From Inquiry to Academic Writing A Practical Guide, 3rd edition

36 CHAPTER 2 | FRom REAding As A WRiTER To WRiTing As A REAdER

adult culture is “unnatural” to young children. Rousseau, Dewey, and

their present-day disciples have not shown an adequate appreciation of

the need for transmission of specific cultural information.

In contrast to the theories of Plato and Rousseau, an anthropological

theory of education accepts the naturalness as well as the relativity of

human cultures. It deems it neither wrong nor unnatural to teach young

children adult information before they fully understand it. The anthropo-

logical view stresses the universal fact that a human group must have

effective communications to function effectively, that effective communi-

cations require shared culture, and that shared culture requires trans-

mission of specific information to children. Literacy, an essential aim

of education in the modern world, is no autonomous, empty skill but

depends upon literate culture. Like any other aspect of acculturation, lit-

eracy requires the early and continued transmission of specific informa-

tion. Dewey was deeply mistaken to disdain “accumulating information

in the form of symbols.” Only by accumulating shared symbols, and the

shared information that the symbols represent, can we learn to commu-

nicate effectively with one another in our national community.

12

Now let’s take a look at the steps for doing a rhetorical analysis.

■ (^) identify the situation
The situation is what moves a writer to write. To understand what moti-
vated Hirsch to write, we need look no further than the situation he identi-
fies in the first paragraph of the preface: “the social determinism that now
condemns [disadvantaged children] to remain in the same social and edu-
cational condition as their parents.” Hirsch wants to make sure his readers
are aware of the problem so that they will be motivated to read his argu-
ment (and take action). He presents as an urgent problem the situation of
disadvantaged children, an indication of what is at stake for the writer and
for the readers of the argument. For Hirsch, this situation needs to change.
The urgency of a writer’s argument is not always triggered by a single
situation; often it is multifaceted. Again in the first paragraph, Hirsch iden-
tifies a second concern when he states that poverty and illiteracy reflect “an
unacceptable failure of our schools, one which has occurred not because
our teachers are inept but chiefly because they are compelled to teach a
fragmented curriculum based on faulty educational theories.” When he
introduces a second problem, Hirsch helps us see the interconnected and
complex nature of the situations authors confront in academic writing.
■ (^) identify the Writer’s purpose
The purpose for writing an essay may be to respond to a particular
situation; it also can be what a writer is trying to accomplish. Specifi-
cally, what does the writer want readers to do? Does the writer want us
02_GRE_5344_Ch2_029_054.indd 36 11/19/14 4:03 PM