What according to Neusner is a major and what is its role in the university? Evaluate his criteria for choosing a major. How do these criteria relate to the author’s assertion in another publication that “we in universities have a single purpose: to open minds to new ideas”? According to Neusner, a major is the subject or area a student learns with special emphasis. Its role in the university is it defines the power a department has in an institution. Neusner’s criteria…
Summarize in a few sentences the seven misperceptions that Sanford Ungar discusses. These, of course, are all things that “they say” – and that he uses to launch what he wants to say. How does calling them “misperceptions” affect the way you read his argument? Would you read it any differently if he instead called them “common assumptions”? The seven misperceptions Ungar discusses seem to be the opposing points to getting a liberal arts education. They include, liberal arts being…
Explain Gee’s concept of “filtering” (15) and how it impacts primary Discourse acquisition. Why do some people more than others just seem to “get” reading, or find it easy to master dominant secondary Discourses? Gee’s concept of filtering is a process where aspects of secondary Discourses are filtered into a primary Discourse. It represents a transfer of features that allows a child to practice secondary Discourses while learning their primary. Some people, according to Gee, find it easier to master…
Gee offers two controversial “theorems” that follow from his new, social definition of literacy. (9-11). Paraphrase or put these theorems into your own words, then explain in what way(s) they might be “unsettling.” Gee’s first theorem states that Discourses are not like languages in that you can’t have a partial understanding of them. Gee says that “You are either in it or you’re not” (9). This can be unsettling because I think it might make individuals feel insecure, that they…
Graff and Birkenstein explain that most writers (certainly of academic essays) are responding to what others have said, and they tell us to look for what motivates these writers. By entering a conversation, according to them, a writer has to represent what’s been said and move beyond it in some way. So, what are some of the views Gee responds to? Remember, he may name them explicitly; they may sometimes be implied, or they may be “something ‘nobody has talked…
