PsTL 1908W Urban Literacy

After reading the theories, preface and dictionary entries I found this website very interesting. I read the entry on the bible because it was the first one I saw that looked interesting and I actually learned a lot. I really like how in depth the entries are, not only does he give you a full understanding of the general concept but everything else that goes with it. I expanded from the bible and then went onto Rachel, because it's my name... and then from there you can just keep going and expanding.
I enjoyed the part in the preface when he talked about how, "Cultural literacy, unlike expert knowledge, is meant to be shared by everyone." It really made sense to me, not everyone is going to be able to understand chemical equations and be able to explain it and hold a conversation about it, but everyone can sit down and discuss there views on cultural literacy, just like we do once a week in class. Maybe if we had more resources like these, and people were more comfortable with using them we would be more open to discussing these issues on a regular basis with a different group of people.

Posted by Rachael Goerger at 8:52 PM | Permalink

I really thought the idea of making this dictionary was an interesting idea. But i just wonder how the author of it decides what to put into it. He said he would put common sense things into it, stuff that people know with out having to explain it. but the author has a Ph D, so something that may be obvious and common sense to him, may not be so obvious to other people. So I just am curious as to how he decides what is common sense to everybody.

Posted by Kristen Erko at 4:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

After I read the first entry I was very impressed by E. D. Hirsch's motivation to try to make a Dictionary of Cultural Literacy. That seems like a very hard task to me becasue literacy in different cultures and countries are forever changing. I have these friends that constantly change their slang. One week they'll be saying one word for something and the next week a completely different word meant for that same thing. Its hard to keep up! I cant imagine someone coming in as an "outsider" trying to figure out what they were talking about. I guess its neat in some ways that they do this because they had to of get the slang from someone or if they made it up soemone will hear it and pass it on to someone else, so cultural literacy is always spreading form culture to culture. This dictionary would have to be updated daily, probably even hourly! It would be nice if it was that easy, just make a book and it'll tell you everything you need to know in how to communicate with every culture. Just coming from my highschool, which is in St. Paul to The University of Minnesota which isnt very far from there, i hear many different words and way people organize their thoughts everyday then i ever thoght i would! Its strange to me how we all learned how to read and speak differently. It seems like theres just one concrete way to learn it but then everyone makes their own spin on it and people who come in connect with each other on a regular basis share that cultural literacy.

Posted by Kathryn Grayson at 11:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Cultural literacy was a foreign concept to me until a few weeks ago. I never stopped to think that boundaries and standards could carry over between different cultures. I’ve noticed before at times that others are learning English and are not yet fluent in their literary skills, but never really stopped to think that to them I am illiterate. I feel as though recently I've started to see a new perspective on things. It's not that I ever thought anything less of anyone because they were illiterate in our cultures; it's just that I never stopped to look at their perspective. I've never really dealt with people coming in to America not being able to read. Infact, the only people I've know who come here are foreign exchange students, and with the exception of English Grammar and Comp. classes they seem to have a better understanding of the concepts of all classes, sadly even American Government:( Anyhow, I feel like the readings have made me open my eyes to a broader picture that helps me have a better understanding of the world. When I was volunteering the other day, I noticed this first hand. The women were taking a test and they had a few hours for it, but I looked through it in about 5 minutes. These women are very intelligent, there was just the whole I’m just learning English thing not working in their favor. The teacher gave me a sheet to read that had everything written backwards. It was talking about torgs, perhaps you’re familiar with it. The teacher told me it was similar to trying to read a new language. CONFUSING AND VAGUE! I think we should help others to understand cultural literacy so they aren’t quite as naive as I was.

Posted by Chanda Alseth at 11:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Before these readings, I never really thought about the idea of cultural literacy. Now that I think about it, though, it makes perfect sense. There is certain terminology or slang that is used in my culture that isn’t used in other and vice versa. Even between my friends that live in a different town, there are differences in the diction that we use in general conversation. I can’t even imagine how it would be to go to a different country even if they did speak English. Slang makes up a large part of our language in casual conversation that I don’t know how I would even function in another place where the slang was a lot different. I think this is why there is such a difference in learning a language in school and actually leaning it from experience, like living in another country. There’s a big difference between formal language and the way that people talk.

There comes a time when people just have to realize that there are going to be these differences, even within a country. There’s really no way to have dictionary that incorporates all the slang from every culture in order to make everyone’s language the same. The difference in language is what makes different cultures unique and interesting. Our country wouldn’t be the same without it.

The bottom line is, if we are going to be a part of a different culture, we have to just go with the flow and learn to become “literate� in their slang and dialect.

Posted by Kate Cowger at 8:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I really liked the concept of the cultural literacy dictionary. Part of the reason I was interested in this course, urban literacy, was the relevance of literacy to our world. It is prevalent in America sometimes the lack of common knowledge people have, as portrayed on segments of Jay Leno called “Jaywalking� or national polls where so much of the population does not know who our 2nd president was and so on…While this makes for our entertainment industry, it does reveal the importance of common sense and grasp of material beyond the basics taught in school. The process of selecting material for the dictionary seems reasonable, from the sources an entry comes from to how often it appears in print and fifteen years seems to account for what would accurately consist of our cultural literacy, of course there can be exceptions. In schools, my opinion but just my opinion is that reading is the most essential subject because it allows us to comprehend all the other subjects and gives us the ability of communication. I am not quite sure how the addition of this new dictionary is to be effectively used in schools, from having it replace our regular dictionary or students having to study a ‘word a day.’ In one of my classes in middle school, my teacher would begin by talking about news events that did not have to be about social studies but was going on currently and another class we received extra credit for doing things considered cultural from going to a play to an art museum. Skimming through the entries, I thought it was interesting how there were not only people, places, and events but phrases one should know to be cultural and entries that otherwise would not be included in a standard dictionary. I randomly found noblesse oblige, and knew the author was right on.

Posted by Caitlin Priem at 7:55 PM | Permalink

I just finished reading the first entry and I thought it would be a good idea to express my thoughts on this whole cultural literacy idea before reading the other entries.

I think that this article was rather interesting. When I flip through pages in a normal dictionary, a lot of the words I see are unfamiliar and I don't have any desire to ever see them again. Dictionaries are great tools, but I think almost anyone could survive without ever seeing one. I use dictionaries often in my English class, but I doubt I will consistently use one after I graduate. However, I believe that a dictionary filled with cultural literacy would be very useful. This dictionary would include everyday language that would be used in everyday communication.

I think that it would be a very big challenge to determine what is common knowledge that everyone should know. The people composing this dictionary have many rules for forming the dictionary, but I think that it would be impossible to compose the perfect dictionary of cultural literacy. Common knowledge to some, is foreign knowledge to others. A good example of this occurred just minutes ago in during a conversation between me and my roommate. Here is the conversation that portrays this idea:
Me: "Where are you bro?"
Roommate: "By the bubbler in Coffman"
Me: "Where?"
Roommate: "By the bubbler in Coffman"
Me: "By the what?
Roommate: "The bubbler"
Me: "What's a bubbler?"
Roommate: "A water fountain. You seriously didn't know that Fargo?"
Me: "Never heard of that slang before bro"

So yeah, just some thoughts on that first entry. Now I'm excited to read more on about this dictionary!

Alex Christianson

Posted by Alex Christianson at 5:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I thought the readings were quite interesting. The idea that people need to know background information in order to understand cultural literature is very true. I can't imagine what it would be like to be in a different country trying to read their newspaper and not knowing anything that is going on. I really do believe that the more you know, the more you are able to learn. You can think of it like school. In elementary school you learned the basics and you are expanding your knowledge throughout all of your schooling and by knowing the background information, you can continue to learn more and more information for as long as you want. I don't really think that schools, not the home, are fully responsible for producing literate kids. No matter what kids learn in school, their home life is going to have some effect on how they are and what they learn. It would be very nice if the schools could take kids out of broken homes and make the kids become literate. However, I don't necessarily think that is possible. Even if you take a kid out of a broken home and teach him to read, he will always remember what went on in that home. You can't change that. However, I think if the kid is willing to try to move on, it may be a possibility to make him forget everything about that home and be able to read.

Posted by Devon Sinclair at 4:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I thought the readings were very interesting. The idea of “cultural literacy� is something I don’t think a lot of people realize exists; that in order to be functionally literate within a society you need a large amount of background knowledge. I can’t imagine what it would be like to go to another country and read a newspaper article that alludes and implies things I have absolutely no idea about. And that must be how some immigrants feel here in America.
It’s a fascinating idea that the more you know, the more you are able to learn. It makes sense though. I guess once you learn the basics, you keep expanding your knowledge from there. Also, if you are used to learning, you probably have a system to learn and therefore, can do so more efficiently.
I also thought the claim that schools, not the home, are responsible for producing literate kids and subsequently literate adults. It’s awesome to think that our school system can save kids from broken and illiterate homes and turn them into literate and successful adults. I don’t know if that is necessarily possible with the way the system is now, but hopefully it is true in some situations and very possible in the future.
So, in the end I thought the readings brought up some often overlooked yet important information. It also further discussed the ongoing problems with different aspects of literacy that we have today.

Posted by Anna Pirsch at 2:56 PM | Permalink

Although I’m not sure as to where I stand on the theory of a “cultural dictionary� I feel that it is important for people living in the United States to know some basic history and cultural aspects of life here. The whole theme behind the USA is “melting pot� which means that we can constantly add things, so if other cultural traditions or ideas or being accepted, then there is no problem with a book defining such things. An excerpt from the introduction to the first edition states that “Cultural literacy, unlike expert knowledge, is meant to be shared by everyone. It is that shifting body of information that our culture has found useful, and therefore worth preserving. Only a small fraction of what we read and hear gains a secure place on the memory shelves of the culturally literate, but the importance of this information is beyond question�. To me this is quite true, cultural literacy should be shared by everyone, but how is that possible. To distribute this book to everyone? To allow everyone to have access to this website? It is almost as if every person is responsible for experiencing cultural literacy for themselves, if this is possible. And what of those people who do not have the opportunity to experience or even hear about these things? For example, the dictionary lists: appendectomy, balsalt, kitsh, along with many other words foreign to “literate� Americans. Perhaps this book is trying to separate the Americans from the ones who aren’t worthy of our golden streets.

Posted by Sarah Stackley at 10:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I never thought about the fact that the more you know the faster you learn, and the better you can understand what you are trying to take in. But when I come to think of it, it is very true in everyday life. The classes I do the best in are classes that I have some interest in, and have some outside information going into it. For example, I do not really like science, and in high school I had some not so good experiences learning from some teachers that did not teach very well. I did not learn much from them and as a result do not have very much background knowledge or intuitiveness for science. This year I have biology and it takes me a while to pick up on the ideas, because I have no foundation to build on and am not able to conceptualize what I am being taught. On the other hand, on the ACT, I was immediately drawn to the history passages. They made since to me, and were relevant to what I had learned in AP History. One ironically, was on the same topic that I was writing an essay on over the weekend. When I came across this passage, I read straight through it, answered the questions and moved on. When I came to the science passage, I had to read twice as slow, read it over , look for the answers, and then answer with some uncertainty. The fact that I had some knowledge going into the history passage really helped, and the lack of science was unhelpful. Thus this book is a very helpful tool for defining cultural literacy, and should be used as a minimum standard for really understanding our country. I myself, think of it as a challenge to learn many knew things and grow in knowledge beyond what I can learn from expert textbooks. Looking over some of the words, I have a lot of work to do!

Posted by Ashley Johnson at 9:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Wow! What a great idea and what great reasonings! These three articles I thought were a great read. In the "Introduction to the First Edition," I liked the fact that cultural literacy falls between the specialized and generalized. This way it's not too basic, and also not too difficult. Also, it's good that they are not including ideas and events from hundreds of years, and instead are using about a 15 year period.

In the second reading, "The Theory Behind the Dictionary: Cultural Literacy and Education," they also had some great reasoning for their ideas. I liked their whole explanation of someone may know how to read, but until they fully understand the whole background of what they're reading, they are not getting anything from the reading. The reader and the author are not "communicating." They also explain why reading ability is measured in how well a person can understand diverse kinds of writing on numerous subjects. I feel that they could not be anymore correct. How is someone supposed to learn if they only know a lot of, let's say, a couple subjects. They aren't going to learn as much unless they know "a lot" of many subjects.

Finally, in the "Preface," I'm glad they explained why they hope that the book will continue to be helpful to Americans of all ages and background. Not all countries are going to have the same views on what subjects are as important. That's why the German's, Dutch, and Swedish all have their own version of the book. I enjoyed reading all of the three articles, and it's nice knowing people are working to solve such problems as cultural literacy.

Posted by Justin Hasbrouck at 4:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In The Introduction To The First Edition, the author of the dictionary gives their reasonning for creating the dictionary. The Authors main reason is to aknowledge a common literacy level between all people. A common Literacy level between all people, would be what everyone understands without having to go into further explanations. The author uses newspapers as an example, if the paper mentions something with having to explain it, you can assume most all people know what you are talking about.

Posted by Kristen Erko at 9:59 AM | Permalink

The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy is a book that has now been revised and re-written releasing a third edition. The book contains information that deals with a variety of fields, such as science, technology, history, politics and geography. The author believes that the book is good for American readers. Americans because the book contains very important information that goes back into important history of the American culture and also because as Americans the author feels that we are greatly failing at teaching our youth the key element to both the skill of reading and success.
The passage states that reading is one of the most important academic skills and is essential in a childs life. If a child has a gap with reading he or she is a "have-not" in our school. Fedreral Government and many states have decided to go hand and hand at bettering there ways of educating students in the reading area, reading score have not though increased. This the author believes can be associated with the fact that those trained to teach and shape students reading comprehension have to vague of a vision for doing so. He believes the best they currently do to teach children to be good readeds is teach them to sound out words. Our society has an attitude where everyone talks about the problem but no one does anything about it.
Community is another topic spoken about in this writing. Many seems to think that the increacse in flyng flags is done to show nationalism but the author disagrees. He believes instead that mainly to show solidarity and community. In his eyes community is built up of shared sknowledge and values. Buit patriotism is what is best shown and should be the symbol of America because it symbolizes "shared knowledge, attitudes, loyalties, and values, including the values of nonexclusion, toleration, and respect for other religions and cultures." America has more often than less shown itself to be a patrotic not nationalist country.
So I ask you what do you think???
Is America falling behind? Do we need to better educate our students, especially in the area of reading?
Are schools and the givernment combined doing all that is needed to help in the fight for better reading habits for students in America. Are we taught well enough when it comes to the subject of our history?
As far as community goes do you think that we are bonded closely enough together? Do you believe that as a country we are represented more as a Nationalist country or a Patriotic country? Do you believe that there are class and caste in our communities? Do you feel our society does more talking about an issue than helping solve the problem?

Posted by Jasmine Johnson at 10:33 PM | Permalink

The Theory Behind the Dictionary explains the author's view on why cultural literacy is important for a person's success in reading and therefore learning new things. He emphasizes background information instead of specific information. He writes that successful reading requires a knowledge of shared information that is understood by our American population as a whole and that there is a direct correlation between reading ability and learning ability.
He also states that we learn most easily when we attach new infromation with old knowledge, therefore, in order to learn new things, we must have a general knowledge of a wide range of subjects so that we can make such connections. If we don't have much prior knowledge, it can make learning new concepts increasingly harder. This is what continues to fail today's students because more and more early-childhood schools are abandoning traditional stories and concepts for cutting edge information and modern materials. Hirsch says that this hurts the children by not giving them the background information they need to understand further readings since everything written in our culture implies some sort of common knowledge and without it, leaves many struggling to understand what should come easily to them. This also increases the gap between those that can learn because they have the background knowledge and those that are continually stuck because they lack it.
Hirsch also believes in "school-transmitted cultures" where teachers are the ones who perpetuate modern nations by the transmission of the literate national culture and language. It is simply not enough to teach them how to read. This can only bring them so far as pronouncing the words, but they must know the cultural language to understand it and read more diverse writings. This is why the standardized tests we all take have multiple selections for the reading sections. If there was only one passage, there is a chance that a child might know about it anyway. Having a broad variety makes it easier to see if a child can answer questions on categories beyond what they might be familiar with.
It is important to remain teaching our cultural literacy and also to preserve it. This is what allows us to communicate with those from other generations and people from different regions and races. he defines literacy as the ability to communicate effectively with strangers. He also says that the way we can help the underclass rise economically is by "teaching them shared, traditional literate culture." And, until everyone learns this, we cannot make any serious progress as a society.
Some questions:
Do you believe it is possible to learn well and succeed without this shared, traditional knowledge?
Is our culture doomed to illiteracy if we continue to ignore such knowledge in our schools?
Are standardized tests accurate in fore-telling out learning abilities and measuring our literacy progress?

Posted by Anna Burke at 8:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)