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][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.  I mean, Crime & Punishment? Are you now going to tell me War & Peace is interesting too?

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]

Wow, I feel sorry for you. Your inability to understand some of the greatest fiction ever written indicates lacks in other aspects of your understanding of life. 
[/quote]

Why...there are a ton of people who hate all fiction writing.  Why are you superior because you enjoy fiction and someone else would rather read a 1,000 page book on Oppenheimer or other non-fiction.[/quote]

One thing is that non-fiction tends to be what-you-read-is-what-there-is. Whereas fiction involves subtle themes, style, symbolism, subtext….things you have to dig to discover. Reading non-fiction is a much more passive process. [/quote]

Depends entirely on what you are actually reading.  In this day and age, at most 50% of adults read one book per year, only 40% of that group reads fiction and 99% of that fiction is Dan Brown; Tom Clancy and 50 Shades of Grey and the like.[/quote]
So? This is just snobbery.

It's like people who hate Marvel movies and only consider movies by Scorse to be any good.

They are different genres and can be enjoyed equally.

Personally, I don't like romance movies, but I enjoy reading historical romances.  I enjoy watching historical dramas, but I don't enjoy reading it; too much like a history book.

I love reading and watching scifi, including Dan Brown and Michael Crighton books.[/quote]

Hey…I like those books too…but PP was slighting non-fiction as lacking subtext and symbolism as though that’s the reason 99% of anyone reads even a fictional book.

It’s not enough to just be happy people are reading more than a comic book.

Other than the literal symbolism involved in the plot of The Da Vinci Code, of course.

[/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