Illiterate America

Illiterate America PDF Author: Jonathan Kozol
Publisher: Doubleday
ISBN: 0307800571
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 409

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Book Description
It is startling and it is shaming: in a country that prides itself on being among the most enlightened in the world, 25 million American adults cannot read the poison warnings on a can of pesticide, a letter from their child’s teacher, or the front page of a newspaper. An additional 35 million read below the level needed to function successfully in our society. The United States ranks forty-ninth among 158 member nations of the UN in literacy, and wastes over $100 billion annually as a result. The problem is not merely an embarrassment, it is a social and economic disaster. In Illiterate America, Jonathan Kozol, author of National Book Award-winning Death at an Early Age, addresses this national disgrace. Combining hard statistics and heartrending stories, he describes the economic and the human costs of illiteracy. Kozol analyses and condemns previous government action—and inaction—and, in a passionate call for reform, he proposes a specific program to conquer illiteracy. One out of every three American adults cannot read this book—which is why everyone else must.

Illiterate America

Illiterate America PDF Author: Jonathan Kozol
Publisher: Doubleday
ISBN: 0307800571
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 409

Get Book Here

Book Description
It is startling and it is shaming: in a country that prides itself on being among the most enlightened in the world, 25 million American adults cannot read the poison warnings on a can of pesticide, a letter from their child’s teacher, or the front page of a newspaper. An additional 35 million read below the level needed to function successfully in our society. The United States ranks forty-ninth among 158 member nations of the UN in literacy, and wastes over $100 billion annually as a result. The problem is not merely an embarrassment, it is a social and economic disaster. In Illiterate America, Jonathan Kozol, author of National Book Award-winning Death at an Early Age, addresses this national disgrace. Combining hard statistics and heartrending stories, he describes the economic and the human costs of illiteracy. Kozol analyses and condemns previous government action—and inaction—and, in a passionate call for reform, he proposes a specific program to conquer illiteracy. One out of every three American adults cannot read this book—which is why everyone else must.

Unscientific America

Unscientific America PDF Author: Chris Mooney
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0786744553
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
In his famous 1959 Rede lecture at Cambridge University, the scientifically-trained novelist C.P. Snow described science and the humanities as "two cultures," separated by a "gulf of mutual incomprehension." And the humanists had all the cultural power -- the low prestige of science, Snow argued, left Western leaders too little educated in scientific subjects that were increasingly central to world problems: the elementary physics behind nuclear weapons, for instance, or the basics of plant science needed to feed the world's growing population. Now, Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum, a journalist-scientist team, offer an updated "two cultures" polemic for America in the 21st century. Just as in Snow's time, some of our gravest challenges -- climate change, the energy crisis, national economic competitiveness -- and gravest threats -- global pandemics, nuclear proliferation -- have fundamentally scientific underpinnings. Yet we still live in a culture that rarely takes science seriously or has it on the radar. For every five hours of cable news, less than a minute is devoted to science; 46 percent of Americans reject evolution and think the Earth is less than 10,000 years old; the number of newspapers with weekly science sections has shrunken by two-thirds over the past several decades. The public is polarized over climate change -- an issue where political party affiliation determines one's view of reality -- and in dangerous retreat from childhood vaccinations. Meanwhile, only 18 percent of Americans have even met a scientist to begin with; more than half can't name a living scientist role model. For this dismaying situation, Mooney and Kirshenbaum don't let anyone off the hook. They highlight the anti-intellectual tendencies of the American public (and particularly the politicians and journalists who are supposed to serve it), but also challenge the scientists themselves, who despite the best of intentions have often failed to communicate about their work effectively to a broad public -- and so have ceded their critical place in the public sphere to religious and commercial propagandists. A plea for enhanced scientific literacy, Unscientific America urges those who care about the place of science in our society to take unprecedented action. We must begin to train a small army of ambassadors who can translate science's message and make it relevant to the media, to politicians, and to the public in the broadest sense. An impassioned call to arms worthy of Snow's original manifesto, this book lays the groundwork for reintegrating science into the public discourse -- before it's too late.

Illiteracy in America

Illiteracy in America PDF Author: United States. Congress. House. Committee on Education and Labor. Subcommittee on Elementary, Secondary, and Vocational Education
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Literacy
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description


Thresholds of Illiteracy

Thresholds of Illiteracy PDF Author: Abraham Acosta
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
ISBN: 0823257126
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
Thresholds of Illiteracy reevaluates Latin American theories and narratives of cultural resistance by advancing the concept of “illiteracy” as a new critical approach to understanding scenes or moments of social antagonism. “Illiteracy,” Acosta claims, can offer us a way of talking about what cannot be subsumed within prevailing modes of reading, such as the opposition between writing and orality, that have frequently been deployed to distinguish between modern and archaic peoples and societies. This book is organized as a series of literary and cultural analyses of internationally recognized postcolonial narratives. It tackles a series of the most important political/aesthetic issues in Latin America that have arisen over the past thirty years or so, including indigenism, testimonio, the Zapatista movement in Chiapas, and migration to the United States via the U.S.–Mexican border. Through a critical examination of the “illiterate” effects and contradictions at work in these resistant narratives, the book goes beyond current theories of culture and politics to reveal radically unpredictable forms of antagonism that advance the possibility for an ever more democratic model of cultural analysis.

Illiteracy in America

Illiteracy in America PDF Author: Edward F. Dolan
Publisher: Franklin Watts
ISBN: 9780531111789
Category : Literacy
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
Covers the rise and decline of literacy in the United States, educational and social explanations, literacy programs in the United States and other countries, and volunteer efforts and how to take part in them

Black Enterprise

Black Enterprise PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 84

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Book Description
BLACK ENTERPRISE is the ultimate source for wealth creation for African American professionals, entrepreneurs and corporate executives. Every month, BLACK ENTERPRISE delivers timely, useful information on careers, small business and personal finance.

The Teacher Who Couldn't Read

The Teacher Who Couldn't Read PDF Author: John Corcoran
Publisher: Brehon Publishing Company
ISBN: 9781938620515
Category : High school teachers
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
"The Teacher Who Couldn't Read" is John Corcoran's life story of how he struggled through school without the basic skills of how to read or write and went on to become a college graduate and a high school teacher, still without these basic skills. National literacy advocate John Corcoran continues to help bring illiteracy out of the shadows with this autobiography, "The Teacher Who Couldn't Read." It is the amazing true story of a man who triumphed over his illiteracy and who has become one of the nation's leading literacy advocates. His shocking and emotionally moving story-from being a child who was failed by the system, to an angry adolescent, a desperate college student, and finally an emerging adult reader-touched audiences of such national television shows as the Oprah Winfrey Show, 20/20, the Phil Donahue Show, and Larry King Live. His story was also featured in national magazines such as Esquire, Biography, Reader's Digest, and People. "The Teacher Who Couldn't Read" is a gripping tale of triumph over America's national literacy crisis-- a story you'll thoroughly enjoy while being enlightened to a national tragedy.

America Libre

America Libre PDF Author: Raúl Ramos y Sánchez
Publisher: Raul Ramos Sanchez
ISBN: 0595426069
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
In the second decade of the 21st century, as the immigration crisis reaches the boiling point, once-peaceful Latino protests explode into riots. Exploiting the turmoil, a congressional demagogue succeeds in passing legislation that transforms the nation's teeming inner-city barrios into walled-off Quarantine Zones. In this chaotic landscape, Manolo Suarez is struggling to provide for his family. Under the spell of a beautiful Latina radical, the former U.S. Army Ranger eventually finds himself questioning his loyalty to his wife--and his country.

Literacy in the United States

Literacy in the United States PDF Author: Carl F. Kaestle
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300054309
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
Aims to shed new light on the issue of literacy in America, providing a social history that broadens the definition of literacy, considering who was reading what, under what circumstances and for what purposes. The book assesses trends in Americans' reading abilities and reading habits.

A Literate South

A Literate South PDF Author: Beth Barton Schweiger
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300245394
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
A provocative examination of literacy in the American South before emancipation, countering the long-standing stereotype of the South’s oral tradition Schweiger complicates our understanding of literacy in the American South in the decades just prior to the Civil War by showing that rural people had access to a remarkable variety of things to read. Drawing on the writings of four young women who lived in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Schweiger shows how free and enslaved people learned to read, and that they wrote and spoke poems, songs, stories, and religious doctrines that were circulated by speech and in print. The assumption that slavery and reading are incompatible—which has its origins in the eighteenth century—has obscured the rich literate tradition at the heart of Southern and American culture.