Across Cultures: A Reader for Writers, 8th edition

Designed to offer an appealing anthology where there is an increased interest in connections between and among cultures, Across Cultures, strives to promote understanding of diverse cultures among students.

The book advocates acceptance of a diversity of voices, while suggesting ways to probe the correspondences, interrelationships, and mutual benefits of that diversity. The selections cover a great variety of cultural facets both in the readings and selected visuals that appear at the end of each chapter. Throughout the text, students are encouraged to draw connections between and among readings through “Correspondence” questions that accompany each selection, thus developing their critical thinking skills.

• Each unit contains selections on American culture by American writers, selections by writers from diverse ethnic groups within the United States, and selections by writers writing from or about cultures elsewhere, thus placing American culture and its diversity into a context of world culture.
• Student texts are included in most chapters, providing accessible models and helping students to see how their cultural experiences reinforce the themes of the anthology.
• Three categories of questions follow each reading—“Interpretations” provoke discussion topics and call attention to rhetorical features; “Correspondences” encourage students to explore cultural similarities and differences; “Applications” provide writing assignments and opportunities for collaborative work.
• Opening selections in each chapter are myths or folktales that place cultural issues in an historical context.
• Head notes provide biographical and cultural information about the author and subject for each selection.
• A Rhetorical Table of Contents helps students consider different types of writing offered in the anthology and provides flexibility for instructors in approaching the selections; a Rhetorical Glossary defines essential terms.

• With eighteen new readings- and more student essays- the eighth edition offers a fresh and updated perspective on the inter-cultural issues at the heart of the text.
• Because today’s students live in an increasingly visual world and multimedia has become the primary vehicle for learning, the text features fourteen brand new visuals. A new essay by Giovanni J. Gelardi also demonstrates how a visual artist perceives his work and provides guidance for students approaching images in the text. 
• Additional “Perspectives” questions that include “Web topics” have been added to help students use the Internet as a resource for thinking about the essays they have read. The new feature encourages students to consider topics that better reflect other kinds of literacies they are engaged in, including the visual, spatial, musical, and mathematical. The “Web topics” invite students to consider synthesizing information in written forms that push “literacy in bold new directions.”
• Chapter Eight, “Popular Culture,” has been recast to emphasize the impact of new technologies students frequently employ, such as the Internet and text messaging.
• Two new sets of essays are presented as a unit within the “Family and Community,” “Traditions,” and “Popular Culture” chapters to facilitate discussion and increase interactivity among the texts.