Your summary of Hirsch's idea of cultural literacy is adequate in that you do explain his basic ideas in your essay. It is clear that you have read and understood the one essay included in our class readings that has "cultural literacy" in its title. I recognize that your topic required more effort on your part because we had not covered it in class at the time you wrote your essay. Need for improvement: in your explanations of cultural literacy, you are fairly uncritical in your use of "literacy": for example, you write that Japanese children have higher literacy rates than US children without bothering to define your use of the term literacy or discuss the complications of comparisons between two very different nations. The reason for your being fairly uncritical is that you rely almost exclusively on Hirsch as your source. There was a requirement that you use at least two sources (and you could use more than two) but only one source is listed in your works cited list. (There is a minor error in your formatting in the works cited entry: note that we do not use a number 1 for an entry written in MLA style.) What is really needed for this essay is a reading of multiple sources: I would gladly have suggested some to you if you had asked for some ideas. Grade: B
Your summary of Hirsch's idea of cultural literacy is adequate in that you do explain his basic ideas in your essay. It is clear that you have read and understood the one essay included in our class readings that has "cultural literacy" in its title. I recognize that your topic required more effort on your part because we had not covered it in class at the time you wrote your essay.
ReplyDeleteNeed for improvement: in your explanations of cultural literacy, you are fairly uncritical in your use of "literacy": for example, you write that Japanese children have higher literacy rates than US children without bothering to define your use of the term literacy or discuss the complications of comparisons between two very different nations. The reason for your being fairly uncritical is that you rely almost exclusively on Hirsch as your source. There was a requirement that you use at least two sources (and you could use more than two) but only one source is listed in your works cited list. (There is a minor error in your formatting in the works cited entry: note that we do not use a number 1 for an entry written in MLA style.) What is really needed for this essay is a reading of multiple sources: I would gladly have suggested some to you if you had asked for some ideas.
Grade: B