The New First Dictionary Of Cultural Literacy

Provides information on ideas concerning people, places, ideas, and events currently under discussion, including gene therapy, NAFTA, pheromones, and Kwanzaa.

Fully updated for the twenty-first century, The New First Dictionary of Cultural Literacy lists essential facts in twenty-one subject areas to promote successful learning in kids. Child education expert E. D. Hirsch Jr. cuts through the wealth of information available today to highlight terms that a child should be familiar with by the end of sixth grade. With nearly 3,000 concise definitions and including 250 new entries (like Harry Potter, centaurs, northern lights, and World Series), this popular sourcebook makes it easy for children to become literate in mythology, literature, U.S. history, science and technology, and more.

Provides an outline of the knowledge that should be acquired by the end of sixth grade in twenty-one subject areas.

A must-read for parents and teachers, this major bestseller reveals how cultural literacy is the hidden key to effective education and presents 5000 facts that every literate American should know. In this forceful manifesto Professor E. D. Hirsch, Jr., argues that children in the United States are being deprived of the basic knowledge that would enable them to function in contemporary society. They lack cultural literacy: a grasp of background information that writers and speakers assume their audience already has. Even if a student has a basic competence in the English language, he or she has little chance of entering the American mainstream without knowing what a silicon chip is, or when the Civil War was fought. An important work that has engendered a nationwide debate on our educational standards, Cultural Literacy is a required reading for anyone concerned with our future as a literate nation.

Presents an outline of the knowledge that should be acquired by the end of sixth grade

A national bestseller, The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy has been widely acclaimed for identifying and defining the core body of knowledge that no literate American should be without. Now in this newly revised and updated edition, the authors provide a comprehensive look at cultural literacy for the nineties. New entries reflect suggestions from hundreds of readers. The dictionary takes into account the growing consensus over the specifics of multiculturalism, the political and geographic changes in the world, and the new ideas and terms that flow constantly from scientific research and technological development. Twenty-three sections, each alphabetically arranged, cover every major area of knowledge. Within each section, hundreds of individual entries identify ideas, events, and individuals, explaining their significance in our culture and placing them in context. More than 250 maps, charts, and illustrations provide information that cannot be conveyed by words alone. A complete index enables quick reference to any topic. The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy challenges us to find out more about what we know and helps us make sense of what we read, hear, and learn. It is a "must have" book for every home.

This open access book discusses how cultural literacy can be taught and learned through creative practices. It approaches cultural literacy as a dialogic social process based on learning and gaining knowledge through emphatic, tolerant, and inclusive interaction. The book focuses on meaning-making in children and young people's visual and multimodal artefacts created by students aged 5-15 as an outcome of the Cultural Literacy Learning Programme implemented in schools in Cyprus, Germany, Israel, Lithuania, Spain, Portugal, and the UK. The lessons in the program address different social and cultural themes, ranging from one's cultural attachments to being part of a community and engaging more broadly in society. The artefacts are explored through data-driven content analysis and self-reflexive and collaborative interpretation and discussed through multimodality and a sociocultural approach to children's visual expression. This interdisciplinary volume draws on cultural studies, communication studies, art education, and educational sciences. Tuuli Lähdesmäki is an associate professor at the Department of Music, Art and Culture Studies, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Jūratė Baranova was a professor at the Department of Continental Philosophy and Religious Studies, Vilnius University, Lithuania. Susanne C. Ylönen is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Music, Art and Culture Studies, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Aino-Kaisa Koistinen is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Music, Art and Culture Studies, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Katja Mäkinen is a senior researcher at the Department of Music, Art and Culture Studies, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Vaiva Juškiene is a junior researcher at the Institute of Educational Sciences, Vilnius University, Lithuania. Irena Zaleskienė is a senior researcher at the Institute of Educational Sciences, Vilnius University, Lithuania.