Grounded in the belief that reading and writing always occur in context, THE THOMSON READER helps student writers improve their critical reading and writing skills by teaching them the value of contextual awareness. This first-ever, full color thematic reader teaches students to employ audience-centered writing strategies as they explore ongoing conversations about cultural, academic, political, and personal ideologies. THE THOMSON READER also provides students with a fully-integrated library, containing over 300 traditional, image, audio, and video "texts" that teaches them how to recognize, assess, and manage the rhetorical situations of a variety of engaging themes-regardless of the medium, or context.