In Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault breaks down the premises of a panoptic system, outlining the mechanics through which it controls a population and linking it to other structures seen throughout a society, such as in prisons and schools. An example of such evident in the implementation of new grading rubrics for English teachers across America in 1923. The essays of 12th graders nationwide, who wrote under the same conditions, formed the base of a design for a national rubric, consisting of a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 was the highest possible score. The analysis of differently graded essays reveals the series of values that the system promoted. The national grading system primarily encourages the use of Standard Written English, then
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The system 's dismissal of individuals who do not possess the desired value set then creates a cycle, which relegates said individualsde to the lowest rung of a strict social hierarchy. For example, such is the case with the author of the first essay, given the lowest possible score on the rubric. Despite fully answering the prompts by recounting what is most likely a personal experience, considering it deals with corporal punishment and learning, it was given a one by the rubric. It can be assumed that this student was from a low income area, and the values and language displayed in his essay were those he had gained from his original community. The system seeks to reward only WASP—white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant—values, continually dismissing the individuals who do not fit, or cannot learn, said values. This then limits the flexibility of the social structure as the values one is raised in then determines where they fall on the rubric, relegating them back to where they were originally. With the new rigidity in the social hierarchy, the system traps individuals within the socioeconomic group they are raised within, creating systemic economic inequality and harming the impoverished portion of the
The system 's dismissal of individuals who do not possess the desired value set then creates a cycle, which relegates said individualsde to the lowest rung of a strict social hierarchy. For example, such is the case with the author of the first essay, given the lowest possible score on the rubric. Despite fully answering the prompts by recounting what is most likely a personal experience, considering it deals with corporal punishment and learning, it was given a one by the rubric. It can be assumed that this student was from a low income area, and the values and language displayed in his essay were those he had gained from his original community. The system seeks to reward only WASP—white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant—values, continually dismissing the individuals who do not fit, or cannot learn, said values. This then limits the flexibility of the social structure as the values one is raised in then determines where they fall on the rubric, relegating them back to where they were originally. With the new rigidity in the social hierarchy, the system traps individuals within the socioeconomic group they are raised within, creating systemic economic inequality and harming the impoverished portion of the