Cover: America Now, High School Edition, 10th Edition by Robert Atwan

America Now, High School Edition

Tenth Edition ©2013 Robert Atwan

The Common Cores standards stipulate that the English classroom incorporates more nonfiction but how can you make that nonfiction engaging for your reluctant readers? America Now. The text has always been characterized by its brief and very current readings that reflect what students are...
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ISBN:9781457636394

Cover: America Now, High School Edition, 10th Edition by Robert Atwan

What matters to students — from the best of print and the Web

The Common Cores standards stipulate that the English classroom incorporates more nonfiction but how can you make that nonfiction engaging for your reluctant readers? America Now. The text has always been characterized by its brief and very current readings that reflect what students are talking and writing about right now. As series editor for The Best American Essays, Robert Atwan constantly scours a wide range of print and online periodicals, bringing to America Now an unrivaled awareness of the best writing on today’s issues —and the top-notch editorial support students need to approach it and to create solid academic writing of their own. Today, the book is still the most current reader available, but it doesn’t stop there. A brand new multimodal collection online provides even more carefully curated, dynamic selections for your students. When you use America Now in your course, the essential texts of today are both the words on a page and the world on a screen. The print text is now integrated with E-pages for America Now, designed to take advantage of what the Web can do.

Features

Brief, current, high-interest readings. With every essay published since 2011 and over half from 2012 — and enriched by a new multimodal online collection — America Now is always up-to-date. To stimulate lively classroom discussion and writing, the readings are arranged into tightly focused units on such themes as love and friendship today, the environment, and the economy, presenting diverse perspectives on the issues.

All the editorial help students need includes lively chapter introductions, headnotes, prereading questions, writing suggestions, reading questions, helpful advice on expressing opinion, inspiring writing advice from fellow students, and plenty of support for ESL students.

Engaging visuals like comic strips, opinion advertisements, and historical "America Then" selections encourage students to think critically about visual texts.

New to This Edition

Extensive instructional materials for students includes chapter introductions, headnotes, prereading questions, vocabulary lists, and more—students have all the help they need to think, speak, and write clearly about the ideas that concern them. High school teachers love the questions on vocabulary, language, meaning, structure, and critical thinking that follow each selection, helping students better understand the principles behind solid writing.
 
Every single reading is new and written within the last two years, making America Now the most current short-essay reader available. Some highlights of the tenth edition: 
  • Barbara Ehrenreich and John Ehrenreich examine the origins of “the 99%.”
  • Ashton Kutcher asks, “Has texting killed romance?”
  • Ross Douthat advocates for reforming the American justice system with the goal of having “sentences that fit the crime.”
An unrivaled online multimodal collection, giving students even more ways to understand and explore the topics in the tenth edition.

Digital Options

Table of Contents

Preface for Instructors

The Persuasive Writer: Expressing Opinions with Clarity, Confidence, and Civility

  1. What’s in a Name?

    2. Dave Mosher, Easily Pronounced Names May Make People More Likeable (Wired Science, February 24, 2012)

    Maria Venegas, The DevilÕs Spine (Ploughshares, Spring 2012)

    STUDENT ESSAY: Greg Nasif (The University of Maryland), Washington, Yay! Redskins, Boo! (The Diamondback, October 13, 2011)

    AMERICA THENÉ 1507: Who Named America?

    e-Page The Baby Name Voyager

  2. Social Networking: Are We Still Friends?

    3. Ashton Kutcher, Has Texting Killed Romance? (HarperÕs Bazaar, January 2011)

    Christine Rosen, Electronic Intimacy (Wilson Quarterly, Spring 2012)

    STUDENT ESSAY: Shawn Ghuman (Virginia Tech), Technology Hurts Social Bonds (Collegiate Times, February 22, 2012)

    e-Page Hashtag Humblebrag

  3. Modern Love: Has Romance Changed?

    4. Rebecca Armendariz, Chat History [Good, Issue 024, Fall 2011]

    STUDENT ESSAY: Alexandra Franklin (University of Alabama), Part of a Whole, But Still Me [The New York Times, September 11, 2011]

    e-Page The Interactive Singles Map of the United States

  4. Who Is An American?

    5. ADVERTISEMENT: Think Indian (American Indian College Fund)

    Pico Iyer, The Terminal Check (Granta #116, Summer 2011)

    Thomas Chatterton Williams, As Black as We Wish to Be (The New York Times Sunday Review, March 18, 2012)

    Student essay: Meher Ahmad (University of Wisconsin-Madison), My Homeland Security Journey (The Progressive, May 2012)

    e-Page Project Implicit

  5. Marketing: Are We For Sale?

    6. Michael J. Sandel, What Isnt For Sale? (The Atlantic, April 2012)

    James Livingston, Why Thou Should Shop (Wired, December 2011)

    e-Page Admongo.gov

  6. College Sports: Is It Time To Change The Game?

    7. Buzz Bissinger, Why College Football Should Be Banned [The Wall Street Journal, May 8, 2012]

    Jordan Conn, Football Injuries and the Thumbs-Up Sign [Grantland, December 20, 2011]

  7. Violence: Where Are We Today?

    8. Steven Pinker, Violence Vanquished (The Wall Street Journal, September 24, 2011)

    Alex Kotlowitz, Defusing Violence (The Rotarian, February 2012)

    e-Page Violence on TV Statistics

  8. How Is Today’s Media Altering Our Language?

    9. Opposing Views: Does Spelling Count?

    Mikita Brottman, Spelling Matters (The Chronicle Review, January 20, 2012)

    Anne Trubek, Use Your Own Words (Wired, Feb 2012)

    Christopher Muther, We Get the Point!! (The Boston Globe, April 26, 2012)

    STUDENT ESSAY: Shayna Diamond (University of Hawaii), Words Are What We Make of Them (Ka Leo, February 5, 2012)

    e-Page Google Video: Do spelling and grammar matter when evaluating content and site quality?

  9. Education: Does College Still Matter?

    10. Andrew Delbanco, Three Reasons College Still Matters (The Boston Globe Magazine, March 4, 2012)

    Alex Tabarrok, Tuning in to Dropping Out (The Chronicle Review, March 9, 2012)

    e-Page Khanacademy.org

  10. The Economy: Are We Making Progress?

    11. Stephen Marche, We Are Not All Created Equal: The Truth about the American Class System (Esquire, January 2012)

    Bruce D. Meyer and James X. Sullivan, American Mobility: An Untold Story of Progress (Commentary, 2012)  

    Barbara Ehrenreich and John Ehrenreich, The Making of the American 99 Percent (The Nation, January 2, 2012)

    STUDENT ESSAY: Breanna Lembitz, A Taste of Freedom: What I Got at Occupy Wall Street (The Progressive, February 2012)

    e-Page Tumblr Comparison

  11. Can We Shrink Our Growing Prison Population?

    12. Joan Petersilla, Beyond the Prison Bubble (The Wilson Quarterly, Winter 2011)

    Adam Gopnik, The Caging of America (The New Yorker, January 30, 2012)

    Christopher Glazek, Raise the Crime Rate (N+1, Winter 2012)

    e-Page YouTube video: U.S. Private Prisons Want You

  12. Debating Climate Change: How Scientific is the Evidence?

Opposing Views

         Chris Mooney, We Cant Handle the Truth (Mother Jones, May/June 2011)

          Joseph Bottum and William Anderson, Unchanging Science (The Weekly Standard, November 28, 2011)

          STUDENT ESSAY: Matthew Petroff (Radford University), Well Drilling Technique Causes Controversy (The Tartan, February 14, 2012)

          AMERICA THEN: Carl Sagan, The Warming of the World

          e-Page Climatedots.org

Headshot of Robert Atwan

Robert Atwan

Robert Atwan is the series editor of the annual Best American Essays, which he founded in 1985. A former director of The Blue Hills Writing Institute at Curry College, Atwan has published essays, reviews, and critical articles in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Iowa Review, Denver Quarterly, Kenyon Review, River Teeth, Creative Nonfiction, and many other publications. For Bedford/St. Martin’s, he has also edited Ten on Ten: Major Essayists on Recurring Themes (1992); Our Times (1998); and Convergences (2009). He has coedited (with Jon Roberts) Left, Right, and Center: Voices from Across the Political Spectrum (1996) and is editor of America Now (2017).