WR 100: Education and Work
Spring 2018
Paper #2 Assignment Sheet
Purpose: The purpose of this assignment is to continue developing your ability to create conceptual A
arguments using the elements of academic argumentation that we’ve been studying this term.
Thematically, using our texts, we are also beginning to analyze some potential effects that American
public K-12 schooling may be currently having on contemporary American society.
Task: Answer the question, in what ways may the education system that Diane Ravitch
describes in her book The Death and Life of the Great American School System have helped
to create the attitude toward work and intelligence that Matthew Crawford, in his book $194;
Mum describes as characteristic of society today? Where do you see what Ravitch
is claiming is true about education reflected in what Crawford is claiming is true about the way
people today view Work and intelligence?
Notes:
0 Though you will be creating a relationship between these texts, that relationship isn’t one of
compare and contrast; instead, you’ll be looking for evidence from one text that may help to
explain situations in the other.
9 This is not a paper in which we will be critiquing education or society; we will also not be
attempting to repair either education as described by Ravitch or the current attitudes toward
work and intelligence as described by Crawford.
