College English Majors Can't Read

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The key terms are “regional Kansas universities.”

There are a lot of kids at regional universities, in Kansas or elsewhere. And these are definitely not the worst group of students moving through higher ed -- 74th percentile or thereabouts is nothing to sneeze at.

The paper also pairs nicely with stories from Harvard et al about students unable or unwilling to read. Would be interesting to replicate, and see to what extent the more selective schools have also been selecting on the basis of ability to process complex text.

I agree with this, and also with the critique that the study is not well-designed to establish what is claimed. I was taught to read Beowulf (in public school!) but I would not have been able to do that without guidance, and using the opening of “Bleak House” for this exercise is almost as intentionally obscurantist today as using “Beowulf” with no notice would have been 30 years ago.

In some ways: yes. But that is the shocking thing, that Bleak House is as inaccessible as Beowulf now to most English majors, because they have not been scaffolded through how to read a moderately difficult book by an author who one would have expected to be ubiquitous in English literature courses those 30 years ago.

Incidentally, 30 years ago was when I read Bleak House. It was one of the assigned texts, freshman year of high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:English major here: I think this is a combination of phones and screens, which have killed reading for pleasure in many kids, and the fact that teaching of literature has become “politics by other means” and now almost entirely centers concern about inclusion and contemporary obsession with questions of identity at the expense of teaching challenging works. When you swap out The Scarlet Letter for some sort of Y.A.-level story about the challenges facing Identity Group X, it will have pedagogical impacts.

We homeschool, and sometimes I check the reading lists at ‘good’ schools around us to make sure that we’re not missing anything worthwhile and it’s true that the lists are full of identity politics. Many of those books are also filled with poor writing loaded with grammatical errors as they try to replicate “cultural” language. The classics (and good writing) seem basically nonexistent in schools nowadays.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree with 9:19.

The opening of Bleak House is a particularly challenging passage, far more challenging than the rest of that novel. I would argue it was written specifically to grab the reader by making the familiar strange. The passage includes a number of referents that would have been familiar to 19th century English readers (Michaelmas Term, Lord Chancellor, Lincoln’s Inn Hall, Holborn Hill, and what London used to be like in November back when everyone burned coal for heating and cooking and the streets were not yet paved). But no one in 21st century Kansas is or should be casually familiar with these things. So for them this passage makes the strange, stranger. Of course they struggled. The use of this passage for this particular research purpose leads me to believe that the researchers themselves don’t really understand the material or that they are operating in bad faith.

It assumes students know a lot about London for the time. Now given that the students could do some research on Dickens and then Londo at the time, they should have been able to understand more. But I don't suspect most did that. It's also over descriptive at times IMO. Here is the full passage:

"LONDON. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln’s Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets, as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snowflakes—gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another’s umbrellas, in a general infection of ill-temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if this day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest."

All this to basically say it was a cold, rainy, and dreary November day in London. On this particular street thick mud abounds, causing people to slip and slide about while knocking into one another because of the frequency of umbrellas. Meanwhile, it's still drizzling, and the sky is filled with smog from the chimneys. Everyone and everything is miserable including the dogs left outside and the horses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The key terms are “regional Kansas universities.”

There are a lot of kids at regional universities, in Kansas or elsewhere. And these are definitely not the worst group of students moving through higher ed -- 74th percentile or thereabouts is nothing to sneeze at.

The paper also pairs nicely with stories from Harvard et al about students unable or unwilling to read. Would be interesting to replicate, and see to what extent the more selective schools have also been selecting on the basis of ability to process complex text.

I agree with this, and also with the critique that the study is not well-designed to establish what is claimed. I was taught to read Beowulf (in public school!) but I would not have been able to do that without guidance, and using the opening of “Bleak House” for this exercise is almost as intentionally obscurantist today as using “Beowulf” with no notice would have been 30 years ago.

In some ways: yes. But that is the shocking thing, that Bleak House is as inaccessible as Beowulf now to most English majors, because they have not been scaffolded through how to read a moderately difficult book by an author who one would have expected to be ubiquitous in English literature courses those 30 years ago.

Incidentally, 30 years ago was when I read Bleak House. It was one of the assigned texts, freshman year of high school.

Beowulf was inaccessible in HS English classes 30 years ago. Kids were just forced to read and struggle through it and provided some scaffolded. But most hated it. And, many schools focused almost solely on the "classics" meaning many students had little to no concept of diverse writing and cultures outside of a geography/history class.

[Anonymous]

This is direct result of balanced literacy (for profit) movement

Anyone interested in root causes MUST listen to the podcast ‘Sold a Story’. Only in ‘Merica

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is direct result of balanced literacy (for profit) movement

Anyone interested in root causes MUST listen to the podcast ‘Sold a Story’. Only in ‘Merica

Not just balanced literacy. Many have taken “including diverse voices” to mean “completely eliminating white / classic lit.” I know posters here will attack me and ask me what I mean by classic, and whether I mean sexist/tacist/imperialistic white male.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is direct result of balanced literacy (for profit) movement

Anyone interested in root causes MUST listen to the podcast ‘Sold a Story’. Only in ‘Merica

Not just balanced literacy. Many have taken “including diverse voices” to mean “completely eliminating white / classic lit.” I know posters here will attack me and ask me what I mean by classic, and whether I mean sexist/tacist/imperialistic white male.

Some people here have infinite patience to read about London mud. That's all I'm saying. I also realized I've been mixing up Bleak House and Hard Times because my patience with Victorian misery is all gone.

Enjoy, Classics people!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The key terms are “regional Kansas universities.”

There are a lot of kids at regional universities, in Kansas or elsewhere. And these are definitely not the worst group of students moving through higher ed -- 74th percentile or thereabouts is nothing to sneeze at.

The paper also pairs nicely with stories from Harvard et al about students unable or unwilling to read. Would be interesting to replicate, and see to what extent the more selective schools have also been selecting on the basis of ability to process complex text.

I agree with this, and also with the critique that the study is not well-designed to establish what is claimed. I was taught to read Beowulf (in public school!) but I would not have been able to do that without guidance, and using the opening of “Bleak House” for this exercise is almost as intentionally obscurantist today as using “Beowulf” with no notice would have been 30 years ago.

In some ways: yes. But that is the shocking thing, that Bleak House is as inaccessible as Beowulf now to most English majors, because they have not been scaffolded through how to read a moderately difficult book by an author who one would have expected to be ubiquitous in English literature courses those 30 years ago.

Incidentally, 30 years ago was when I read Bleak House. It was one of the assigned texts, freshman year of high school.

Time has passed. It IS shocking!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I switched my kid from public to Catholic and he was so happy that he would finally be reading real books (not excerpts) and learn actual content.

Public school students are extremely over tested so of course their readings are basically test prep. In private school, my son’s midterms and finals (stating in 6th grade in all 6 core subjects) were essays comparing themes and characters in 2-3 different novels they reel throughout the year.

I've heard this a lot, but I don't get it. I don't see how a minimal reading load (dozens and dozens of 3 page excerpts?) over the course of the school year would be better test prep than reading full books (say, 5-6 200-300 page books).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I always find it funny that the anti-"multicultural" people are fetishists for foreign cultures, like antiquated Britain and ancient Rome.

Uh... our culture, history and system of government are based on these "foreign" cultures. They may be foreign to you, but they weren't foreign to the dominant culture until recent decades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The key terms are “regional Kansas universities.”

There are a lot of kids at regional universities, in Kansas or elsewhere. And these are definitely not the worst group of students moving through higher ed -- 74th percentile or thereabouts is nothing to sneeze at.

The paper also pairs nicely with stories from Harvard et al about students unable or unwilling to read. Would be interesting to replicate, and see to what extent the more selective schools have also been selecting on the basis of ability to process complex text.

I agree with this, and also with the critique that the study is not well-designed to establish what is claimed. I was taught to read Beowulf (in public school!) but I would not have been able to do that without guidance, and using the opening of “Bleak House” for this exercise is almost as intentionally obscurantist today as using “Beowulf” with no notice would have been 30 years ago.

In some ways: yes. But that is the shocking thing, that Bleak House is as inaccessible as Beowulf now to most English majors, because they have not been scaffolded through how to read a moderately difficult book by an author who one would have expected to be ubiquitous in English literature courses those 30 years ago.

Incidentally, 30 years ago was when I read Bleak House. It was one of the assigned texts, freshman year of high school.

Time has passed. It IS shocking!

I don’t know where people are coming from on Beowulf, it was written in Old English and basically nobody ready the original; its a work read only in translation and really is apples-to-oranges to this discussion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree with 9:19.

The opening of Bleak House is a particularly challenging passage, far more challenging than the rest of that novel. I would argue it was written specifically to grab the reader by making the familiar strange. The passage includes a number of referents that would have been familiar to 19th century English readers (Michaelmas Term, Lord Chancellor, Lincoln’s Inn Hall, Holborn Hill, and what London used to be like in November back when everyone burned coal for heating and cooking and the streets were not yet paved). But no one in 21st century Kansas is or should be casually familiar with these things. So for them this passage makes the strange, stranger. Of course they struggled. The use of this passage for this particular research purpose leads me to believe that the researchers themselves don’t really understand the material or that they are operating in bad faith.

It assumes students know a lot about London for the time. Now given that the students could do some research on Dickens and then Londo at the time, they should have been able to understand more. But I don't suspect most did that. It's also over descriptive at times IMO. Here is the full passage:

"LONDON. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln’s Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets, as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snowflakes—gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another’s umbrellas, in a general infection of ill-temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if this day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest."

All this to basically say it was a cold, rainy, and dreary November day in London. On this particular street thick mud abounds, causing people to slip and slide about while knocking into one another because of the frequency of umbrellas. Meanwhile, it's still drizzling, and the sky is filled with smog from the chimneys. Everyone and everything is miserable including the dogs left outside and the horses.

lol @ “over descriptive at times.” Indeed these two passages convey precisely the same impression, you should adapt Dickens for the modern era.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I switched my kid from public to Catholic and he was so happy that he would finally be reading real books (not excerpts) and learn actual content.

Public school students are extremely over tested so of course their readings are basically test prep. In private school, my son’s midterms and finals (stating in 6th grade in all 6 core subjects) were essays comparing themes and characters in 2-3 different novels they reel throughout the year.

Our public schools read real books from kindergarten through senior year and they all get to take home their own copy. I don’t know where all these terrible schools are coming from. Republican states maybe?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I mean, maybe I'm a snob, but I wouldn't expect a college freshman w/ 550 SAT attending school in Kansas to understand any Dickens.

Maybe not a snob, just ignorant. I love Dickens. We started reading Dickens in 8th grade and I was not in an advanced English class. I’m not from the Midwest but they have students who excel in reading and writing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was a college English major and I’ve read and loved all types of literature. I think we need to separate different kinds of “hard,” because one matters and the other is a distraction. One reason Dickens is hard is the antique language. When Bleak House was written it was the beach read of the times - it wasn’t considered difficult. Because it was written in the vernacular. I see no real urgency in making sure people can read Shakespeare or Chaucer. Should English majors? Yes, even if they don’t love it, they should read some of where our language and literature came from.

All kids should be taught how to read, analyze, and understand meaningful text, though. Plot, metaphor, argument, character development, voice…those are all important. I’m not particularly fussed, though, about what sort of books kids read in order to understand those things, though. Pride and Prejudice is chick lit, but “hard” to read because of language. Harry Potter is easy to read because of its simple language written for children, but it can serve just fine to train kids to identify the important elements in literature and enjoy them.

I wonder if this study had used modern literature - say, The Kite Runner, Life of Pi, etc - whether they would have had different results. Archaic language doesn’t making literature better, it just makes it old.

I agree, well written. Archaic language turns a lot of kids off. There are so many quality books written in the last hundred years that are overlooked because they won’t let go of Shakespeare.

I like fiction with stories that happened during a significant time in history. A family living in Alabama in 1963 for example. There are excellent quality books about the civil rights movement or the Holocaust that have much more value than yet another Shakespeare play.