Have you noticed that students read at a significantly lower level now than they did 10-20 years ago? What do you think is causing this?
Teachers/professors of?
Have you noticed that students read at a significantly lower level now than they did 10-20 years ago? What do you think is causing this?
professor of literature here ama
Is the part in beowulf where he goes to the bottom of the lake to kill Grendel's mom still interpreted as a metaphor for penetrating a vegana?
just me or do you find students learn faster than ever and the hard part is challenging them?
How would you feel about meeting your students on here
they read the same amounts as people with their schedules would. I fully belive that the amount of reading done by the youngsters has not changed but the amount of requirements for them has broadly grown thus succesfuly stripping them of free time and curiosity which directly relate to reading.
The American education system is dogshit and it’s basically day care and not learning institutions. Not a teacher but it’s easy to see. Combine that with zero attention span tiktok brains and you’re left with a generation of “neurodivergents”
I was diagnosed with autism 30 years ago and read at a college reading level in 4th grade.
The main goal of public schools are to keep vagabond children off the street for eight hours and nothing more.
Yes. I entered university when Bush left office and knew engineers and science majors who would read print fiction books in the library in their free time. Now I teach literature majors who do not read in their free time.
Harold Bloom observed the decline in reading before social media. I have also noticed an increase in rude emails and a lack of etiquette from students before the pandemic, so I think this is just part of the broader decline of American culture.
>Now I teach literature majors who do not read in their free time.
How would they have any free time? I was struggling to read all the *assigned* reading in my undergrad years. I can't imagine kids these days would have it any easier. That's just a normal part of uni. I can understand how engineers/science majors would have free time, because they don't get the same level of assigned readings.
They have enough free time to party frick get high and watch Netflix, you're delusional
Etiquette is kind of overrated honestly. People should be more straightforward in their everyday conversations
>People should be more straightforward in their everyday conversations
Having and using certain formalities helps being straightforward. And while there is nothing wrong with being nice by deliberating moving away from them you can transport information without explicitly stating it or simply being rude.
That's mostly escapism.
Sounds about right. I am a huge Bloom fan and have had plenty of depression over this already.
I was surprised to find essays by Gore Vidal from the 60s that are ranting and raving about the decline of reading.
Henry Adams mentions it too I think. It's in many places.
It started over a century ago actually. And maybe has been going on much longer than that.
>I have also noticed an increase in rude emails and a lack of etiquette from students before the pandemic
I've noticed this. Students treating email as they would a messenger service with their buddies. I guess they don't think it's actually me on the other end - it's some abstract text-guy. Maybe they need an image of me to know they're actually talking to me. Intriguing, but nothing to cry over. Email ettiquette is bollocks anyway.
Sure, bud
The essays I review for my fellow undergraduates are startlingly poor sometimes.
My professors probably think im a moron and they would be correct.
You MUST declare the percentage of your classroom that is nonwhite
0.0000000%
This has been well known and well underway for at least a century.
I am shocked you are just now noticing but that is yet another sign of the times.
You all can stop being philosophical about it. The cause is simple, crass distraction. Symbols on pages cannot compete with the audiovisual electronic media, or printed graphics or neat plastic trinkets etc.
The TV, the Smartphone and the Computer are the three assasins of the Book.
What is happening is SEVERE and extreme. You only get a sense of it after you start encountering letters and writings by common people and children in the past. General, functional literacy increased to no avail (so the masses can read billboards and menus).
I found this autograph in a book the other day.
Lucyann could doodle a nice signature, but would she be capable of using even the simplest piece of software? Doubtful
You just made my day and rekindled my faith in the human spirit.
As long as we have humor we have life!
>You only get a sense of it after you start encountering letters and writings by common people and children in the past.
I remember reading that the average uneducated soldier from the civil war (who were often poor farmers or laborers before they signed up) writes to a higher level of quality than even university academics today. Grim.
I teach highschool ela. This is what we teach based on book availability:
9th grade
Lord of the Flies
Grapes of Wrath
R&J
Ender's Game
Catcher in the Rye
Night
10th
Anthem
Fahrenheit 451
Animal Farm
Gatsby
Julius Caesar
11th Grade
The Things They Carried
The Crucible
1984
Scarlet Letter
Hamlet
Metamorphosis
Seniors:
Othello
In Cold Blood
Bless Me Ultima
Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
Frankenstein
Joy Luck Club
It isn't bad. And we design assignments and focus skills to where they have to read.
I do in my class an extra credit independent novel project, and I keep a list of 100. Kids can do two a semester. Usually about 70% of my students will take me up on it.
I actually notice, at least where I'm at, that more kids are reading, but they're reading what they're interested in. I tend to read a mix of genre and classic stuff and esoteric fiction, so I'm always recommending stuff. That's the thing though: kids want to read about things they're interested in. Not what we'd talk about on here. Genre is what the kids are into, and that's fine. I'm just glad they're reading at all.
Pretty much the same list from say 30 years ago, so not much has changed.
Virginia? Thats an uncannily familiar list.
There are plenty of very good ones on it. I wish they would add more.
Are you allowed to add other novels/short readings?
How much do you feel you can get away with, in terms of making these into critical thinking exercises (which good reading and education of course must be) ? Do you get blowback from parents a lot?
Colorado actually
We tend to do six novels a year, three a semester in six weeks units. It's what's feasible given reading speeds and comprehension abilities.
Other novels have to be approved. It's a 4 year process
I can get away with a lot, surprisingly. I teach the honors 10th, and a lot of them I turn into big, multi-part projects so they just can't be sparknotes.
I just finished up Anthem, which I used to teach beliefs and values, and how setting affects those things. Fahrenheit is up next - the focus is on different types of literacies, morals and ethics, dystopian societies, and how characters influence the perspective of other characters. Animal Farm I'm using to introduce basic rhetorical triangle, and reinforcing previous skills. Caesar is going to be the second layer of the rhetorical triangle and rhetorical devices. Gatsby is kind of a culmination of the different skills while introducing character development as the analysis skill. Their final project will be a six week synthesis/research between the five readings where they have to identify commonalities in at least three of them and explain/argue how/why they do or do not speak to the human condition
make them read infinite jest
Maybe 10% of your class is reading allat, the rest are reading the summaries on sparknotes
More than half of the books there are interesting read, few of which I have read throughout high school whilst staunchly refusing to read most of the ripoff national literature which got shoved down our throats in my slav shithole.
Western kids with an interest in reading are spurred by these compulsory reads, instead of giving up on reading for a few years altogether because the 9th grade common core is utter rubbish which is not only dated, but also doesn't arouse any feelings due to being entirely ripped off from various European countries.
>in my slav shithole.
Which one would that be?
Students aren't taught how to make proper use of books so it's no surprise they read so poorly. Any one who claims its the internet or television doesn't actually understand what they're talking about.
I'm a literal middle-school dropout and I can write better than my cousin who's a uni professor
consider that this poster is incapable of understanding academic writing and thinks the slop he writes is "better" (probably because he can understand it, even if no one else does).
it actually is a sprint though.
I teach literature in "higher education" in Europe. Mainly teacher-students. Most of my students don't read at all (not even the corriculum).