The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream by Barbara Ehrenreich, Hidden Intellectualism by Gerald Graff, and Nuclear Waste by Richard A. Muller are all pieces of literature in the book They Say, I say by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein. These pieces give readers an example of different types of college level writing samples with the purpose providing them with a source of influence to assist in further developing their own skills. Just by looking at the titles you can can tell these writings have very different topics, which they do. Yet the themes of these writings are all too similar. Don 't Blame the Eater, Hidden Intellectualism and Nuclear Waste all address observations and insights involving the American educational system. Of
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Graff believes that this is far from the truth. He used his early childhood knowledge of sports as an example of how street smarts can be just as intellectual, or even more intellectual, than book smarts. “Sports is full of challenging arguments, debates, problems, for analysis, and intricate statistics that you could care about, as school conspicuously was not”(248). Indeed, Graff is not only referring to sports as a form of hidden intelligence, the main point he is trying to make is that when learning something, it is key for you to have interest in it, in order for you to apply and advance that knowledge. Graff believes that schools need to understand this, which he points out when he argues, “Schools and colleges are missing an opportunity when they do not encourage students to take their non academic interests as objects of academic study.” No elaboration …show more content…
Muller is about the nuclear waste issue which we our currently facing in the world. In the text Muller enters some modern discussions about the issue, particularly the plans to build a nuclear waste facility within the Yucca Mountain of Nevada. Yet Muller is using this topic just as an example to support his main point that the future generation is going to have to learn as much as they can about science, because they are going to have to be the ones to solve these problems in the future. Muller makes this clear in his last paragraph in which he speaks to the future generation “Raise the standards, increase the safety, do more research, study the problem in great depth, and in the process you will improve safety and frighten the
Graff believes that this is far from the truth. He used his early childhood knowledge of sports as an example of how street smarts can be just as intellectual, or even more intellectual, than book smarts. “Sports is full of challenging arguments, debates, problems, for analysis, and intricate statistics that you could care about, as school conspicuously was not”(248). Indeed, Graff is not only referring to sports as a form of hidden intelligence, the main point he is trying to make is that when learning something, it is key for you to have interest in it, in order for you to apply and advance that knowledge. Graff believes that schools need to understand this, which he points out when he argues, “Schools and colleges are missing an opportunity when they do not encourage students to take their non academic interests as objects of academic study.” No elaboration …show more content…
Muller is about the nuclear waste issue which we our currently facing in the world. In the text Muller enters some modern discussions about the issue, particularly the plans to build a nuclear waste facility within the Yucca Mountain of Nevada. Yet Muller is using this topic just as an example to support his main point that the future generation is going to have to learn as much as they can about science, because they are going to have to be the ones to solve these problems in the future. Muller makes this clear in his last paragraph in which he speaks to the future generation “Raise the standards, increase the safety, do more research, study the problem in great depth, and in the process you will improve safety and frighten the