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Hidden Intellectualism Gerald Graff Summary

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The reading "Hidden Intellectualism" by Gerald Graff reflects views on being "street smart" and "book smart." He explains that society tends to associate people who are intelligent on solely being "book smart" and performing well in academics, rather than being street smart. He goes on to further explain that students perhaps can be intelligent on topics that interest them. Graff opens up the reading by giving his own personal experience on feeling torn between trying to prove that he was smart yet fearing that he was overdoing it. He was trying to prove that he learned just as much about the real world by reading his sports books and magazines as he would have if he had read the classic works of literature like most students in school. Essentially, …show more content…

He argues that there is perhaps some sort of hidden intelligence being masked behind the traditional coursework taught in schools and colleges. In addition, he refers to his past experience of using sports to inspire him to succeed in his academic life. Through this argument Graff informs the reader that when he talked about sports with his friends, he was able to create ideas and form arguments when discussing sports. Graff simply argues that when one uses his/her topic of choice to study, read, or write, they will excel academically. Though I somewhat agree with his arguments, I do not agree with them all; in my opinion, I believe that talking about your favorite topics and subjects are not enough to excel …show more content…

I disagree with this argument because not everyone is interested in sports and cars. This seems very biased on his side. Graff only uses sports as an example and fails to regard that are so many types of hidden themes and meanings behind academic readings that are relatable to everyday life that students can discuss. I believe that academics challenges people to accept others ' opinions. It allows for students to interact and share their opinions on different issues and themes applicable to daily life. According to Graff, "...students who get excited about the chance to write about their passion for cars will often write as poorly and unreflectively on that topic as on Shakespeare or Plato" (249). In other words, Graff was trying to further enhance his argument by saying that students that write about topics of their choice will write the same way in topics of academic readings. This proves that some of his points are undoubtedly biased towards sports and fails to argue for the other

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