic generally followed by an in-depth exploration of related material. In addition to the readings, each section begins with a catchy cultural artifact that leads students into a detailed introduction, discussion questions, essay topics, and suggestions for further reading and research.

"The presentations before I switched readers were almost painful. When I switched to Common Culture, the presentations were so lively!" Mina McConigley, University of Wyoming