Negotiations

This thematically arranged reader offers a view of the interaction between the theory of reading/responding to a text and the actual practice each individual brings to the process. The first six chapters focus on the different ways to read a text, while the second half of the book contains 60 multi-genre selections. Many of the readings are of texts by non-white and non-male writers or both, and show how cultural and social background affects literature. Among the genres featured are: short stories, essays, autobiographies, biographies, journalistic pieces, historical essays, folkloric works, literary criticism, and semiotic analysis. The book aims to weave recurring themes/works throughout, (Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants", which is introduced in chapter 1, is then used in chapters 2 and 3 to illustrate concepts, lending additional unity to the reading and to classroom discussion). The book includes writing assignments ranging from one or two word responses to journal entries, to documented essays and imaginative eleborations on a theme. An instructor's manual is included.