ReMix: Reading and Composing Culture [Paperback]

Catherine G. Latterell (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0312430183 | ISBN-13: 978-0312430184 | Publication Date: December 30, 2005 | Edition: 1st

Students live in a "remix culture" -- a do-it-yourself, collaborative, and creative culture in which they are the writers, designers, and creators. ReMix brings this creativity to the composition classroom by asking students to investigate the world around them, to question the assumptions behind everyday concepts such as identity, community, and technology, and to compose meaningful verbal and visual texts that speak to the culture they live in. With a mix of humor and analysis, ReMix inspires students to ask: Why do I think the way I do? What is my relationship to the culture around me? Am I truly, as one advertisement claims, "my playlist"? At last, here is a cultural studies reader that students will want to respond to.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

CATHERINE G. LATTERELL (Ph.D Michigan Tech) is associate professor of English at Penn State - Altoona where she teaches first-year rhetoric and composition, as well as advanced writing courses. Her research combines composition theory, cultural theory, and critical pedagogy to explore issues such as teacher training and curriculum development. Her publications include "Re-experiencing the Ordinary: Assignments that Map Technology's Impact on Everyday Life," in Practice in Context: Situating the Work of Writing Teachers from NCTE, and The Dissertation and the Discipline: Reinventing Composition Studies (coedited with Nancy Welch, Cindy Moore, and Sheila Carter-Tod) from Boynton Cook.

Product Details

• Paperback: 848 pages
• Publisher: Bedford/St. Martin's; 1st edition (December 30, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312430183
• ISBN-13: 978-0312430184
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #523,351 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Encourages active learning; discourages passivity, July 25, 2006

By 

Anonymous "writetothefinish" (Savannah, GA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: ReMix: Reading and Composing Culture (Paperback)

I disagree with the previous reviewer that this text is "far to the left." The texts included for discussion are not to determine political viewpoints; they are to challenge accepted social assumptions. Overwhelmingly, the readings are politically neutral and target non-political subjects like trying to fit in in a high school, cheerleading, participating in college traditions, etc. Some texts may make politically-sensitive professors uncomfortable, but they are few and far between, and can easily be ignored (each section contains more essays than an instructor can reasonably cover). These texts, like John Stewart's graduation speech, are obviously included because they present an unusual viewpoint, or because they oppose or debunk a commonly held assumption. I think the previous reviewere missed the point and threw out the baby with the water. Latterell asks students to challenge and question the texts, not to blindly accept them as "truth."

For example, the John Stewart graduation speech takes humorous potshots at the declining state of education when Stewart states that if the college is honoring HIM then education is indeed in trouble. One would except a graduation speech to contain many references to the lofty ideals of education, but Stewart does nothing but point to his own shortcomings, thus casting doubts on the wisdom of academia for selecting him, of all people, as an exemplary alumn. Stewart being the raging liberal that he is cannot help but take at least one indirect poke at Bush, but this is not the focus of the essay and students are sophisticated enough readers that they can respond to Stewart's poking in kind, or ignore it without much scuffing. Moreover, Latterell invites challenge with her questions: the essay is included for students to tear apart, analyze, and question, not to accept as Gospel. Perhaps Latterell might have included a few more essays that debunk commonly held assumptions from the conservative perspective, but the overwhelmingly obvious aim of the text is not to politicize or favor one view over the other as much as it is to encourage analysis and inquiry of even familiar and widely accepted assumptions, and this is obvious. Most of the essays included here are very good at what they do, and even the few that may be questionable are still good starting points for discussions. Most students love a controversy, after all. Freshmen are not mindless beings incapable of opinions.

What I like is that the text favors education as an active process of inquiry and investigation rather than a passive absorption of information. This is a very good thing. After almost 10 years of teaching freshmen comp I find one of the greatest challenges is to get students away from the "what do you want me to say/do?" mode that they acquired in high school to the "I can think for myself" attitudes I want to encourage in learned adults. This text helps.

Where the text really fails, unfortunately, is in a precise and student-friendly coaching of actual writing and rhetorical strategies. Her assignment suggestions, while interesting and innovative, presume a command of writing skills and analytical skills that freshmen students notoriously lack. There is little room in the text to allow for instructors to complement the missing information, too, since all the chapters and assignments, from the very first to the very last, demand that the students already be competent in their ability to describe, narrate, classify, define, analyze, organize and synthesize complex information.

Lattrell should have broken down her chapters not only by topics but also by rhetorical clusters that could be taught to the students in small, manageable sections. As the text stands, an instructor will have much to do in organizing herself and making sense on behalf of the students of all the complex information Latterell lumps together. An instructor taking the text at face value will have no fair standards by which to evaluate a student's essay, since it is unreasonable to expect a freshman student to be aware of the sophisticated stylistic and rhetorical devices Latterell takes for granted, and I can only imagine the disastrous results that these assignments would yield with well-meaning students fired up with ideas trying to make sense of all they want to say.

This is a good book, but you have to be prepared to work hard at selecting your readings, organizing your work, and supplementing Latterell's good ideas with plenty, plenty of your own material. This is why this book is a good idea, but not necessarily just yet an excellent text.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Culture Changes, March 23, 2006

By 

Dinty W. Moore "author of Between Panic and D... (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: ReMix: Reading and Composing Culture (Paperback)

A fascinating text with a smart premise: culture is mixing, remixing, and reinventing constantly. Lively readings. Students will respond well.

4.0 out of 5 stars Creative textbook--Works best for English 101, January 22, 2012

By 

Rachel McBain (Bremerton, WA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: ReMix: Reading and Composing Culture (Paperback)

I have used Remix twice in developmental English classes. The reader presents students with a series of cultural assumptions and texts that support or challenge them. Some of the readings were too challenging for developmental-level students, so several of our developmental faculty members created a custom reader called P/Remix for developmental-level. (Ask your book rep about creating a custom edition for your population.)
The text is engaging for younger students, but some of our older learners were nervous about the more intrusive activities (I don't use the assignment about showing the contents of the student's wallets!) and found the pop culture references off-putting. However, this can be dealt with by carefully choosing readings.