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What is cultural literacy? This was a term coined by the educator and author E.D. Hirsch, Jr. in 1987 when his first book, Cultural Literacy, was published. I read this book soon after it came out, which is unusual for me, since it was not the type of book usually on my reading list, and was fascinated. By the way, Hirsch was born in 1928, so he is 98 years old and still alive.
What is cultural literacy? We all know what literacy is – the ability to read the printed word. Cultural literacy goes beyond this. Suppose one reads a news article about a whistleblower involved in a lawsuit against a huge corporation. In the news article, the reporter refers to the lawsuit as a David vs. Goliath case. If you are literate, you can decode the words and sentences and derive meaning from them. If you know a bit about the original David vs. Goliath story from the Bible, this reference will deepen your appreciation of the news event. If you know nothing about the Bible, then this reference will leave you flat, even though you could decode the words. Suppose, in a novel, a task that the hero or heroine must do is described as herculean. If you don’t know something about the original story of Hercules, this adjective will mean nothing to you even though you could probably sound it out if you know phonics.
In both cases described in the last paragraph, detailed knowledge of the stories of David and Goliath or Hercules would not be needed in order to be able to understand the references that deepen the specific narrative. In Hirsch’s original book, he identified thousands of names, stories, dates, and places that should be known in order to read English-language non-fiction and fiction in an understandable way.
A First Dictionary of Cultural Literacy is a much more organized and complete list of these items, divided into categories that are easy to peruse. I have enjoyed going through a list just to see if I know all the items! However, that is not the main use of this book, although letting a child and/or teacher scan through a list is a good way to identify deficiencies. The categories in A First Dictionary of Cultural Literacy are fascinating. Some of them are: proverbs (e.g. a bird in hand is worth two in the bush), idioms (e.g. crocodile tears), English grammar, literature, mythology, the Bible, music-art-architecture, US geography, American history since 1865 and many others. Each entry is brief, giving a succinct definition of the key person, place, concept, fact, or date.
Hirsch also pushed the idea of core knowledge, which is really what cultural literacy is all about. He published a set of books with titles like What Your First Grader Needs to Know. We had several of these books in our home school. They had good content in them but in our family we found the Dictionary much more useful. I would encourage you to check out this book and use it to evaluate and educate your children.