Reply to the Atlantic: The Elite College Students Who Can't Read Books

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "the Atlantic: The Elite College Students Who Can't Read Books"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don't understand this. Aren't admissions more competitive than ever? Aren't these the superhuman students who aced the hardest classes, scored extremely highly on SATs, had very time-consuming ECs....? We are told nobody has a chance at these schools, and yet, those who are actually there, can't read a book? How is this possible.[/quote]

Test prep. Read a short passage find the main idea. Move onto the next skill. Meanwhile, they've never read a whole book about anything. I totally understand why this is happening. Since there's no homework these days, I assign it. My kid is always reading a book for homework, and we're always discussing it. [/quote]

But that just sounds like a run of the mill 4.0 GPA/grade grabber who we are repeatedly told can't get into, e.g. Columbia.

I mean, my 8th grader is not a big reader and she read a non-fiction psychiatry book over just a few days this summer and we discussed it. Pretty sure she would be capable of discussing [b]Pride and prejudice and Crime and punishment[/b] within a couple of weeks. I read these books in HS. They are interesting and not that hard to read.[/quote]

Those books aren't interesting at all.  [b]I mean, Crime & Punishment? Are you now going to tell me War & Peace is interesting too?
[/b]
Perhaps if we let a kid read a non-fiction psychiatry book instead of Pride and Prejudice or whatever, then things would be better.

But, if you want to read Crime & Punishment, then go for it.[/quote]

War & Peace is VERY interesting, I feel sorry for you that you've never read it. It remains and I suspect always will remain one of the greatest works of literature ever crafted.

The same is true of Crime & Punishment.

If I had to be stranded on a deserted island with a single crate of books, you can bet that everything ever written by Dostoevsky and Tolstoy would be in that crate.

Honestly it makes me sad to think of you living your whole life and never learning to appreciate those two novels, or any of the other brilliant works by two of the greatest writers who ever drew breath on this planet. You must not have any real interest in humanity if you have no interest in Russian literature.[/quote]
Not PP and not going to argue with you about the aforementioned books—but you sound patronizing AF.  You must not have any interest in humanity if you have no interest in Russian literature?!! Holy hyperbole. One of the really cool things about reading is that it can open up people’s minds about others whose lives/values/likes/dislikes are vastly different than their own…. It might even lead them to make less sweeping generalizations about people based on, I don’t know, which books they’ve read/enjoyed. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics