Book Review : An Analysis Of 'Hidden Intellectualism'

The essay Hidden Intellectualism is based upon whether street smart should be considered equal with academic intelligence. Many people have remarkable street intelligence, but have very little academic intelligence. The author of the essay, Gerald Graff uses his personal examples before college of possessing street smarts then developing academic intelligence. More often than not students prefer video games, clothes designers and sports. “It’s a good bet that students get hooked on reading and writing by doing term papers on Source, they will eventually get to On Liberty” (Graff, pg 250) most likely students would prefer reading a book and writing a paper on a topic of their choice, and be better informed about the subject to write the paper,

In an excerpt from his essay “they say I say” titled “Hidden Intellectualism”, Gerald Graff gives a compelling argument on how schools should capitalize off student’s street smarts to engage them intellectually. He believes that students are being fed a narrative that is inefficient to its purpose. To counter this inefficiency there should be an integration of things that interest the students with their academics.

In the essay Graff uses his own personal experiences to make his point. He talks about his childhood neighborhood in Chicago where he grew up. Which was a bad location after World War II. Graff tells us that in his neighborhood he desperately wanted the approval of the older “hood” guys but they didn’t like “book smarts”. For example, he states that “…it was not at all good to be book smart. The hoods would turn on you” (Pg.246) This shows that although Graff was intellectual he was scared to show it because he wanted the approval of the hoods. This is important because this would keep him from doing well in school because of his life outside of class. Although if teachers approach teaching in a different way, a way that interest the student and keeps them from getting picked on. Another example is when Graff states how he “…carefully hiding telltale marks of literacy like correct grammar and pronunciation.” (Pg.247) This show that he had to hide his intellectualism. “Street smarts” wouldn’t feel afraid to show their true intellectualism if they taught at a younger age that there is nothing wrong with being intellectual. Overall, if you start students at young age with topics that interest them when they grow older they’ll have no shame on knowing more and the approval of the “hoods” would be irrelevant.

Northrop Frye 's the Educated Imagination, published in 1963, attempts to bring out the meaning and effect of possessing an educated imagination in contrast to its opposite. Dr. Frye analyses how his theory advances society’s interests and overcomes its limits through the three levels of the human mind. In his essay, the three levels are broken down in a detailed manner, which links it directly its thesis. Frye presents definitive answers to his questions in the beginning of his essay, “What good is the study of literature? Does it help us to think more clearly, or feel more sensitively, or live a better life than we could without it?” Conclusively, the education of an individual’s mind is critical to understand the world we live in and to the advancement of our society. Educating the mind consists of absorbing and modifying literature, understanding and evolving art, and placing science within context without having data as the boundaries of our imagination.

Everyone knows some young person who is impressively street smart but does poorly in school. What a waste, we think, that one who is so intelligent about so many things in life seems unable to apply that intelligence to academic work. This is how Gerald Graff’s essay titled “Hidden Intellectualism" begins. Although this is not Graff's personal belief, he is approaching us with a common stereotype. After reading Graff's article I would say that I agree with him from beginning to end. Gerald Graff begins with differentiating between “book smarts” and “street smarts". Book smart is defined as a person who is intelligent and very well educated academically. People that are book smart can write and discuss subjects taught in school. On the

Prose starts off with very strong language in her essay “I know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read”. Prose’s opening paragraph includes words such as “appalled”, “dismal”, and “dreariness”, which establishes negative connotation, a central feature of the essay(Prose 176). These words signify the lack of confidence that Prose has in the trends of American education. By beginning her essay with judgemental and cogent language, Francine Prose develops a clear and concise argument. She intends to hook her readers by immediately stressing the importance of the subject and conveying her justifiably strong perspectives. Prose claims that she is “ appalled by the dismal lists of texts that her sons are doomed to waste a school year reading” (Prose 176). Prose’s use of negative connotation allows her to clearly and effectively convey her message regarding the negative influence that American education has had on literature.

Intellectualism is most often described as someone who has a vast amount of knowledge, is well spoken, and most people’s idea of intelligence is someone who is “book smart”. Book Smart would be described as someone who van write and converse about subjects that are most often taught in school. Another type of “smart” would be someone who is known as “street smart”. They are seen as intellectuals who are knowledgeable in the world around them, and today’s culture, and individuals who learn through personal experiences. In the essay Hidden Intellectualism, by Gerald Graff he insists

Graff explains why,” I believe that street smarts beat out book smarts in our culture not because street smarts are nonintellectual, as we generally suppose, but because they satisfy an intellectual thirst more thoroughly than school culture, which seams pale and unreal” (384). In other words, Graff believes that because street smarts involve in what is happening in the here and now, and not in theory, they seem more relevant and useful to students

Throughout the essay, Prose argues that literatures in high schools are dumbing down the English curriculum. She says books that are “chosen for students to read are

Graff never thought that he would research intellectualism, not even a bit. However, based on his hood experiences he didn’t know that he was in training for it. First of all, Graff described his neighborhood environment in Chicago as a postwar society. The hood was surrounded by people with a separate mind set, which made it hard to fit in. While it was hard to live there, he found his personal intellectualism inside the hood when he had to maintain a strong position for his arguments. Graff uses himself as an example too, when he decides to trade his preferred sports team, everyone that knew him would make fun of him and criticize his choice. He struggled to persuade his reasons to defend his new

I know why the caged bird cannot read, by Francine Prose, is basically her opinionated article in which she tries to show the audience different reasons why the high school students have a lack of interest in reading. This article was definitely showing her ideas and thoughts about books and literature chosen for high school students. When it comes to me, I think that this article in many ways is irrelevant and vague, when she talks about the types of novels or books chosen for high school students. In this era, high school curriculum has some of the best well-crafted and adulated works of writings. Moreover, these masterpieces are written by some of the most adroit writers. We cannot argue about the value of these writings, because these are

“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.

Co-author of “They Say/I Say” handbook, Gerald Graff, analyzes in his essay “Hidden Intellectualism” that “street smarts” can be used for more efficient learning and can be a valuable tool to train students to “get hooked on reading and writing” (Graff 204). Graff’s purpose is to portray to his audience that knowing more about cars, TV, fashion, and etc. than “academic work” is not the detriment to the learning process that colleges and schools can see it to be (198). This knowledge can be an important teaching assistant and can facilitate the grasping of new concepts and help to prepare students to expand their interests and write with better quality in the future. Graff clarifies his reasoning by indicating, “Give me the student anytime

This essay Schall wrote is simily a complex version of the book he wrote in 1988 “Another Sort of Learning”. In the essay he makes a point stating “Just because someone is smart, does not mean he is wise” (pg.2) and that we need to remember that the “objection to the “intellectual” is not that he uses his brain, but that he uses it wrongly.” (pg.2). Most in my opinion would agree with this statement, in the sense of “street smarts” and “book smarts”, just because you’re book smart does not mean you’re street smart, and just because you’re street smart, does not mean you’re book smart; almost in the same sense of being smart and wise. The idea of an intellectual human being is one that can obtain knowledge in a complex order, therefore Schall states that one who is not intellectual just uses their brains incorrectly, but how can one use their brain wrong? Everyone has a different though process and a way of interpreting things? However by the power of the definition of “intellect”, he is in everyway correct that one who

The New York Times Poetry Pairing ‘The Properly Scholarly Attitude’ explores the idea of traditional schooling being suffocating to many students. Adelaide Crapsey’s poem “The Properly Scholarly Attitude” speaks of her feelings of resentment towards the expectations of society to learn a certain way. In the excerpt from the New York Times Article by Hanna Kozlowska about free play for children, she writes about a concept of learning called unschooling. In both pieces they suggest that traditional methods of education may not be the best for all children.