Fluent Essays

This assignment is not due in 15 days. The earliest assignment is due in 5 days! There are 6 assignments in total!The HW below will get you ready for Essay 3. The more time and energy you give to your assignments, the easier Essay 3 should be. The general topic of Essay 3 is to analyze a social media site or other form of online social interaction, and how it may reflect today’s culture.+25#11: 1. From your SL book, select two essays from Chapter 5 (“The Cloud”). For your two selected essays, write an 8-sentence summary for each with at least 2 cited quotes for each. Be sure the essay “Title,” author, and thesis are in the first sentence.2. Write an 8-sentence personal and/or observation example regarding a particular social media site and whether it was a positive or negative experience. You can interview someone, but be sure to include his/her name.*This homework assignment is due by 9am on Tuesday, May 26th.+25#12: 1. From your SL book, select two essays from Chapter 6 (“My Selfie, My Self”). For your two selected essays, write an 8-sentence summary for each with at least 2 cited quotes for each. Be sure the essay “Title,” author, and thesis are in the first sentence.2. Construct a mini Works Cited with your 4 selected SL essays.*This homework assignment is due by 9am on Thursday, May 28th.+25#13: 1. Research 3 or more articles on your one selected social media site. Write a 3-sentence analysis/summary for each of your articles with at least one quote each.2. Construct a mini Works Cited utilizing your articles.3. Google “The MLA Style Center.” Open “Sample Papers in MLA Style.” Find Alyial Gonzales’s essay “Distrupting White Normativity . . ..” Note the 9 entries in her Works Cited, page 9. For each of her 9 entries, next to each listing, write the page number where that listing can be found inside her essay, for example: 1.) Andersen p. 3. This means you have to read her essay. Do not retype the whole entry. Some authors are on multiple pages; just cite one: Benjamin p. 7.*This homework assignment is due by 9am on Tuesday, June 2.+25#14: 1. Write at least an 8-sentence Introduction for Essay 3 regarding your selected social media site. You could use your personal experience/observation example from +25#11 Part 2. Make sure your practice thesis is the last sentence of the paragraph and contains your opinion about your subject. 2. Construct your possible Essay 3 Works Cited using the two SL essays you plan to mention inside your essay including your three researched articles. Hopefully you can cut and paste the entries you already constructed. *+25#14 is due by 9am on Thursday, June 4th. The last two HW assignments are due the week after Essay 3: +25#15 and +25#16: Finish the Ecotopia book! This 50 pt. assignment includes The ten quote/comments for the third and forth section(pp. 91-138, and pp. 139-181) add up to 20 total; these 20 cited quotes/comments due before 9am on Thursday, June 18th. signs_of_life_in_the_u.s.a____sonia_maasik.pdf ecotopia___callenbach__ernest_.pdf Unformatted Attachment Preview 2 3 Ninth Edition 4 Signs of Life in the U.S.A. Readings on Popular Culture for Writers 5 Ninth Edition 6 Signs of Life in the U.S.A. Readings on Popular Culture for Writers Sonia Maasik University of California, Los Angeles Jack Solomon California State University, Northridge 7 For Bedford/St. Martin’s Vice President, Editorial, Macmillan Learning Humanities: Edwin Hill Senior Program Director for English: Leasa Burton Program Manager, Readers and Literature: John E. Sullivan III Marketing Manager: Joy Fisher Williams Director of Content Development: Jane Knetzger Developmental Editor: Sherry Mooney Associate Content Project Manager: Matt Glazer Workflow Manager: Lisa McDowell Production Supervisor: Robert Cherry Media Project Manager: D. Rand Thomas Editorial Services: Lumina Datamatics, Inc. Composition: Lumina Datamatics, Inc. Photo Editor: Angela Boehler Photo Researcher: Terri Wright Permissions Editor: Angela Boehler Senior Art Director: Anna Palchik Cover Design: William Boardman Cover Art/Cover Photo: Replica Statue of Liberty and roller coaster on exterior of New YorkNew York Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA / David Wall / Alamy Stock Photo; Muncie - Circa August 2016: Legacy McDonald’s Hamburger Sign with Speedee / Jonathan Weiss / Alamy Stock Photo; Geological rock ridge in a California state park marks the San Andreas Fault Line / kenkisler / Shutterstock; Abraham Lincoln Memorial Sitting Chair famous Landmark Closeup Phrase Washington DC Monument / Hunter Bliss / Shutterstock; Route 66. Road sign of the more famous American road / Marco Mariani / Shutterstock. Copyright © 2018, 2015, 2012, 2009 by Bedford/St. Martin’s. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except as may be expressly permitted by the applicable copyright statutes or in writing by the Publisher. 210987 fedcba For information, write: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 75 Arlington Street, Boston, MA 02116 ISBN: 978-1-319-13186-9 (EPUB) Acknowledgments Text acknowledgments and copyrights appear at the back of the book on pages 569–73, which constitute an extension of the copyright page. Art acknowledgments and copyrights appear on the same page as the art selections they cover. 8 Preface for Instructors A funny thing happened on the way to the ninth edition of Signs of Life in the U.S.A.: Donald Trump — contrary to all of the projections that the latest in predictions markets technology could muster — was elected president of the United States. This gave us pause: not because we had any intention of turning our book into some sort of “Trump Reader,” but because the election at once both verifies the fundamental premises of earlier editions of Signs of Life and promises to affect American culture in ways that it behooves the current edition to anticipate and address. And that is what we have strived to do, in as nonpartisan a manner as we can. There are two basic ways in which the presidential election of Donald Trump bears out the guiding principles of this book. First, it exemplifies, in a particularly striking manner, the preeminent place of popular culture in contemporary American life. For Trump’s road to the White House was paved in large part both by his success as a reality TV star and by his no-holds-barred employment of Twitter as a means to communicate with his followers. Not even the election of Ronald Reagan (himself a former entertainment figure) can really compare in this regard, because Reagan had spent years in the political arena — most notably as governor of California — before he went to Pennsylvania Avenue, and candidate Reagan had no social media available to maintain a 24/7 connection with voters. So 2016 really was different, reflecting the full coming of age of the power of pop culture. But there is a second way in which the Trump presidency reflects what earlier editions of Signs of Life presumed and explored: the ever-growing ideological divide between two Americas — often called red state and blue state — is a theme that this book formally addressed in chapters devoted to the fundamental contradictions that have riven this nation from its inception. And if anyone has doubted the existence of this division, or felt that it was only a sideshow to a basically unified country, the Trump election, and more importantly its aftermath, loudly says otherwise. Americans have really seen nothing quite like this since the Civil War. So, putting aside our own opinions about what could be called the “Election Heard Round the World,” we have created this new edition of our book with our 9 foundational assumptions not only strengthened but intensified: that American popular culture, no longer a mere cultural embellishment or ornament, now permeates almost everything we do, even as it reflects back to us what we are becoming as a society and who we are. Thus, if we wish to understand America today, we must learn to think critically about the vast panoply of entertainments and commodities that were once condescendingly dismissed as elements of “mass culture.” And that is what Signs of Life in the U.S.A. has always been designed to teach your students to do. 10 Then and Now The importance of thinking critically about popular culture has not always been apparent in the academic world. When the first edition of Signs of Life appeared, the study of popular culture was still embroiled in the “culture wars” of the late 1980s and early 1990s, a struggle for academic legitimacy in which the adherents of popular cultural studies prevailed so thoroughly that it now seems surprising that anyone ever objected to it at all. For today, the importance of understanding what Michel de Certeau has called “the practice of everyday life,” and the value of using popular culture as a thematic ground for educating students in critical thinking and writing, is now taken for granted, as what was once excluded from academic study on the basis of a naturalized distinction between “high” and “low” culture is now an accepted part of the curriculum, widely studied in freshman composition classrooms as well as in upper-division undergraduate courses and graduate seminars. But recognition of the importance that popular culture has assumed in our society has not been restricted to the academy. Increasingly, Americans are realizing that American culture and popular culture are virtually one and the same, and that whether we are looking at our political system, our economy, or simply our national consciousness, the power of popular culture to shape our lives is strikingly apparent. That’s why, unlike most other popular culture texts, Signs of Life adopts an interpretive approach — semiotics — explicitly designed to analyze that intersection of ideology and entertainment that we call popular culture. We continue to make semiotics the guiding methodology behind Signs of Life because semiotics helps us, and our students, avoid the common pitfalls of an uncritical celebration of popular culture, or simple trivia swapping. 11 The Critical Method: Semiotics The reception of the first eight editions of this text has demonstrated that the semiotic approach to popular culture has indeed found a place in America’s composition classrooms. Instructors have seen that students feel a certain sense of ownership toward the products of popular culture and that using popular culture as a focus can help students overcome the sometimes alienating effects of traditional academic subject matter. More profoundly, the use of pop culture content in a composition class is a way of abiding by the fundamental principle that learning is a movement from the familiar to the unfamiliar, an assimilation of the unknown by way of the already known. Coming to your class with an established expertise in popular culture, your students will be all the more prepared to learn the university-level critical thinking and writing skills that their composition classes are designed to impart. Reflecting the broad academic interest in cultural studies, we’ve assumed an inclusive definition of popular culture in this book. The seven chapters in Signs of Life in the U.S.A. embrace everything from the marketing and consumption of the products of mass production to the television programs and movies that entertain us. We came to choose semiotics as our approach to such subjects because it has struck us that, while students enjoy assignments that ask them to look at popular cultural phenomena, they often have trouble distinguishing between an argued interpretive analysis and the simple expression of an opinion. Some textbooks, for example, suggest assignments that involve analyzing a TV show or film, but they don’t always tell a student how to do that. The semiotic method provides that guidance. As a conceptual framework, semiotics teaches students to formulate cogent, well-supported interpretations. It emphasizes the examination of assumptions and of the way that linguistic and cultural codes shape our apprehension of the world. And, because semiotics focuses on how beliefs are formulated within a social and political context (rather than just judging or evaluating those beliefs), it’s ideal for discussing sensitive or politically charged issues (like the 2016 presidential election). As an approach used in literature, linguistics, media and communications studies, anthropology, art and design coursework, sociology, law, and market research (to name only some of its more prominent field applications), semiotics has a cross-disciplinary appeal that makes it ideal for teaching a writing class to students from a variety of majors and disciplines. We recognize that semiotics has a reputation for being highly technical or theoretical; rest assured that Signs of Life in the U.S.A. does not require students or instructors to have a technical knowledge of semiotics. We’ve provided clear and accessible introductions that explain what students need to know. We also recognize that adopting a theoretical approach may be new to some 12 instructors, so we’ve designed the book to allow instructors to use semiotics with their students as much or as little as they wish. The book does not obligate instructors or students to spend a lot of time with semiotics — although we do hope you’ll find the approach intriguing and provocative. 13 The Editorial Apparatus With its emphasis on popular culture, Signs of Life in the U.S.A. should generate lively class discussion and inspire many kinds of writing and thinking activities. The General Introduction provides an overall framework for the book, acquainting students with the semiotic method they can use to interpret the topics raised in each chapter, while the section on “Writing about Popular Culture” provides a succinct guide to students for writing their papers, along with three sample student essays that demonstrate different approaches to writing critical essays on popular culture. The book’s section on “Conducting Research and Citing Sources” offers an updated guide to the latest MLA-style conventions to help your students properly document the research they’ve done for their writing assignments, and three articles that guide students in the appropriate use of the Internet as a research tool. Each chapter starts with a frontispiece — a provocative visual image related to the chapter’s topic — and an Introduction that suggests ways to “read” the topic, provides model interpretations, and links the issues raised by the reading selections. Every Chapter Introduction also contains three types of boxed questions designed to stimulate student thinking on the topic. The Exploring the Signs questions invite students to reflect on an issue in a journal entry or other prewriting activity, while the Discussing the Signs questions trigger class activities such as debates, discussions, or small-group work. The Reading Online questions invite students to explore the chapter’s topic on the Internet, both for research purposes and for texts to analyze. Two sorts of assignments accompany each reading. The Reading the Text questions help students comprehend the selections, asking them to identify important concepts and arguments, explain key terms, and relate main ideas to one another and to the evidence presented. The Reading the Signs questions are writing and activity prompts designed to produce clear analytic thinking and strong persuasive writing; they often make connections among reading selections from different chapters. Most assignments call for analytic essays, while some invite journal responses, in-class debates, group work, or other creative activities. Complementing the readings in each chapter are images that serve as visual texts to be discussed. We also include a glossary of semiotic terms, which can serve as a ready reference to key words and concepts used in the Chapter Introductions. Finally, the Instructor’s Manual (Editors’ Notes for Signs of Life in the U.S.A.) provides suggestions for organizing your syllabus, encouraging student responses to the readings, and using popular culture and semiotics to teach your writing class. 14 What’s New in the Ninth Edition Popular culture evolves at a rapid pace, and the substantial revision required for the ninth edition of Signs of Life in the U.S.A. reflects this essential mutability. First, we have updated our readings, including more than thirty new selections focusing on issues and trends that have emerged since the last edition of this book. We have also updated the exemplary topics in our Chapter Introductions, which are used to model the critical assignments that follow, and have adjusted the focus of some chapters to reflect the changing conditions of students’ lives and the ways they consume popular culture. And, in light of the Trump election, we have restored to this edition our chapter on American contradictions: “American Paradox: Culture, Conflict, and Contradiction in the U.S.A.” The way that students consume media has been revolutionized by digital and mobile technologies, and Signs of Life in the U.S.A. reflects this new reality, offering both an e-book version of the main text and a collection of reading comprehension quizzes for every reading in the book. These are available in LaunchPad Solo for Readers and Writers, a robust adaptable learning solution that can be packaged with Signs of Life in the U.S.A. for little to no cost. Even as we revise this text to reflect current trends, popular culture continues to evolve. The inevitable gap between the pace of editing and publishing, on the one hand, and the flow of popular culture, on the other, need not affect the use of popular culture in the classroom, however. The readings in the text, and the semiotic method we propose, are designed to show students how to analyze and write critical essays about any topic they choose. That topic may have appeared before they were born, or it may be the latest box-office or prime-time hit to appear after the publication of this edition of Signs of Life in the U.S.A. Currently popular social media sites may well have been replaced by more recently arriving digital hangouts within the life span of this edition (indeed, Facebook obliterated MySpace shortly after the publication of the sixth edition of this book), but such changes are opportunities for further analysis, not obstacles. To put it another way, the practice of everyday life may itself be filled with evanescent fads and trends, but daily life is not itself a fad. As the vital texture of our lived experience, popular culture provides a stable background against which students of every generation can test their critical skills. 15 Acknowledgments The vastness of the terrain of popular culture has enabled many users of the eighth edition of this text to make valuable suggestions for the ninth edition. We have incorporated many such suggestions and thank all for their comments on our text. We are also grateful to those reviewers who examined the book in depth: Robin Avner, Palomar College; Craig Bartholomaus, Metropolitan Community College Penn Valley; Sharon Becker, Towson University; Maria Cahill, Husson University; Tammy Cherry, Florida State College Jacksonville; Wallace Cleaves, University of California at Riverside; Sharon Estes, Bucks County Community College; James Geasor, Queensborough Community College; Matthew Hidinger, Allan Hancock College; Marcia Holland, Indiana University South Bend; Elana Kent-Stacy, College of the Canyons; Dan Portillo, College of the Canyons; Rocco Versaci, Palomar College. Finally, we’d like to give a special shout out to Eric Dinsmore of California State University, Northridge, whose suggestion that we have a look at the 2014 cinematic installment in the never-ending Godzilla franchise (along with providing us with the DVD) ended up making a direct contribution to our book. If we have not included something you’d like to work on, you may still direct your students to it, using this text as a guide, not as a set of absolute prescriptions. The practice of everyday life includes the conduct of a classroom, and we want all users of the ninth edition of Signs of Life in the U.S.A. to feel free to pursue that practice in whatever way best suits their interests and aims. Once again, we wish to thank heartily the people at Bedford/St. Martin’s who have enabled us to make this new edition a reality. We especially want to thank our new editor, Sherry Mooney, whose always cheerful, diplomatic, and efficient assistance has kept this edition on course from start to finish. Matt Glazer and Andrea Cava ably guided our manuscript through the rigors of production, while Robert Cherry handled the numerous questions and details that arose during textbook development. Terri Wright expertly researched and obtained permissions for art, and Elaine Kosta cleared text permissions. Our thanks go as well to Kristin Ferraioli for her fine copyediting of this book. 16 With Bedford/St. Martin’s, You Get More At Bedford/St. Martin’s, providing support to teachers and their students who use our books and digital tools is our top priority. The Bedford/St. Martin’s English Community is now our home for professional resources, including Bedford Bits, our popular blog with new ideas for the composition classroom. Join us to connect with our authors and your colleagues at community.macmillan.com where you can download titles from our professional resource series, review projects in the pipeline, sign up for webinars, or start a discussion. In addition to this dynamic online community and book-specific instructor resources, we offer digital tools, custom solutions, and value packages to support both you and your students. 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