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AMERICAN VALUES AND ASSUMPTIONS -        Gary Althen In this chapter excerpt, Althen focuses on nine central values and assumptions shared by the majority of people living in the United States. He contrasts these cultural patterns with those of other nations and describes the types of problems and misunderstandings that can occur when people from different cultures, with diverse beliefs and perceptions, interact. First, he says what a culture is. People belonging to one culture have the same values and assumptions. They agree with each other about what is right and wrong what is desirable and what is undesirable. A culture is a collection of values and assumptions which help people how to react to the world. The first of the nine values is individualism. Individualism From a very early age, Americans have been taught to consider themselves as separate individuals responsible for luck and their situations in life. They have not been taught...

THE ANDROGYNOUS MALE       -  Noel Perrin Noel Perrin, in “The Androgynous Male,” describes his self-image in terms of how he does not meet traditional sex-role expectations for men in society. He remembers that in his childhood he was trying to suppress and repress his emotions and pretended to be strong and masculine. As he grows up, he feels confident about himself instead of feeling inferior. Perrin explains a lot of benefits and freedom of being s piritually androgynous and he feels sad that many of us never discover that there is a range of choices open for us. There are a large number of men living in the world who are too busy copying the he-men. Those men who fail to find out men and women come in a wide variety of acceptable types. Perrin gives two reasons for this frantic imitation. First, he believes those men are just envious of the he-man’s unconscious ease. The other reason is that those men are in the fear of finding that there may be something...

WOMEN HAVE WHAT IT TAKES -         Carol Barkalow In this short personal essay, Barkalow, an army officer, argues that women should be allowed to engage in frontline combat if they so choose. Reviewing some of the traditional attitudes of women and the military, she maintains that if women have the same training as men, and are as physically and mentally capable, they should be allowed to serve in all types of combat units. The writer joined West Point, a military academy in New York, because she loved discipline, comradeship, sportsmanship, and helping teammates. Women are humiliated at that time. But after ten years, the situation had changed. They were respected as their equals. However senior army officers have not worked with women as peers. Therefore they consider women as mothers, wives, or daughters and they are not ready to send women to the front. The writer participated in the Gulf War willingly. Although her troop was not in the front...

SEX, SIGHTS, AND CONVERSATION: WHY MEN AND WOMEN CAN’T COMMUNICATE         -  Deborah Tannen In her article “Sex, Sights, and Conversation: Why Men and Women Can’t Communicate,” Deborah Tannen focuses on gender differences in the use of language and on the frustration these differences cause when women and men converse. She starts with an anecdote about a woman and a man who are lost. The woman wants to ask for directions and the man doesn’t. Tannen outlines the major differences in the ways females and males use language. Beginning in early childhood, girls learn to use language to share feelings with their female friends and to create a sense of closeness. Boys, on the other hand, learn to use language to establish their independence and compete with their male friends. By spending more time, boys preserve their independence and self-respect. Tannen goes on to give several examples of how these difficult expectations about the functions of langu...

HOW THE WEB DESTROYS THE QUALITY OF STUDENTS’ RESEARCH PAPERS                                           - Rothenberg In this personal persuasive essay, Rothenberg discusses the recent decline he’s noticed in the quality of his students’ writing, critical thinking, and original argumentation due to their increasing reliance on the World Wide Web as a research tool. In addition to outlining the educational hazards of the Web, Rothenberg stresses the responsibility of teachers to help develop students’ critical thinking ability, including the hard work of reading closely, working through arguments, and assessing and synthesizing sources. Although students often disagree with Rothenberg about the dangers of Web research, finding him somewhat reactionary, they are engaged by the issues he discusses. This essay and the accompanying letter to the editor, “An Opposing View” by Richard C...