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Jonathan Kozol And The Lesson By Toni Cade Bambara

1825 Words8 Pages

According to the U.S Department Of Education, 32 million adults in the United States can’t read (Huffington Post). Illiteracy is a growing problem around the world, and is being passed on from generation to generation. This continuous cycle is affecting the lives of children tremendously, with statistics showing that 1 in 4 children in America grow up without learning how to read (Do Something). Me Talk Pretty by David Sedaris, The Human cost of an illiterate society by Jonathan Kozol, and The Lesson by Toni Cade Bambara show the consequences of being illiterate in various ways. Illiteracy negatively affects individuals every day life in today’s society. In Me Talk Pretty illiteracy has an unfavorable affect on Sedari’s lifestyle as he moves …show more content…

Kozol shares quotes from individuals throughout his writing where they discuss children and the affects of being illiterate. “I come out of school. I was sixteen. They said I was wasting their school paper. I was wasting pencils…”(194). He shows that this young individual was affected in her education because she was illiterate. Bambara in The Lesson makes it aware to the reader that the children have been unexposed to many things in life. “So what’s a paperweight?” “To weigh paper with, dumbbell.” (1144) He uses this to illustrate that the youth are at a level of education of being unaware of what a paperweight is. In The Human Cost of an illiterate society I agree with Kozol that widespread illiteracy may undermine democracy in the United States. He claims that even when they do vote, illiterates are almost certain to vote not based on an educated decision, but for whomever they can remember from a street sign or television advertisement. Kozol also claims that since 60 million people in the US are illiterate, that our own US government is “neither of, nor for, nor by, the people,” (207). I believe along with Kozol that we should push harder in primary schooling that everyone who attends is able to

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Kozol’s audience seems to be toward the liberate American during the 1980’s. At the beginning of his essay he mentioned about one of the Founding Father and the president during those times and other things that were happening at that time. Making most of the modern reader like I am feel a little left out since we are not from that time period and understand less of the political references that he seem to be making throughout his writing. Also, the fact that he is trying to inform his audience it seem like the audience that he is aiming toward to is people that did not know about the illiteracy issues. In fact, it will explain his reason of using quotes and stories from the illiterate people as his only evidence of his essay to evoke the reader’s

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