Richard Rodriguez is a great example of what it is like to be part of the students who belong to the schooled category. Rodriguez himself is one of the many students that lacked the ability to critically think. Rodriguez read and read books that his teacher once mentioned, but still didn’t feel smart. Being a "scholarship boy" Rodriguez was unable to critically think for himself and was unable to capture and completely understand what he was reading. "I lacked a point of view when I read." (Rodriguez 202) Not only did this make him feel like he wasn’t smart but also made him feel insecure about himself.So insecure that many times, after reading a book, he would look up reviews and comments on what people thought of the book because he believed…
Undoubtedly, some of the language in this week’s assigned reading challenges readers. The context journal helps students meet this challenge by identifying:…
The meaning of Graff & Birkenstein's book title They Say I Say is successfully explained in the first chapter. However, every single person that is asked what the title means will have a different reply because not one person will interpret the title in the same exact way. I understood that the title was a structure for writing and that it is important to have your own views in your writing depending on the type of paper which is the " I Say". Also its important to realize not everyone will not agree with your views so you should be considerate of others views which is the "They Say". I also think the title means you need to fully understand what you are writing about and all the perspectives people take on that view. I believe this title has…
In Gerald Graff’s essay Hidden Intellectualism; he criticizes those who do not put appropriate value into "street smarts." Graff persists that knowledge extends further than academic learning and carries into the everyday life. He writes about some of his precollege experiences with being as a “nonintellectual” due to his lack of interest in academic literary subjects. Graff also discusses how his interest in sports actually led him into academic intellectualism as an adult. Graff’s theses that intellectualism should not be restricted to just the “intellectual” academic subjects but instead should include popular interests of students into academic studies. Graff effectively debates that his childhood conversations with his friends are…
In Kingwell’s 2012 essay “Intellectuals and democracy”, He deduces that education should be pursued to form wiser and more intellectual citizens. The 2012 essay was published in Unruly voices: essays on democracy, Civility, and the human imagination. His essay has a specific eye on students and parents. Kingwell’s essay is deliberately a philosophical argument of what has become of the ideology behind todays goal for education. His main strategy to persuade the reader of his argument is to build a trust between the reader he builds this intrinsic ethos from the very beginning by sharing a personal experience from the past. The connection built becomes crucial to the validity of his statements and also his proposal later…
Mark Bauerlein's “The Dumbest Generation” states that being meaningfully connected is important, yet significantly interferes with our learning. The excerpt explains that we need to tone down our social connections in favour of education in order to excel in life, evident in Bauerlein’s statement, “Kids need a reprieve and retreat. For them to grow up into mindful citizens, and discerning consumers, then, adolescents need to break the social circuit and think beyond the clique and the schoolyard.” Bauerlein also holds the opinion on how “Maturity follows a formula: The more kids contact one another, the less they heed the tutelage of adults. When peer consciousness grows too fixed and firm, the teacher’s voice counts for nothing…
The football team from Mountain View High School won the Arizona State Championship last year. Again. Unbeknownst to the vast majority of the school’s student body, so did the Science Bowl Team, the Speech and Debate Team, and the Academic Decathlon team. The football players enjoyed the attentions of an enthralled school, complete with banners, assemblies, and even video announcements in their honor, a virtual barrage of praise and downright deification . As for the three champion academic teams, they received a combined total of around ten minutes of recognition, tacked onto the beginning of a sports assembly. Nearly all of the graduating seniors will remember the name and escapades of their star quarterback; nearly none of them will ever even realize that their class produced Arizona’s first national champion in Lincoln-Douglass Debate. After all, why should they? He and his teammates were “just the nerds.”…
In Hidden Intellectualism by Gerald Graff, he begins with the argument of “street-smarts” versus “school-smarts”. Graff explains that school-smarts can be hidden within street smarts and can be learnt through not just talking with friends, but also from the media and our surroundings, hence the “hidden” intellectualism. He goes onto explain that “schools and colleges overlook the intellectual potential of street-smarts” (198) because these types of intellectualism are actually considered anti-intellectualism. Graff then begins to discuss that intellectualism is often looked down upon within schools, and people that are considered “school-smart” are seen as nerdy, or boring. We learn that as a child, Graff was afraid of bullying and name-calling so he did not show his intellectual side out of fear. As he wanted to be accepted so badly, he decided to become an “inarticulate, carefully hiding telltale marks of literacy like correct grammar and pronunciation”. (201) Through this, he discovered that he was still able to show his intellectual side by using arguing and reasoning strategies while talking about subjects such as sports and toughness with his friends.…
In the article “Hidden Intellectualism” written by Gerald Graff, Graff target college students to inform them about a hidden intellectualism that can be found in our everyday society. In the article Graff draws attention to the many types and ways different people can identify with intellectualism. He argues that people are intelligent in several ways and just need to learn how to plug the intellectualism they enjoy into a school-like setting during classes. He exemplifies this by using his own intellect within sports and such as an adolescent. While being very analytical of sports team movies, and the toughness he and his friends engaged in, he was unknowingly before now trained to be intellect in a class room and other school subjects. In figuring all this out Graff only had to plug it into his school work. Graff uses descriptive detail, blunt similarities, and his own basic understand and experiences to convey his thoughts of hidden intellectualism to his collegiate audience.…
Growing up where I was raised street smart was having the experience and knowledge necessary to deal with the potential difficulties or dangers of life in an urban environment. Like you know people actions and how to read body language and get the sense something isn’t right here. It even can be starting your own busy be and entrepreneur. If you were book smart you’ll get call a nerd and picked on in rough area of the city. I saw some of my peers try to dumb down the way they would talk when they come down to the park to play basketball because not too many people in the area had the vocabulary they had.…
Gerald Graff's essay, "Hidden Intellectualism," is a critique on how schools are missing out on a valuable opportunity to encourage students to learn more academically. Graff feels that utilizing what he calls "street smarts" is an effective way to relate to students. I feel Graff's theory is an effective way to use student's interests to engage them in school. I agree with Graff because if a student is more interested in the lesson that is being taught, they are more likely to pay attention and actually learn something.…
Gerald Graff, Professor of English and Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, stated in "Hidden Intellectualism," that in every student, there is intellect that is trying to break out and encourage them to discover their own intellectualism, that was hiding within (Graff 23). “Hidden Intellectualism” is a teaching article directed towards schools and teachers to try and help kids bring out their intellectualism at a young age or bring different types of smarts to help students become more engaged. Graff's article, "Hidden Intellectualism," uses Ethos and Pathos effectively by using his own life in school to connect…
Friedman begins with, bringing to our attention, the type of terms our society uses to describe the “intellectually curious and academically serious.” These types of derogatory terms aid in displaying Fridmans view point on the subject as he believes that the `use of these words to describe nerd and geeks are in fact an issue. Fridman uses diction that disgraces our society who casts out nerds because of their “intelligence and refusal to conform to societies anti-intellectual values.”…
In Gerald Graff’s essay, Hidden Intellectualism, one is exposed to the author’s view of different means of intellectualism. Graff gives the reader an uncommon perception of what it means to be an intellectual. He expresses his views by stating that a person can be an intellectual in fields that have nothing to do with academia, such as street smarts or particular interests. He also states that if you incorporate these particular interests in the classroom, students deemed as unintellectual would be more likely to grasp the taught materials. These students could then perform to their true potential.…
“A vocation is not fulfilled by vague reading and a few scattered writings” –A.G. Sertillanges.…