Cultural Literacy, E. D. Hirsch, Jr.
Cultural Literacy, E. D. Hirsch, Jr.
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Cultural Literacy
What Every American Needs to Know

Author: E. D. Hirsch, Jr.

Narrator: Barrett Whitener

Unabridged: 9 hr 55 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/01/2007

Categories: Nonfiction, Education


Synopsis

In this forceful manifesto Professor E. D. Hirsch, Jr. argues that children in the United States are being deprived of the basic knowledge that would enable them to function in contemporary society. They lack cultural literacy: a grasp of background information that writers and speakers assume their audience already has. Thus even if a student has a basic competence in the English language, he or she has little chance of entering the American mainstream without knowing what a silicon chip is, or when the Civil War was fought.A major bestseller that has engendered a nationwide debate on our educational standards, Cultural Literacy is must listening for parents, teachers, and anyone else concerned with our future as a literate nation.

About E. D. Hirsch, Jr.

E. D. Hirsch, Jr., is the founder and chairman of the Core Knowledge Foundation and professor emeritus of education and humanities at the University of Virginia. He is the author of several acclaimed books on education, including the New York Times bestseller Cultural Literacy, The Schools We Need, The Knowledge Deficit, The Making of Americans, and Why Knowledge Matters. He lives in Earlysville, Virginia.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Ethan

The best part of this book was the reference to "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General" by Gilbert and Sullivan. Now that I've gotten that out of the way, I can get down to some more specific critiques. But before those critiques, I feel I should offer a disclaimer. I was homeschooled. I also......more

Goodreads review by Steven

This is the best book on education that I have read. Excellent work. Interesting thesis: There are FACTS out there that educated citizens must know. Teaching skills is not enough. The reason is because communication of any sort is based on shared knowledge. Picture a Venn diagram: you and I can only......more

Goodreads review by Seth

Interesting contribution to the debate on National education. The gist of the book is that literacy is misunderstood. One can be proficient with a skill as a reader without having mastered comprehension of text. In other words the finite skill of interpreting letters into words and speed at which th......more

Goodreads review by Ricki

This text left me nodding vigorously at some sections and wanting to rip out the pages of other portions. Hirsch gives an impressively extensive background of the establishment of the English language. When my students ask, "Who made these grammar rules and spelling decisions?" I can now give them q......more

Goodreads review by Mariam

Hirsch is really hung up on making cultural literacy a partisan issue (80s culture wars?). Also, his assertion that one can become fully culturally literate by learning and comprehending just current mainstream culture seems woefully ignorant and willfully suppressive of multicultural America. This......more