Customer Reviews

ReMix: Reading and Composing Culture

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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.

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

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.

I disagree with most of what everyone here is saying. The book included a wide variety of stories and articles on MANY various subjects. There were liberal and conservative view points addressed from all sorts of different people with different ways of life or thinking. Overall a good book for the college writing class. I do agree with one thing though. It is overpriced, as is normal with most text books!

This book is amazing! I definitely recommend anyone to buy this book! The stories are great and they actually make you read between the lines.

this book was definately easy for me, transitioning from HS to college was scary but books like this make the college experience easier. Basically a large compilation of essays, with review questions. Its a good book.

The book i bought on amazon was in good condition for being used.

This book was used for a college english course writing course and was pretty interesting.

It's a book filled with short stories and magazine articles. Most of the book seemed to center around romance and feminism (the crazy man-hater kind), so i wasn't very compelled by it. Do books like this really need to exist with all the media we have easy access to today?

Great service, not complain at all. They were on point and I got my book early, THANK YOU!

I ordered this book for an online class I was taking over the summer. Not only did the book take 3 1/2 weeks to arrive, but it was not the right book I needed for the class! The description read first edition and I recieved the second edition. Don't order from them unless you want to be surprised by your purchase and get it late too.