This assignment is for Group #1, due on Wednesday. Remember, you should aim at roughly 3 pages double-spaced (or, just this once, slightly less), or about 800-1000 words. The assignment is an essay (in other words, an argument). Look at the syllabus, in the section entitled "About Your Writing and the Class Blog," for information on what I expect from your writing, and on how I will evaluate it.
Explanation: I assigned the Richard Scarry for several reasons. First, my 5 year old daughter and I love to read it: it simply never gets old. It doesn't just interest me because she likes it, though. I'm interested in the reasons *why* she likes it. Beyond its wonderful art and its often brilliant portrayals of different kinds of work, it has ideological and pedagogical purposes.
What do I mean? I mean that this book, which is very much a product of its time (1968), teaches children a way to think about work, life, and even America. One thing which is *very* helpful to notice here is that the book portrays a time which literally never existed: for instance, its portrays a blacksmith building a tractor, and a strange (and improbably) mixture of power tools and hand tools at several points, for instance in the story about wood. It is a strange and deliberate mixture of fact and fantasy, which is worth thinking about.
Assignment: So here's your job: first, pick some moment (a single picture, a passage, at most a whole page), or a handful of moments, from the book. Then, discuss what the moment, or set of moments, is attempting to teach children about work, or technology, or America, or human nature. It might help to think about ways in which the book is like *and* unlike the real world - and what that means. Having established what the book is teaching us, you need to argue for or against this point of view, something like this: "Richard Scarry is teaching children to believe x; I agree/disagree for reasons y and z."
Note 1: If you have questions about the assignment, post them as comments to this post.
Note 2: One person has reported difficulty getting the book. Have the rest of you tracked it down?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Hey guys, I also had a lot of trouble finding this book. Neither one of the libraries had the book, or for that matter had any record of it in the county of Pittsburgh. However, at the bookstore on Forbes across from Soldiers there were about three or four left down stairs in the text book section in the language and literature section near Eng. Comp. Other than that I havent looked anywhere else.
If its cool with you, I am probably going to do my assignment on this book. I stopped at the book store early and got one already. Will that mess up anything that group two is going to do for friday?
Nick - no problem. Do the original assignment if it suits you.
Post a Comment