The Human Cost Of An Illiterate Society By Jonathan Kozol Summary

Throughout Kozol’s essay, he constantly highlights the negative aspects that come from an illiterate society. He describes the importance of being able to read by giving examples that any adult would have to face eventually in their lifetime. More importantly, he sympathizes with illiterates by imagining himself as illiterate and lost (256). This shows his credibility by giving many examples from real illiterate people and their daily struggles. However, he argues that illiterates of America are too familiar with an “uninsured existence” (257). In other words, he means that illiterates are not guaranteed for a tomorrow. In the beginning, Kozol decided to add a warning label

Writer Jonathan Kozol, in the essay “The Human Cost of an Illiterate Society,” suggests that the alarming rates of illiteracy in the U.S. are corroding the fundamentals of democracy, reinforcing the structures of inequality that created the problem to begin with. His argument draws on a range of evidence and support from multiple sources such as philosophers and historical figures, anecdotes, and first-person accounts. Kozol’s purpose is to not simply illustrate the various personal tragedies that people with underdeveloped reading skills face, but to tell his audience that such tragedies when you add them up constitute a threat to the basic values that maintain the nation as a whole.

In “The Human Cost of an Illiterate Society”, a chapter from book called Illiterate America (1985), the author Jonathan Kozol highlights that society cannot continue to sustain if we all neglect 60 million Americans who suffer from illiteracy. Kozol develops his claim by utilizing logos and pathos on describing the hardships that illiterates experience on a daily basis including their political rights. His purpose is to inform non-illiterates about the kind of life that illiterates go through, in order to bring the awareness on illiteracy. Kozol establishes sympathy relationship towards illiteracy and intended audience are two types of non-illiterate Americans who are not aware on suffering of illiterates and who blames illiterates without

Taking things for granted is a very common practice in society, the ability to appreciate the smaller things in life is a trait not commonly found in many. Be it having the ability to attend a university, or having the proper use of all of one’s limbs, many don’t fully understand and appreciate the gifts they have. In his work, The Human Cost of an Illiterate Society, Johnathan Kozol relates this idea to the importance of literacy, and the implications and struggles that are imposed on society and those who lack it.

Being without the ability to read brings along many different problems. One of the most important problems is that dealing with economics. In his article to the “Vocal Point”, Mcmaster emphasizes that how illiteracy affects the nation’s economy by stating that,

“Sponsors of Literacy”, written by Deborah Brandt, is an academic journal article that attempts to define literacy sponsorship, as well as connect literacy as an economic development to literacy as an individual development. Brandt studied literacy sponsorship by conducting 100 interviews from a varied group of people all born in the same century. Brandt concludes that a literacy sponsor is anyone or anything that influences a person to read or write, weather it be in a positive or negative way. A literacy sponsor usually benefits in a direct or indirect way. Brandt also found that there are three factors that influence people’s literacy: stratification of opposition, competition and reappropriation. In order to show stratification of opposition,

In this essay Jonathan Kozol writes about people who “suffer” from illiteracy. Kozol’s purpose in writing this essay is to give people who are literate a better understanding of those who are. One of the strongest devices used in this essay was pathos, an appeal to emotions. Kozol is writing on a major topic that impacts millions of Americans today, but one that often seems unimportant and ignored by society. Kozol uses many examples to personify his point that illiteracy is harmful. “Illiterates cannot read instructions on a bottle of prescription medicine.They cannot find out when medicine is past the year of safe consumption…”(Pg.116 L.12-14). Throughout a few sentences Kozol gives examples of how illiterates could potentially harm themselves

Kozol argues that, “The number of illiterate adults exceeds by 16 million the entire vote cast for the winner in the 1980 presidential contest. Even if one third of all illiterates could vote in their self-interest, Ronald Reagan would not likely have been chosen president”(Kozol 149). When illiterate people choose a political figure to represent their views they do not know they are affecting themselves, as well as everyone else in the united states. Their vote impacts the United States because it determines who will make the important decisions, and create new policies. To be represented in what goes on in the surrounding community is a crucial aspect in democracy for illiterate people.

In the essay “The Human Cost of an Illiterate Society” is written by Jonathan Kozol, published in “Reading for writers” in NY. 2013. The author Kozol is a nonfiction writer, educator and social activist. In the essay, he writes about illiteracy occur in American society, illiterates who cannot read are getting trouble with many issues in their life. He is successful in affecting readers by using rhetorical throughout his essay. Kozol has also shown his talented skill of writing with logos, ethos and pathos. With logos, he is well-developed on the core of his argument, talented in appeal to readers’ emotion with pathos, and impressing readers to believe in his reliable with ethos.

This critique will be of chapter one of the book Literacy in American Lives. The author of this book is Dr. Deborah Brandt, a professor of English at Wisconsin Madison University and her main focus in Literacy in American Lives is to study about how people have learned to read, how they use their ability to read, and how literacy learning changes with time. In this first chapter “Literacy, Opportunity, and Economic Change”, Brandt focuses on how economic change can affect the value of literacy, and the impact that this change in the value of literacy has in the lives of two farm women from Wisconsin.

Knowledge is an effective factor in which human society relies on. Throughout history, those who were knowledgeable were well-respected, honored and revered. Author Jonathan Kozol writes his essay, “The Human Cost of an Illiterate Society,” to project the importance of knowledge and to explain that without it, one can suffer disastrous repercussions. He highlights real-life examples of how people suffer as a result of chronic illiteracy, and his entire essay is an advocacy for knowledge and literacy. Other authors such as Frederick Douglass and Richard Wright would use their personal experiences in completely different settings to highlight the power of knowledge. Douglass, a man born into slavery, and Wright, a man living through

Statistically, based on reports from 2003, 99% of the total population ages 15 and over can read and write (CIA Library). Thus, one can conclude illiteracy is not a crisis. However, “The Human Cost of an Illiterate Society” by Jonathan Kozol, implies something different. Kozol emphasizes the hardship of an illiterate, and briefly explains the importance of helping an illiterate without providing much of a solution, while Kozol’s essay was ineffective overall because of the lack of factual evidence and flawed conclusions, his strategic use of tone, repetition and rhetorical questioning provided some strength to his argument.

Throughout the world social problems such as illiterate, elderly, handicapped, minority groups, and poverty have been the biggest part in our society for many years. Some of our social problems had died off, meanwhile, they’re still many problem that we are still facing as a society. One of the major social problem we face is people being illiterate. Being illiterate is meaning a person can not read nor write, and it can also mean that a person is grammatically incorrect. There is as much as 23% of the adult population that are ignorant to basic skills of the 4th grade level. In the U.S. the ethnic group that is most affected by not being able to read or write is

“It is not enough to simply teach children to read; we have to give them something worth reading. Something that will stretch their imaginations-something that will help them make sense of their own lives and encourage them to reach out toward people whose lives are quite different from their own.” - Katherine Patterson. Literacy is a right. It is implicit in the right to education. It is recognized as a right, explicitly for both children and adults, in certain international conventions. Literacy is the ability to read and write, and also refers to having enough reading and writing ability to function in society. People who cannot read and write are called illiterate. People are called functionally illiterate if they cannot read or write well enough to do activities that are common in social settings they encounter. Such activities may include employment, schoolwork, voting, or worship. The power of literacy is something that can change the world. How far has literacy come since the beginning and what is its history; what are the causes of a lower literacy rate; what effects can lower literacy rates have; what about higher rates; what are some ways to improve the literacy rates and; what are some of the benefits to a higher literacy rate?

In today’s society illiterate people are looked at as “half-citizens” (Kozol 190). They are dependent on literate people to function daily. Think