Excellent Sheep by William Deresiewicz Close Reading Questions

Acquire your own copy of the book, Excellent Sheep: The Miseducationof the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life by former Yale Professor, William Deresiewicz.Note-taking in thebook along with highlighting important or interesting areas of the text will greatly assist your understanding of key ideas. Having a hard copy to refer to in class discussions is also necessary, so it is for these reasons that we encourage students to purchase the book. As you read, make note of his argument, claims you agree with and disagree with,interesting quotes, and passages you want todiscusswith your peers. Be prepared to debate his argument. Last, complete the reading guidequestions below:

WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT DIRECTIONS: READ CLOSELY. ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS CAREFULLY AND THOUGHTFULLY. DO NOT CRAM THESE IN AT THE LAST MINUTE! THE TASK WILL BE OVERWHELMING. A GOOD PLAN IS TO TACKLE A CHAPTER A DAY FOR 12 DAYS. BE THOROUGH, BUT YOU MAY ANSWER IN FRAGMENTS RATHER THAN COMPLETE SENTENCES. PLEASE COPY THE QUESTION AND THEN WRITE YOUR ANSWER. DO NOT WRITE IN PENCIL. ANSWERS MAY NOT BE TYPED AND MUST BE WRITTEN LEGIBLY IN YOUR BEST HANDWRITING.

INTRODUCTION

  1. The author immediately conveys a purpose for writing this book? What is it?
  2. What does Deresiewicz mean by “the system”?
  3. What does he say are the subjects of the book?
  4. What are the descriptors Deresiewicz employs to characterize elite students as “sheep”?
  5. How does the author structure the book? Look at the focus he identifies for each part.
  6. Who does Deresiewicz say is his audience? (more than one)
  7. Deresiewicz defines the elite he refers to throughout the book. Who does he say it doesn’t include? Who does it include?

CHAPTER ONE - (Note the cause and effect strategy in this chapter.)

  1. Who are the “Super People”?
  2. What according to Deresiewicz is a “major factor” in the campus crisis of hopelessness and depression?
  3. What besides overachievement keeps students from forming deeper relationships?
  4. What is the “Stanford Duck Syndrome?
  5. What two things have been missing to help students “figure out what they want out of life . . . of college”?
  6. What two things were not on the syllabus?
  7. Harry R. Lewis, former dean of Harvard College uses a metaphor to describe how elite students use the first year or two of college. What is that metaphor?
  8. Contrast what students have been taught about what education is with what they have not been taught. (Pg.13)
  9. What has been replaced by a “frenzy of extracurricular activities?” What does David Brooks say there is a ‘scarcity of” as a result?
  10. What is Deresiewicz’s description of credentialism (4 things)?
  11. What do so many kids leave college without?
  12. What is the elite students’ narrow conception of what constitutes a valid life?
  13. What is the “salmon run” and what force drives it? What name does a University of Michigan graduate give it?
  14. What is the effect of the “prospect of not being successful”?
  15. What does Harry R. Lewis say are the four reasons an elite education has become “inimical to learning”?
  16. What are the 4 things (a college education is supposed to be about) that “fall by the wayside”?
  17. What happens to the large population of kids during senior year?
  18. What does the failure to follow one’s passion lead to if “unaddressed”?
  19. So what then does the “glittering system of elite higher education” do?

CHAPTER TWO

  1. Describe the change from “the old aristocracy to the new meritocracy” (from ____to ___).
  2. What brought about the “earthquake” in 1983 and why?
  3. How did Tom Wolfe describe that earthquake?
  4. What is the “attract to reject” strategy?
  5. What does “brag” refer to?
  6. List three examples of admissions codes and their meanings.

CHAPTER THREE

  1. How does Deresiewicz describe helicopter parents? (9 adjectives)
  2. In what book will we find a “perfect portrait” of a helicopter parent?
  3. What is one of the “greatest curses of the high-achieving mentality”?

CHAPTER FOUR

  1. What is the “old ideal of the liberal arts”?
  2. What swung the balance of institutional power decisively toward research?
  3. Why are students not well-equipped to handle criticism?
  4. What is “The Suckage Factor”?
  5. What makes the system work?
  6. What has replaced the “unscalable craft of teaching”?
  7. How has commercialization of higher education changed how institutions see their students?
  8. Contrast the characteristics of a commercial relationship vs a pedagogical one.
  9. Who began the move toward meritocracy and when?

CHAPTER FIVE

  1. Complete this sentence: “What’s at stake, when we ask what college is for, is nothing less than ______.”
  2. What is the first thing that college is for?
  3. What does ‘thinking’ mean?
  4. According to Deresiewicz what is the first purpose of a “real” education?
  5. What is a professor doing by bringing his “charges into the unfamiliar, uncomfortable and endless fertile condition of doubt”?
  6. What is a professor’s most important role?
  7. Explain the antithesis represented by the classroom and the dorm room.
  8. For what is a liberal arts education a training ground?
  9. Explain the importance of introspection in developing what Deresiewicz calls “soul and self.”
  10. Deresiewicz sums up the chapter by saying that the purpose of college is to ______.

CHAPTER SIX

  1. What is the paradox in the first full paragraph on page 90?
  2. What does ‘true self-esteem’ mean (3 things)?
  3. How does Deresiewicz allude to Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken?
  4. What is Deresiewicz’s definition of “moral imagination”? What analogy drives home his definition?
  5. What qualities does moral imagination call upon?
  6. What does Aristotle say is the source of happiness?
  7. What does William Damon say is the virtue of purpose?
  8. What is the “gift and burden of freedom”?
  9. What are the ‘old moral lodestars’ and what power do they have?
  10. What is the best reason to fail?
  11. Of what is Odysseus synonymous with?
  12. What defines the elite mentality?
  13. Why is there “no top”?
  14. What is Deresiewicz’s ‘rule of thumb’?
  15. What are the signs of the ‘genuine article’?
  16. What is the ultimate form of entitlement?
  17. What does Dustin Hoffman call the twenties?

CHAPTER SEVEN

  1. What, in Deresiewicz’s opinion, is the incorrect or misguided, “devoid of content” definition of ‘leadership’?
  2. What is the “great question about bureaucracies”?
  3. What is Deresiewicz’s 6-PART answer?
  4. So when people say “leader” now, what do they mean?
  5. Deresiewicz maintains that instead of training leaders, whom should we train?
  6. Who are the best leaders?
  7. Characterize ‘thinkers.’
  8. Why do people not like it when others challenge consensus?
  9. Deresiewicz asserts that intelligence is not an aptitude, but an activity. What kind of activity?
  10. Deresiewicz maintains that instead of worrying about building their resumes, students need to work on building something else. What?

CHAPTER EIGHT

  1. What do students pursue in the liberal arts, and what is the only criterion?
  2. Instead of acquiring information, what do you do with it?
  3. What nine things do you learn?
  4. Why are liberal arts graduates so highly valued in the workforce?
  5. According to Larry Summers, former secretary of the Treasury and president of Harvard, what is the most important kind of learning?
  6. What does Tony Golsby-Smith say about humanities majors?
  7. What does John Ruskin say the greatest thing a human soul ever does in the world?
  8. What fundamental moral lesson does art instill?
  9. What does art teach?
  10. What remains as essential to one’s education as a citizen?
  11. What very rare thing, fundamental of our system of education should school prepare you for?

CHAPTER NINE

  1. What do students really want from their teachers and professors?
  2. Describe the qualities of a good teacher as stated on page 183.

CHAPTER TEN

  1. What does Deresiewicz say about where you go to college and why?
  2. What type of college does he recommend?
  3. What does he say is the best option?
  4. What does he say about skipping college?
  5. What is more important than where you go to school?
  6. What kinds of things should you think about as you make your college lists?
  7. What does Deresiewicz say is the most important factor when you go to college?

CHAPTER ELEVEN

  1. According to Deresiewicz our system of elite education does what?
  2. What is Deresiewicz’s opinion about Title IX?
  3. Why do schools “stroke their students’ egos”?
  4. Who are the products of meritocracy?
  5. What is the disadvantage of an elite education?
  6. Describe the elite mentality.
  7. Contrast the students’ experience at Cleveland State vs. students at Yale. PP 218-19
  8. Why does Deresiewicz say “working hard is not enough”?
  9. What is the extended metaphor comparing to the “bubble”?
  10. What does Deresiewicz say is the only way to treat somebody and to realize about them?
  11. What must you recognize about yourself?

CHAPTER TWELVE

  1. What does meritocracy purport about itself, and how does Deresiewicz argue differently?
  2. List Deresiewicz’s 9 descriptors of “our elite today.”
  3. What does he say that “our leadership class” has done?
  4. What does Deresiewicz say are 2 things the new dispensation must ensure?
  5. What does excellence require?
  6. How does Deresiewicz define the American Dream?
  7. What is Deresiewicz’s conclusion? How does he attempt to connect to a bigger picture that all citizens should care about?