Hello everyone ☺️ i’m working on summarizing mike rose’s “blue collar brilliance” essay into one paragraph for my engl 151 class. feedback would be much appreciated. anything to improve before i turn it in? !
mike rose's, essay “blue collar brilliance” takes an in depth look at the assumptions of the cognition, education, and intelligence of stereotyped “blue collar” workers. rose dives into his essay’s topic starting off close to home by exploring observations he made at a young age of the daily routines and habits that made up the career of his “blue collared” mother, waitress, rosie. he breaks down her cognitive processes of what it takes to hone the skills of memorization, social engagement, and physical agility to successfully complete many tasks at hand while waitressing. he then goes on to challenge the assumption of education being correlated to intelligence within the working class population by surveying the history of societal generalizations such as a manager labeling his workers as “a bunch of dummies." rose brings personal elements back to his essay when he introduces the audience to another “blue collard” family member, uncle, joe meraglio. joe did not have a formal higher education, but as rose words it, a “rhetorical education” due to a large span of experience in problem solving, management, and workplace equipment operations. these qualities were common to more than just joe as we can see when rose expands upon the ability of the “blue collared” class through the concepts of mind and body connection in a physical work environment. rose continues further to debunk the “social biases” of the “occupational ladder," questioning the notion of mathematics and literature within the infrastructure of a labor intensive occupation. with the cognitive processes, education, and intellect of the working class members of society in mind, rose elevates the conversation to address social separations that all too seemingly “cripple our ability to talk across cultural divides." this idea leads to rose’s final statement which summarizes his opinions demonstrated throughout the piece, beckoning a “democratic” society to think critically and have more conversations on this subject matter.