The Shame of the Nation - the Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America

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1. Analysis of the mechanics of the book.

Organization: Identify the kind used (topical, chronological, etc.) and judge its appropriateness. If the organization is confusing or absent, then you may want to criticize the author. In your opinion, would a different organization have improved the readability of the book?

The organization of the book goes through chronological order. The introduction talks about how Jonathan Kozol began teaching and he introduces the book. Kozol lets the reader know what to expect when reading the book. Chapter one is about how schools named after someone in history like Martin Luther King Jr. or Thurgood Marshall are not integrated, they are still segregated. Chapter 2 discusses how underprivileged children in Apartheid school districts are. Chapter 3 discusses how important exams are. The number one goal for these schools is for the students to do well on the placement exams so that the school will be given more money. 

In Chapter 4, Kozol illustrates how these schools expect children as young as kindergarten to start thinking about what jobs they may want and begin preparing for them.  Chapter 5 discusses standardized testing and how it has affected inner-city school systems. Chapter 6 focuses on how the parents belonging to a more privileged lifestyle are doing everything they can to isolate their children from token numbers of the children of minorities. Chapter 7 goes into detail about the hardships faced by students in these segregated inner-city schools including physical disrepair, overcrowding, instability of staffing, rodent infestation, portable classrooms, and unsanitary conditions, just to name a few. Kozol does a nice job in this chapter of forcing the reader to see these conditions through the eyes of the children.