Hirsch Reading - Cultural Literacy

"The complex untakings of modern life depends on the cooperation of many people with different specialities in different places. When communications fail, so do the undertakings." (Hirsch 438) Hirsch's argument in the article is that in today's society most people are literate enough to communicate well. He describes that this is a process that should be started young and that we are overlooking what it actually takes to be truly lieterate.

Basic commmunications require people to be able to to connect to the world around them. There are basic functions that we must be able to perform to be able to communicare with others and have them actually understand what it is that we are saying. Hirsch says first that we must know the background information of the materials to be able to understand the underlying issue. Such as when we wake up and read the newpaper, the newspaper is assuming that there is a common reader that has a certain level of understanding of the situations that are happening in the world.

Hirsch further explains that we must have a common language to make sure that communication is freely transmitted. The common language this common language allows everyone to be on a level playing field and that there are no mixed signals coming out. Without the common language there is a disconnect, where if you use one word expecting that everyone knows what the meaning of that word is. But in reality there could be more than one definition of the word and then people are confused.

He talks about a cultural literacy where people would be well versed in many things and be able to communicate them freely to others. By creating a cultural literacy we are creating a shared knowledge between everyone. In often times college students have fell into places where there are gaps bewteen what they are trying to say and what the person they are talking is actually getting out of the conversation. We do not all learn the same things, and we should not expect everyone to know what we know. But by teaching people then we are able to create a common knowledge and there will be less confusion in discussions.

So for Second life I have come up with a few things that we could use to create the types of things that Hirsch is speaking about.

• Background Information: Telling everyone about the game, the point of the game, the end result of the game, different places to navigate, basic knowledge of the game
• Common Language: common key strokes, different buttons to push, terms most used in the game, hand outs
• Cultural Literacy: teaching the class the basics of the game, make sure that everyone knows how to get to places, easy instructions so that everyone can then tell others about the game