Jeopardy

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You are probably familiar with the game show Jeopardy. This exercise is designed in a similar format. Your task it to match each answer with the correct question. For each answer, circle the question which best fits it. Use your Key Verb handout to help you if necessary.

Answer #1

Two of the schools Anyon mentions illustrate two different focuses on literacy. In the working class school, the focus is on functional literacy. In the affluent schools, the focus is on cultural literacy. The educators in each school implement these types of literacy, albeit unconsciously, by the way they design their curricula.

1. Compare the emphasis of a working class school to the emphasis in an affluent school.
2. What type of literacy is most important to a working class school?
3. Argue for or against the importance of cultural literacy in a working class school.
4. Name the focus of literacy study in two of schools that Anyon describes. Explain how each school implements this particular focus.

Answer #2

Knoblauch’s essay challenges the way we think about literacy in many ways. It could be said that Knoblauch is not concerned about reading and writing at all. Knoblauch is more concerned with the way that literacy is used to maintain power by the status quo. All four types of literacy allow us to look at this relationship in different ways.

1. How do people in power use literacy to maintain the status quo?
2. Explain the relationship between literacy and power in Knoblauch.
3. What is Knoblauch’s definition of literacy?
4. Illustrate the ways in which Knoblauch challenges us to think about literacy.

Answer #3

The working class school operates primarily from the assumption of what Knoblauch would call functional literacy. The children in this school are only taught the basics of what they need to survive. Much of what the students do is mechanical. They only learn in school what they need to survive in the world. There is no such thing as creativity in this school. The child is given a problem and the steps to solve it. Asking how or why they got to that answer is unacceptable.

1. Use Knoblauch to illustrate the primary assumptions of the working class school.
2. Describe what happens on any given day in a working class school.
3. Is it right for a working class school to teach only functional literacy? Use examples to support your claim.
4. Define functional literacy and give examples to show what it looks like.

Answer #4

Allan Bloom’s essay illustrates Knoblauch’s definition of cultural literacy in several ways. Knoblauch argues that proponents of cultural literacy believe that "literacy also includes an awareness of cultural heritage." While this may seem harmless enough, he goes farther than this by arguing that "cultural literacy advocates presume that the salvation of some set of favored cultural norms or language practices lies necessarily in the marginalizing or even extinction of others." This clearly puts Bloom in the camp of cultural literacy because Bloom’s primary focus is on "great books." Bloom never stops to consider who or what culture decides these books are great.

1. Give a brief biography of Allan Bloom to explain his perspective and standpoint.
2. Explain the ways that Allan Bloom fits Knoblauch’s definition of a proponent of cultural literacy.
3. Do you agree with Bloom’s argument that students should be reading "great books"? Why or why not?
4. Could it be argued that Bloom employs critical literacy? Why or why not?

Answer #5

David Orr’s and Allan Bloom’s definitions of the liberal arts are different because their values are different. While Bloom believes that the liberal arts should be about reading "great books," Orr believes that students should learn to study "institutional resource flows." Bloom believes that the university should be preparing students to have great minds, while Orr is more concerned with what students are going to do with their great minds once they are finished with school.

1. How do David Orr and Allan Bloom define the liberal arts differently?
2. What is more important in the liberal arts, theory or practice? Explain.
3. Who makes the more convincing argument, Bloom or Orr? Give examples from the text to support your claim.
4. Critique David Orr’s plan for liberal arts education.