In the Fuss Over Core and Relevance, What Will Happen to Rereading?

Students think: If I read Macbeth in high school, why read it again? (Image: “Macbeth and Banquo Meeting the Witches on the Heath,” Théodore Chassériau – Musée d’Orsay)

In 1987, when E.D. Hirsch published Cultural Literacy¸the book’s considerable attention was focused on Professor Hirsch’s extensive list of things one should know.

If nothing else (and I do think there was much else), the overwhelming response to Cultural Literacy played into American anxiety about keeping up, knowing the answer,...