By Free Republic | Created at 2024-12-06 02:49:03 | Updated at 2024-12-22 11:25:31
2 weeks ago
THE ELITE COLLEGE STUDENTS WHO CAN’T READ BOOKS
The Atlantic ^ | Nov 2024 | Rose Horowitch
Posted on 12/05/2024 6:21:52 PM PST by Rummyfan
To read a book in college, it helps to have read a book in high school.
Nicholas dames has taught Literature Humanities, Columbia University’s required great-books course, since 1998. He loves the job, but it has changed. Over the past decade, students have become overwhelmed by the reading. College kids have never read everything they’re assigned, of course, but this feels different. Dames’s students now seem bewildered by the thought of finishing multiple books a semester. His colleagues have noticed the same problem. Many students no longer arrive at college—even at highly selective, elite colleges—prepared to read books.
This development puzzled Dames until one day during the fall 2022 semester, when a first-year student came to his office hours to share how challenging she had found the early assignments. Lit Hum often requires students to read a book, sometimes a very long and dense one, in just a week or two. But the student told Dames that, at her public high school, she had never been required to read an entire book. She had been assigned excerpts, poetry, and news articles, but not a single book cover to cover.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
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Frightening.
1 posted on 12/05/2024 6:21:52 PM PST by Rummyfan
To: Rummyfan
Yeah, because reading is just so hard, dontchaknow?
When I was in jr and sr high, I’d go to the library every Saturday and get my allotted three books out and read all weekend.
2 posted on 12/05/2024 6:37:08 PM PST by metmom (He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus)
To: Rummyfan
One of my daughters is reading ‘Crime and Punishment’ for a 9th grade class. She doesn’t live NY state though.
3 posted on 12/05/2024 6:37:49 PM PST by posterchild
To: Rummyfan
Students can swipe right and left, and spend hours on end posting 10-word reviews on tiktok, but struggle to compose two related paragraphs? Why are they given a passing grade, then?
4 posted on 12/05/2024 6:38:10 PM PST by blueplum ("...this moment is your moment: it belongs to you... " President Donald J. Trump, Jan 20, 2017) )
To: Rummyfan
Everyone is addicted to technology.
To: Rummyfan
The parents didn’t instill a love of reading in their children. Our home was filled with books. All my children loved reading from an early age. One of them found long novels boring, but he would curl up with other books.
With that said, even though I myself always loved books, too, I don’t think ‘literature’ should be a required course for all majors. JMHO.
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