reading discussion

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zzzne

Humanities

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Read Chapter 2 and post 1 question you have about the chapter or post a topic based on the chapter for discussion on one of the following items listed below by . Post by 9/29 & Respond to TWO classmates by 10/2.

1. Annotating

2.Critical reading

3. Analyzing a text

4. Situation

5. Rhetoric

6. Purpose

7. thesis or main claims

8. composing a text

9. other

8. audience

9. genre

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mental." 45 HIRSCH I PREFACE TO CULTURAL LITERACY vinflu. ho has "y and 6 10 ok on chief book nd is onds ac- ster- 11 of he 7 ed Ie е a 12 Time has shown that there is much truth in the durable educational theories of both Rousseau and Plato. But even the greatest thinkers, being human, see mainly in one direction at a time, and no thinkers, however profound, can foresee the future implications of their ideas when they are translated into social policy. The great test of social ideas is the crucible of history, which, after a time, usually discloses a one-sidedness in the best of human generalizations. History, not supe- rior wisdom, shows us that neither the content-neutral curriculum of Rousseau and Dewey nor the narrowly specified curriculum of Plato is adequate to the needs of a modern nation. Plato rightly believed that it is natural for children to learn an adult culture, but too confidently assumed that philosophy could devise the one best culture. (Nonetheless, we should concede to Plato that within our culture we have an obligation to choose and promote our best tradi- tions.) On the other side, Rousseau and Dewey wrongly believed that adult culture is "unnatural” to young children. Rousseau, Dewey, and their present-day disciples have not shown an adequate appreciation of the need for transmission of specific cultural information. In contrast to the theories of Plato and Rousseau, an anthropologi- cal theory of education accepts the naturalness as well as the relativity of human cultures. It deems it neither wrong nor unnatural to teach young children adult information before they fully understand it. The anthropological view stresses the universal fact that a human group must have effective communications to function effectively, that effec- tive communications require shared culture, and that shared culture requires transmission of specific information to children. Literacy, an essential aim of education in the modern world, is no autonomous, empty skill but depends upon literate culture. Like any other aspect of acculturation, literacy requires the early and continued transmission of specific information. Dewey was deeply mistaken to disdain "accu- mulating information in the form of symbols." Only by accumulating shared symbols, and the shared information that the symbols repre- sent, can we learn to communicate effectively with one another in our national community. 2 8 Now let's take a look at the steps for doing a rhetorical analysis. Identify the Situation The situation is what moves a writer to write. To understand what moti- vated Hirsch to write, we need look no further than the situation he iden- tifies in the first paragraph of the preface: “the social determinism that now condemns [disadvantaged children] to remain in the same social and AS A READER HIRSCH I PREFACE TO CULTURAL LITERACY 43 $ did in following preface American Needs to as long been inter- his (and others) students many observers and poverty can own questions ysis (following and audience. 2 3 many ac- Pon't Have 1 Literacy of educa- our 4 uin." DEWEY to teach a fragmented curriculum based on faulty educational theories. Some say that our schools by themselves are powerless to change the cycle of poverty and illiteracy. I do not agree. They can break the cycle, but only if they themselves break fundamentally with some of the theo- ries and practices that education professors and school administrators have followed over the past fifty years. Although the chief beneficiaries of the educational reforms advo- cated in this book will be disadvantaged children, these same reforms will also enhance the literacy of children from middle-class homes. The educational goal advocated is that of mature literacy for all our citizens. The connection between mature literacy and cultural literacy may already be familiar to those who have closely followed recent discus- sions of education. Shortly after the publication of my essay “Cultural Literacy,” Dr. William Bennett, then chairman of the National Endow- ment for the Humanities and subsequently secretary of education in President Ronald Reagan's second administration, championed its ideas. This endorsement from an influential person of conservative views gave my ideas some currency, but such an endorsement was not likely to recommend the concept to liberal thinkers, and in fact the idea of cultural literacy has been attacked by some liberals on the assump- tion that I must be advocating a list of great books that every child in the land should be forced to read. But those who examine the Appendix to this book will be able to judge for themselves how thoroughly mistaken such an assumption is. Very few specific titles appear on the list, and they usually appear as words, not works, because they represent writings that culturally liter- ate people have read about but haven't read. Das Kapital is a good exam- ple. Cultural literacy is represented not by a prescriptive list of books but rather by a descriptive list of the information actually possessed by literate Americans. My aim in this book is to contribute to making that information the possession of all Americans. The importance of such widely shared information can best be un- derstood if I explain briefly how the idea of cultural literacy relates to currently prevailing theories of education. The theories that have dominated American education for the past fifty years stem ultimately from Jean Jacques Rousseau, who believed that we should encourage the natural development of young children and not impose adult ideas upon them before they can truly understand them. Rousseau's conception of education as a process of natural development was an abstract generalization meant to apply to all children in any time or place: to French children of the eighteenth century or to Japanese or American children of the twentieth century. He thought that a child's intellectual and social skills would develop naturally without regard to the specific content of education. His content-neutral conception of educational development has long been triumphant in American eg you best and boy NSON 5 1 ded z is rts od ss. of 1- n to CHAPTER 2 FROM READING AS A WRITER TO WRITING AS A READER can from ED Hirschs book Cultural Literacy. What Every American Needs We discuss each of these elements as we analyze the following preface ested in educational reform. That interest developed from his (and others') how (1987). Formerly a professor of English, Hirsch has long been inter- perception thar today's students do not know as much as students did in the past. Although Hirsch wrote the book decades ago, many observers poverty Read the preface. You may want to mark it with your own questions the preface) of Hirsch's rhetorical situation, purpose, claims, and audience. and responses, and then consider them in light of our analysis (following still believe that the contemporary problems of illiteracy and be traced to a lack of cultural literacy. to teach Some si cycle of but onl ries and have fo Alth cated i will als educat The alread sions Litera ment Presid ideas. views likely E. D. HIRSCH JR. Preface to Cultural Literacy E. D. Hirsch Jr., a retired English professor, is the author of many ac- claimed books, including The Schools We Need and Why We Don't Have was a best seller in 1987 and had a profound effect on the focus of educa- Them (1996) and The Knowledge Deficit (2006). His book Cultural Literacy tion in the late 1980s and 1990s. of cul tiont Rousseau points out the facility with which children lend themselves to our false methods: ... The apparent ease with which children learn is their ruin." -JOHN DEWEY land Bu judge Very word There is no matter what children should learn first, any more than what leg you should put into your breeches first. Sir, you may stand disputing which is best to put in first, but in the meantime your backside is bare. Sir, while you stand considering which of two things you should teach your child first, another boy ate p has learn't 'em both. - SAMUEL JOHNSON ple. but liter info T ders To be culturally literate is to possess the basic information needed great, extending over the major domains of human activity from sports to science. It is by no means confined to “culture” narrowly understood as an acquaintance with the arts. Nor is it confined to one social class. Quite the contrary. Cultural literacy constitutes the only sure avenue of opportunity for disadvantaged children, the only reliable way of com- bating the social determinism that now condemns them to remain in the same social and educational condition as their parents. That chil- dren from poor and illiterate homes tend to remain poor and illiterate is an unacceptable failure of our schools, one which has occurred not because our teachers are inept but chiefly because they are to c don from the ide: cor abs pla An int to of compelled DER 41 READING AS A WRITER: ANALYZING A TEXT RHETORICALLY in and make what you made to agraphs of s of your loss when aragraphs regation e student sto che Although the racial climate of the United States im- proved outwardly during the 1970s, racism still restricted the residential freedom of black Americans; it just did so in less blatant ways. In the aftermath of the civil rights revolu- tion, few whites voiced openly racist sentiments; realtors no on public record longer refused outright to rent or sell to blacks; and few local Luck of enforce ment of Civil Rights governments went on record to oppose public housing proj- Ace Fair Housing ects because they would contain blacks. This lack of overt Acer Gautreaux and Shannon? Why? racism, however, did not mean that prejudice and discrimi- Why not? nation had ended. Notice how the student's annotations help her understand the argu- ment the authors make. 1. She numbers the three key factors (racist attitudes, private behaviors, and institutional practices) that influenced the formation of ghettos in the United States. 2. She identifies the situation that motivates the authors' analysis: the extent to which "the spatial isolation of black Americans” still exists despite laws and court decisions designed to end residential segregation. 3. She makes connections to her own experience and to another book she has read by 2 urban black sive By understanding the authors' arguments and making these connec- tions, the student begins the writing process. She also sets the stage for her own research, for examining the authors' claim that residential segrega- tion still exists. er nce READING AS A WRITER: ANALYZING A TEXT RHETORICALLY 2 When you study how writers influence readers through language, you are analyzing the rhetoric (available means of persuasion) of what you read. When you identify a writer's purpose for responding to a situation by composing an essay that puts forth claims meant to sway a particu- lar audience, you are performing a rhetorical analysis. Such an analysis entails identifying the features of an argument to better understand how the argument works to persuade a reader: • how the writer sees the situation that calls for a response in writing • the writer's purpose for writing • intended audience • kinds of claims • types of evidence CHAPTER 2 FROM READING AS A WRITER TO WRITING AS A READER 40 Second process of you Sube on pe read. It's a sure way to avoid that sinking feeling you get when you retum important, confusing, or linked to specific passages in other texts you have by marking key ideas in a text, noting your ideas about them, and make to pages you read the night before but now can't remember at all. writing an essas When you start writing the first draft of your essay, you ing connections to key ideas in other texts, you have begun the find significant about them based on the notes you have already made to can quote the passages you have already marked and explain what yourself. You can make the connections to other texts in the paragraphs of your own essay that you have already begun to make on the pages of your textbook. If you mark your texts effectively, you ll never be at a loss when of Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton's American Apartheid: Segregation Let's take a look at how one of our students marked several paragraphs underlines what she believes is important information and begins and the Making of the Underclass (1993). In the excerpt below, the student Lack men Act Act and Why you sit down to write the first draft of an essay. to cre- m 1 ate an outline of the authors' main points. 1 = The spatial isolation of black Americans was achieved by 1. racist attitudes a conjunction of racist attitudes, private behaviors, and 2.private haviors institutional practices that disenfranchised blacks from urban 3.& institutional practices lead to ghet: tes (authors claim2) Discrimination in employment exacerbated black poverty housing markets and led to the creation of the ghetto. Ghetto = "multistory high-density housing and limited the economic potential for integration, and black projects."Fost-1950 residential mobility was systematically blocked by pervasive discrimination and white avoidance of neighborhoods con- I remember this happen taining blacks. The walls of the ghetto were buttressed after ing where I grew up, but! 1950 by government programs that promoted slum clearance didn't know the govern ment was responsible and relocated displaced ghetto residents into multi-story, Is this what happened in high-density housing projects. There Are No Children Here? In theory, this self-reinforcing cycle of prejudice, discrimination, and segregation was broken during the 1960s by a growing rejection of racist sentiments by whites t С t 2 Authors say situation of "spatial isolation" remains despite court decisions. Does it? and a series of court decisions and federal laws that banned discrimination in public life. (1) The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed racial discrimination in employment, (2) the Fair Housing Act of 1968 banned discrimination in housing, and (3) the Gautreaux and Shannon court decisions prohibited public authorities from placing housing projects exclusively in black neighborhoods. Despite these changes, however, the nation's largest black communities remained as segregated as ever in 1980. Indeed, many urban areas displayed a pattern of intense racial isolation that could only be described as hypersegregation
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Attached.

Running head: READING DISCUSSION

1

Reading Discussion
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Date

READING DISCUSSION

2
Main Claims

When people think about literacy, the literal definition has to come to mind that, it is the
actual skill obtained from reading and writing. This is well perceived "Cultural Literacy," by In
E.D. Hirsch where he argues differently. For example, he claims that on the crown of bona fide
literacy is a requirement to value cultural literacy, the unspecified shared broad knowledge of the
society. People can be technically literate. However, they are intelligibly illiterate.
The central claim discussed here by Hirsch is the decline of cultural literacy in the
classroom of Americans, using the demographics of seventeen- year- old in providing evidence
of his claim. Therefore, by using the experimental evidence from diversity of sources,
particularly the SAT’s, Hirsch indicates the decline in the nation’s ability to grasp and
understand reading, references as well as lack of familiarity with aspects like the basic civic
understanding of America; that the Civil War happened between 1850 and 1900 is the pattern
Hirsch uses.
The central claim of the ability of Americans to understand and connect issues that they
just read to assume common knowledge is an intellectual epidemic, and ev...


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