Texts, Art, and Films

Whole Texts: Novels and Nonfiction

In many of the Rhetoric/Composition class I've taught, a whole text is required in order to introduce students to some type of long-form piece of writing. Many of these texts would also be great for Intro classes in literature as well. I've taught some basic literary theory with Bless Me, Ultima, for example.

Bless Me, Ultima

Rudolfo Anaya

I love using this text for teaching the art of close reading. Anaya's prose is really lovely to parse and remains accessible for first-year students. Oh! And there's a full-length film that pairs wonderfully.

Themes: WW2, Colonization of W. US, Coming of Age, Religion, Masculinity, Violence,

Waste Wars

Alexander Clapp

This text is brand new to my teaching repetoire. So far students seem to appreciate the global focus and Clapp's narrative style.

Themes: E-Waste, Ongoing Colonial Power Structures,

Fahrenheit 451

Ray Bradbury

Look, it's a classic for a reason. My students love this book every time I assign it. For the most part, they hadn't read it in high school. It's also a quick read which is great for writing-heavy courses. I pair it now with data from the ALA on censorship.

Themes: Censorship, Police Violence, Knowledge, Repressive States, Consumer Culture

The Nutmeg's Curse

Amitav Ghosh

I taught this text a few terms ago in a class focused on argument structure. Ghosh gives some good examples of how to present evidence to make a claim. It comes in at 350 pages of material that might not be familiar to students, so that can be a lot to cover in short terms (like our 10 week quarters).

Themes: Colonization, Global Trade, Empire, Racial Capital

Between the World and Me

Ta-Nehisi Coates

This was a required text to teach my first year and I hung onto it for a few years after that because I love this piece and the connections to Baldwin. It can be hard to teach in a Composition space for students that don't have familiarity with the material Coates discusses: The Civil War, The Civil Rights Movement, etc. I've always wanted to teach it with We Were Eight Years in Power but haven't had the chance (yet!).

Themes: Race, The American Dream, Reparations

The House on Mango Street

Sandra Cisneros

This text offers a series of vignettes from the perspective of a twelve year old girl, Esperanza. It can be paired with Bless Me Ultima, broken into short sections, or read as a whole text. The language is clear and its a pretty quick read, so I find this particularly useful in developmental writing spaces.

Texts, Art, and Films

Whole Texts: Novels and Nonfiction

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