The Negative Effects Of Adult Illiteracy

Imagine waking up to an unfamiliar world. A world that only may seem familiar due to years spent breathing, but not living. In this unfamiliar world, one can only imagine the panic and frustrations illiterates face each day as they coexist. An expert on this issue, Jonathan Kozol, wrote a book that deals with his theories of illiterates in America. He mentions how democracy is sacrificed from lack of acknowledgement of this issue. While focusing on chapter four in his novel, Kozol highlights real life hardships for illiterates and defends that their freedoms are nonexistent. In Jonathan Kozol’s essay, “The Human Cost of an Illiterate Society”, he presents the major costs and dangers from illiterates that impact our society as a whole and that our nation fails to address.

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.

Dana Gioia, the author of this article, claims that the decline of reading in America will cause negative effects in society. Dana Gioia develops this persuasive argument by discussing the possible social and personal problems that could arise with the decline of literacy. The author believes that the lack of literacy in America can begin to deteriorate our way of life.

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

By this fact, it can be seen that there is a relation to the decline in America’s economy and the percentage of illiterate people. The ability to read affects our nations money spending as well as, “it costs an estimated $100-200 billion per year in unemployment, welfare, health care, and incarceration costs” (Sachwitz). This fact can be proven in Larry Roberts’ article saying that 44 million out of the 191 million adults in America do not have the ability to fill out a job

An illiterate person can be successful and live a productive life, a high school dropout can make a respectable wage, a person with a college education can be underemployed, and many people with doctorates who are unemployed. The literate arts do not guarantee success and money. What the literate arts do offer a person, are tools that make gaining knowledge and wisdom easier, both during and after their formal education. The gaining of this knowledge and wisdom offers other tools that make success easier – whatever success may be. If and how these tools (which are acquired through the literate arts) are used is entirely up to the individual.

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.

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.

The high rate of illiteracy is a major problem in the United States. Although there have been programs and initiatives started to eradicate this problem, illiteracy still plagues millions of Americans. Out of all ethnic groups, African Americans have a higher illiteracy rate. Within this project, the causes of illiteracy are revealed and viable solutions to this on-going problem will be discussed. Illiteracy Among African-Americans

In society today, people are judged by their level of education. Education is the key in society today. According to begintoread.com, today in the United States 1 out of 4 children grow up without learning how to read. Also at early stage of life the brain start developing and adjusting to the environment that they were raised in. In addition, books and education helps develop the brain especially in early age. According to the National Center for Education, Statistics shows that the majority of people who don’t complete high school have basic or below-basic literacy skills. 26% of prison inmates nationwide had parents who had not completed high school, and 37% of inmates had not completed high school themselves. Literacy is powerful in times of development because it leads to success in life and helps with solving a problem.

Imagine not being able to read this essay. Many Americans do not posses the ability to do what you just did. In Jonathan Kozol’s essay titled, “The Human Cost of an Illiterate Society,” he exposes the complications of being illiterate as well as how it affects a person on a social, personal, and financial level. He brings to light the troubles illiterates go through right from the beginning, and takes repeated stabs at the way they function, and how it brings extreme troubles. Kozol effectively educates and exploits the overlooked troubles of being illiterate, by providing examples of their embarrassment, using repetition emphasizing on their limitations, and making assertions to explain how they survive.

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

The essay “The Human Cost of an Illiterate Society” written by Jonathan Kozol and published in Readings for Writers in 2013, conveyed an extremely important message throughout. Illiterate American’s struggle with simple daily tasks which many of us take for granted. The amount of illiterate people in our society is much higher than it should be. According to the essay, there are millions of Americans who fail to excel in the ability to read and write. Such a large number of people have a problem with this that evidence has shown that if those people were able to read and write and could consciously make a decision to vote for the president of the United States, there would likely have been a different outcome to the 1980 presidential election.

I think education is indispensable to everyone in this earth , all of people want to study to have many choices in their life . But some parts are not like to study at all , they always hide from education and after that they don’t have good futures . In this side , we going to talk about what effect does illiteracy have all around the world . And it effects a lot , they decreases industries, education and some business jobs because if we don’t have education , it means we don’t knowledge, so we cant help to improve the world’s industry . You can see in Africa , they don’t have good education so they become illiteracy , and then in Africa , they don’t have good industry because they don’t knowledge to improve that

The problem is not only that illiterate people are dependent on others, it’s also that the literate, well-functioning people of society aren’t always willing to put forth help. Help may only take a few minutes out of someone’s day, and to them be no big deal. For an illiterate person, those few minutes may be the defining of their lives.