3)Why do you think Degnan brings up the subject ―straight-A illiteracy‖?
A Straight-A Student vs. A straight-A Illiterate
A Straight-A Student is a student who gets A's for all the courses he/she takes. Yes, he/she is. A straight-A Illiterate is a well-educated person, typically one Ph. D. degree, or working toward it, and with a high I.Q., but disable by long-term exposure to academic jargon to write in clear, plain English. Pleasure principle: Man is both a biological animal and social being. In keeping with his biological endowment, man tends to seek pleasure and to avoid pain. This truism is known as the "pleasure principle". (Collier's Encyclopedia)
way of organizing his essay to attain the aim:
• In the first paragraph what Degnan does is to define the term straight-A illiteracy, which is highly necessary as it is a phenomenon little thought-of by the general public, and besides, the term itself is apparently paradoxical. • Although there seem to be no obvious cohesive ties between the first and the second paragraph, they are closely connected in the sense that in the second paragraph Degnan uses his personal experience as an example to illustrate the definition he has given in the first paragraph. • If we take what he has narrated in the second paragraph as a specific instance of straight-A illiteracy, the third paragraph is a generalization of the phenomenon. • The cause stated in the concluding paragraph is suggested in the third paragraph with the sentence "Taking his cue from years of higher education, years of reading the textbooks and professional journals that are major sources of his affliction . . . ."