### Instruction:
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If our knowledge of the world occurs through the weaving of narratives, as postmodernists would have us believe, then we must judge the truth of each narrative by comparing it with what we value and what we already accept as true. Any metanarrative, or overarching "big story," must be rejected because it attempts to explain away too many individual narratives. 
history through that metanarrative, postmodernists would argue, does not allow us to consider the contributions of other groups to the country we live in today. So constructing a metanarrative can often be exclusionary.
Of course, constructing a series of smaller narratives is just as exclusionary because it frames experience in a limited way. It is easy to see this occurring if you look at any university course list today. How is it possible for American History 4111, "Imperialism and Amerindians, 1600-1840" to coexist alongside American History 4546, "American Military History and Policy"? Does English 340X, "Survey of Women's Literature," subsume or incorporate elements of English 342X, "American Indian Women Writers"? Perhaps we should pity the undergraduate student today. Lacking any overarching metanarrative to provide perspective, how can the poor student wade through the often contradictory mininarratives being thrown his or her way?
There is no question that the old way was wrongheaded and elitist. Survey courses that emphasized the white male perspective were removed from the curriculum in the 1970s, '80s, and '90s, and for good reason. But replacing them with a smorgasbord of mininarratives risks eliminating any sense of a big picture. Can students connect the dots to define a coherent reality, or must their reality be a series of frames with no links among them?
Revising the canon was about ridding our perspective of those racist, sexist, or classist notions that insisted on a single Truth with a capital $T$. Of course there is no overriding Truth that applies to everyone. For everyone who believes that Thomas Jefferson was a brilliant reformer, there is someone who thinks he was a two-faced slaveholder. Yet, where does it leave us if everyone we know is approaching history, science, literature, or what have you from a slightly different angle? It's bad enough when partisan politics divides us into red states and blue states. How much worse is it to imagine ourselves clad in thousands upon thousands of shades of purple?
The clearest sign that we are not ready to abandon our metanarratives comes in the current and ongoing clash between those who accept evolutionary theory and those who accept the Bible as the written word of God. The latter grant the Earth 6000 years of life, the former give it several million more, and never the twain shall meet. Each of these viewpoints is a metanarrative, a big story that governs people's understanding of the world. Like many metanarratives, each of these completely negates the other.
So on the one hand, metanarratives don't work well because they are too exclusionary. And on the other hand, mininarratives don't work well because they are too narrow. It will be fascinating to watch the canon evolve over the next few decades and to see whether this dichotomy can ever be resolved.
The passage suggests that the author would MOST likely believe that:
A. Colleges should offer more courses in American history.
B. Revising the canon in the late 20th century was a bad idea.
C. Students today need a more global perspective than their coursework provides.
D. Divisiveness in politics is preferable to conformity or unilateralism.

### Response:

The correct answer is C. You must make this prediction based on what the author has said in the passage. Two examples of courses in American history are given to support the notion that some mininarratives are incompatible, but there is no indication that offering more courses would help (choice A). The author mentions revising the canon (choice B) in paragraphs 4 and 5 but implies that it was a good and necessary idea. Red states and blue states are mentioned in passing, but there is little else to indicate the author's feelings about politics (choice D). The best answer is choice $C$; the author is concerned that students today find it hard to see a "big picture" due to their immersion in competing mininarratives.