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

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[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. 
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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]

PP is correct.  Reading fiction is like 100x harder because you have to interpret so much more by way of style, theme, character analysis, et al.  My dyslexic ADHD 9th grader can read non fiction and prefers it - he can read medical textbooks but reading the Outsiders was so so hard in 6th grade for him.  Non fiction is straight forward factual black and white for knowledge and that's easily processed if you know the vocab.  But it's a lot more brain power to look at fiction and take apart the complexities that make that book special.  Shakespeare is much harder than a biography.

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