Aidan Kelleher  

Professor Perisse 

ENG 170-10 

Critical Reading Assessment 

24 April 2023 

Writing & Rhetoric Program
Spring 2023 Critical Reading Assessment
Student Instructions
Step 1: Prepare for the assessment by taking the Key Terms Practice
Quiz.
This quiz will take you about 20 minutes to complete. You may take the quiz as many times as you like.
Step 2: Go to the Assessment Readings Module.
Step 3: Critically read the main article by Oren Cass, “The Misguided
Priorities of our Educational System.”
Also read the supporting material: Introduction to Cass’s article in the
Student Opinion section in the NY Times: “Should Everyone go to College?” by Natalie Proulx, and Letters to the Editor in response to Cass’s article in NY Times: “Should a College Diploma be a Goal for all?”
Give yourself 45-60 minutes to read actively, make annotations, and think critically about these articles.
Step 4: Go to the Critical Reading Assignment Prompts Module.
Reflect on the questions and write a three-part response of 600 or more
words using key terms you have learned this semester.
Allow yourself approximately 70-120 minutes to write and edit your response to Part A, B & C (unless you have special accommodations through the DRC) Step 5: Upload your Critical Reading Assessment Response. Critical Reading Assignment Prompts 

  1. *Refer to the main article by Oren Cass, “The Misguided Priorities of our Educational System.”

Part A: Analysis
1. Identify Owen Cass’s main argument (thesis). Explain your rationale. 

Owen Cass’s main argument or thesis is that “our education system has become one of our rhetoric nation’s most regressive institutions”, effectively saying that the American school system fails to prepare a variety of types of students for college or the work force because of its narrow mindset. It is clear from reading the article that everything comes back to this central theme using supporting evidence to show that as generations go by and more students go to college, the graduation rate has not improved and the school system needs to shift its focus and stray from the normal curriculum in order to actively help their students succeed, whatever that looks like.  

  1. Who is Cass writing to, and what is their purpose or motivation (goal) for writing about this issue? Using evidence from the article, identify what you think Cass is trying to accomplish for their audience.

Cass is writing to inform both high school and college students about the data presented in the article, which could be helpful to a student who finds the transition to college or the work force difficult and feeling unprepared, knowing you are not alone, nor have you done something wrong to get here. Cass’s purpose is also a call to action to educators everywhere, whether a teacher or an administrator, to try and fix this issue and improve the likelihood of one of their students being prepared for college or to feel confident about a life path that does not necessarily include college.  

 

 

  1. Using evidence from the article, explain how Cass structures their argument and why this structure is appropriate for their goal.

Cass structures their argument interestingly, by using pathos first to draw in the reader with an emotional attachment, painting a picture of two students with very different situations and hopes for their futures. Cass endears us to the second student by telling us that “he probably clawed his way through his town’s standard college-oriented curriculum, though it neither targeted his interests and abilities nor prepared him for work force success”.  As opposed to introducing the argument with logic, statistics, or the establishment of their own credibility, Cass interests the reader in the topic by taking the emotional approach.  

  1. 4. Identify ONE of Cass’s smaller claims in support of the thesis. What evidence does Cass present to support this claim? Explain the effectiveness of this evidence.

Cass claims that the college route is often taken by students who do not want it out of fear of failure in the real world, and “if that were true, even a small chance at escaping the supposedly sad fate of inadequate education is better than ever admitting defeat”. Cass presents to us the evidence to support this belief that students must have by telling us the likelihood of success without college. But he refutes this evidence by stating that the evidence is flawed, and that “those workers are not the
same person — indeed, they are likely people with very different academic prospects”. 

  1. Using evidence from the article, identify an incidence of Cass’s bias. Explain how this may influence the audience’s understanding of the argument and/or possibly shape their reaction to the content.

Cass does a very good job at steering away from bias, everything that they say is immediately supported with evidence. The closest Cass comes to an example of bias are the assumptions they make about the two students toward the beginning of the article, stating how the first student is likely applauded by their school and town while the second is not, but all of Cass’s evidence could lead someone to infer this is the case.  

 

  1. Focusing on the language of the article, identify one example to analyze how Cass connects to their audience by appealing to pathos.

Cass uses the introductory paragraphs to emotionally connect with his audience. Whether he wants high school and college students to relate to the struggling student, or for a teacher/administrator to feel sympathy and understanding for them. Cass uses pathos to draw the reader in and make them care about the topic before spouting data and rhetoric.  

Part B: Responsive Engagement
1. As a student, what do you think of Cass’s ultimate conclusions or
suggestions? For instance, do you think college is a choice, a privilege, an obligation, or something else entirely? What motivated your decision to go to college? 

As a college student myself, I agree with everything Cass wrote in their article. I do not have anything against college, and I do consider it a privilege for me to be able to go, but I think there are plenty of people already who it is not right for and there would only be more if the education system did not make us feel like “exceptions to the rule” or “dropouts” for not going to college after high school. Even if it was not one a school-wide level, every teacher would speak to us is absolutes, saying things like “when you go to college” or “this won’t fly when you’re in college”. These matter-of-fact statements pressured a lot of us to prepare for college even if it was not what we wanted, and I think a lot of people go to college only because they do not feel ready yet for the real world. While I love what college has offered me and the education in my major that I did not receive in high school, my main motivation to go to college was that I could not imagine doing anything else or jumping into the work force. School systems need to supply their students with the knowledge and experience that they can feel comfortable and confident to join the work force if it suits them, instead of shoving college as the only option worth wearing with pride.  

 

Part C: Synthesis
Refer to Natalie Proulx’s introduction to Cass’s article, and the Letters to
the Editor: 

  1. Choose one alternate view to Oren Cass’s article from the Letters to
    the Editor, “Should a College Diploma be a Goal for all?” Explain why
    this respondent’s perspective is essential to understanding Cass’s main
    article. Who is affected by these arguments, ultimately? 

The first respondent to Oren Cass’s article writes about their reasoning for disagreeing with Cass, saying that college is not only valuable because it’s a useful tool for getting the right job. The writer argues that their “first two years of college opened more windows for me to a broader look at the world and my place in it than probably any other two years of my life. Let’s give everyone a chance to have at least a little of the brain-opening experience that college can be”. This offers an interesting perspective on Cass’s article, because while this does argue against Cass’s claim that college is not the appropriate path for everyone, it suggests that Cass was right about high schools not preparing students properly. If the most eye-opening and world-shattering years of your life are the beginning years of college, that says a lot about how much of a bubble you are in as a high school student, and how being exposed to the world even in a small way through a college education makes you realize that for the first time. There is an argument to be made that this supports Cass’s main view, that high school should offer this understanding of the real world to its students before they must join the real world. The people affected by these arguments are both the students weighing their options and the teachers/administrators who need to hear these interesting perspectives.  

  1. Explain why readers might give any of these perspectives serious
    consideration, or if not, explain your rationale by analyzing the
    effectiveness of the author’s diction/tone, examples, appeals to
    audience, etc. 

The second respondent, a college professor with 42 years of teaching experience, makes a strong argument using their own credibility for Cass’s claim that college is not for everyone. This professor claims that “at least a third of my students should not have been in college. Either they were not prepared academically, were too immature or were simply not suited for it”. Over 42 years of teaching undergraduates, let’s say they have 100 students per semester for 84 semesters. Maybe some students had them more than once, so let’s round down to roughly eight thousand students. That is a large pool and probably very accurate to the overall consensus of how many college students should not be there. This professor also states specifically that a lot of their students are “not prepared academically”, suggesting that they believe high school education curriculums do not well prepare their students for the college experience. In all fairness to the first respondent, they were clearly quite young, and I would trust a college professor who has gotten to know thousands of students more on this topic.