Annotated Bibliography Of Maririta's Bargain

The author of Hidden Intellectualism, Gerald Graff, told the readers how he believed just because you are not school smart, you can still be very smart. As a kid, he lived in the melting pot of a Chicago neighborhood with people ranging from Chinese immigrants to “hillbilly” whites from southern Appalachia. It was frowned upon by the other kids around to be school smart, so he learned about the world of sports and saw that being sportsmart was way better than being school smart. As he grew older he began to see how being intellectual about sports helped him so much more than school ever would.

Do you think intelligence is a fixed trait? If you do, then you might be one of many people with a fixed mind-set. In Carol S. Dweck’s an essay, “The Secret to Raising Smart Kids”, she describes fixed and growth mind-sets. She describes how they affect school, and how they affect social relationships as well. The two central ideas of “The Secret to Raising Smart Kids” are that fixed mind-sets can make a person shy away from a challenge and that growth mind-sets can be put into place by parents.

After reading Seal’s article which stated that Americans often thought kids are born smart while Asians more often believed that studying makes a person smarter, I was reminded my own personal beliefs on intelligence and I realized that I have thought people could get smart by exerting effort since I was in the last year of elementary school in Vietnam. Therefore, I empathized with Seal’s attitude that success and achievement are a result of working hard. I could remember that I got this attitude when I was in an important final exam which decided where my middle school was in the next year that depended on my score. In this exam, the math test was an extremely difficult test for every student because it had a strange math problem which my classmates and I had never studied before. At first, I had spent for 2 hour to solve this problem, but I didn’t succeed. So, I wanted to give up. However, I was worry about my score and thought about my mom, who hoped that I could get the high score enough to enter a famous middle school. Since I didn’t want to disappoint my mom’s wish, I tried to solve this math problem again and again and again. Eventually, I was successful to solve

After reading Gerald’s story, I think students will believe in themselves more than ever before. Gerald showed us that book smarts doesn’t just mean doing well in school but that things you do in everyday life is showing your own intellectualism. He also states how once students and children realize that if they can argue and talk about things that are important to them or that they are passionate about then they can hopefully use that to tap into things they are leaning about in school.

“Hidden Intellectualism” an article written by Gerald Graff is a very interesting piece of writing intended for the audience of high school and college educators. Throughout the text Graff argues that high schools and colleges are failing to incorporate topics that interest street smart students into the school system, which is therefore resulting in street smart students failing to do well academically in high school and college. He uses his own personal anecdote to support this. Graff successfully persuades his audience that high school and colleges can develop a student’s intellectualism by using topics that already interests students. He successfully does this through the use of development, conventions, and evidence.

Many intelligent kids are being overlooked because of the stigma of being a “nerd,” as well as the fact that anti-intellectualism is becoming more popular. A man, author Grant Penrod, wrote “Anti-Intellectualism: Why We

One of the first things a child is taught while growing up is the well-known cliché, practice makes perfect. This phrase has been the basis for trial and error situations time and time again, where if it doesn’t work the first time then keep trying. In Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell leaves the audience with a memorable observation, the 10,000 hour rule. The basis of the 10,000 hour rule is that an area of interest requires 10,000 hours of practice in order to become an expert. Although this may be true in some situations, how can someone practice something they are unable to do? Natural talent and ability are crucial characteristics in order to become an expert in any area. This phenomena highly lends itself to the observations made about intelligence and genetics. The main misunderstanding when considering whether this argument is fundamentally nature or nurture is the difference between intelligence and education. Many consider education to be exactly equal to intelligence, which is the basis for the believing that working hard will essentially result in intelligence. Intelligence is considered as “a very general mental capability that, among other things, involved the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly, and learn from experience” (Colangelo19-39.) Qualities that make up the realm of intelligence are things that people are simply born with and cannot easily be taught and trained. One may be able to work twice as hard as the next person and equalize their achievements, but the essential difference at work is the way the mind process information and the difference between intelligence and education. Although some consider intelligence to be an environmentally based attribute, they fail to understand the true meaning of

Many times a student will be generalized into a category of book smart or street smart. A teacher or person of higher authority can overlook a pupil’s potential intellect due to their grades not being the most attractive in a main course subject. Gerald Graff expands to his audience on different areas of the world such as sports intriguing him and bringing out his “book smart” side. In Gerald Graff’s Hidden Intellectualism, Graff argues that all too often students are not given enough variety of topics to demonstrate their potentially brilliant mind. Due to teachers solely focusing on the print of the textbook it has become the norm to brush off students who may not excel in those areas, therefore, not try to explore where their actual skillful side can arise.

With today’s education, teachers are enforcing much academic work on students to, hopefully, increase their intelligence. The goal of this academic work is to give the students that they will need for their life later. All schools have a group of students that have a lot of “street smarts,” but don’t do well in school. There is a common argument of if “street smarts” and academic work should be combined to better teach students. In Gerald Graff’s piece, Hidden Intellectualism, Graff talks about the academics that teachers enforce on students and “street smarts.” Graff claims that “schools and colleges might be at fault for missing the opportunity to tap into such street smarts and channel them into good academic work” (Graff 1).

Within chapter four, Gladwell introduces two different types of intelligence; practical and analytical, both in which influence our success. He claims that practical intelligence is something one is not born with, but instead, a reflection of one’s cultural advantages. For example, Oppenheimer attained the skill of practical intelligence because he always knew what to say, when it was appropriate to say it, and knew how to get what he wanted through people. Oppenheimer was taught to be a social savvy through concerted cultivation because his parents had fostered him to be assertive and question authority. We see in chapter four that being a social savvy and having practical intelligence is “a set of skills that have to be learned. It has to come from somewhere . . . get these kinds of attitudes and skills is from our families” (Gladwell, 102). Another intelligence Gladwell introduces is analytical intelligence. Langan and Oppenheimer both acquired this skill. It was intelligence within your genes. Gladwell describes analytical intelligence as a mental process that is expressed through our intelligence. Gladwell states that it’s in “your genes . . . he was born smart. IQ is a measure, to some degree” (Gladwell, 102). These two types of intelligence affect and influence one’s ability to succeed because intelligence refers back to

In “Hidden Intellectualism”, Gerald Graff argues that street smart kids can do better in school if teachers had gave them the opportunity to perform their intelligence on academic work. It will be helpful if school encouraged students to learn the subject they are interested in. Graff share his adolescent experience to support this argument. He was passionate about sport. Until entered college, he only read things about sports. This habit unwittingly developed his literacy, analyzing and debate skills. In the neighborhood he grew up, to maintain the class boundary between upper class and lower class, it was better to be book smart. However, he was struggle about whether to be intelligent or not. Because he wanted to be smart and impress the

A child’s abnormally high IQ may trigger thoughts of undoubted success for many of us, but Outliers shows us that many with unbridled promise fail to deliver. This study shows that almost all “geniuses” that fail to complete post-secondary degrees have one glaring trait in common: socioeconomic status. Gladwell presents the case of Chris Langan, a man who’s IQ nears 200 and taught himself to read by age four. Langan spend his adult years as a bouncer and later ran a horse farm. This is hardly dignified work for “the smartest man in America.” Langan’s only mistake was growing up poor. Gladwell compares Langan with Robert Oppenheimer, architect of the atomic bomb. While both were extremely intelligent, only Oppenheimer grew up affluent and gained necessary skills needed to succeed. While Langan had difficultly figuring out the procedures necessary to fill-out financial-aid forms in college, Oppenheimer was raised to learn social niceties. The author goes into great detail explaining how the experiences provided to Oppenheimer through family wealth helped separate him from a fate all-to-often

Gladwell’s essay Marita’s Bargain reinforces the purpose of education and how other countries or neighborhoods react to education differently. The participating schools also have a big impact on this essay because depending on the type of neighborhood you are living in the schools have more, or none, restrictions in order for the children to attend those schools. This essay shows tables on how much the students in the upper, median and low class affect the education of these children being selected into the schools; having to follow a protocol makes them more eligible to maintain a good education, instead of those that do not follow any type of protocol. This essay states the states or countries where children are elected into school versus

Gladwell, Malcolm. “Marita’s Bargain.” Collections, edited by Beers, Hougen, & Jago etc., Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015, pp. 3-14.

Karen Ho, author of “Biographies of Hegemonies,” supplements Gladwell’s argument about social determinism. She begins with a discussion of the concept of smartness and later talks about how Wall Street defines smartness as a currency. Ho says that college students are judged on their smartness by their environment because recruiters assume the Ivy League schools are assumed to have the brightest and smartest batch of students. She also says that actual skills and knowledge can be picked up from the job, so the most important thing is to be well presented and confident. Ho criticizes companies for selling themselves as having the perfect lifestyle.