Graff, Gerald. Clueless in Academe: How Schooling Obscures the Life of the Mind. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003).

Graff, Gerald. Clueless in Academe: How Schooling Obscures the Life of the Mind. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003).

Graff, Gerald. Clueless in Academe: How Schooling Obscures the Life of the Mind. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003).

Clueless in Academe

Graff, a professor of English and education, contends that students enter college ill-prepared for the intellectual work expected of them. Further, he argues that a number factors “make academic intellectual culture opaque or alienating to many students.” Graff suggests that the capacity to make persuasive arguments is inherent in a “life of the mind” and a shared value underlying the diverse array of disciplines comprising universities and colleges. Graff develops these premises along two interconnected lines of thinking. One line focuses on the writing of good persuasive arguments. The other focuses on changes in the academy’s culture that would help students to understand the importance of argument and cultivate that mindset.

The book is potentially useful to three audiences. One is students—particularly those engaged in doctoral study who will be writing either traditional dissertations or those with a more practical orientation (as is currently being explored by the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate). A second is those who are striving to teach writing at both the high school and college level. Third are those whose pedagogical aims include helping students cultivate the habits of mind associated with scholarly practice.

Graff concludes his book with examples of teachers whose classroom practices transcend “the increasingly stale dualism of ‘traditional’ vs. ‘progressive’ methods and create bridges between academic and student discourse.