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

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[quote=Anonymous]I went to a nothing special public school system in Arizona (consistently ranked in the lowest 10 of states for education) for middle and high school. I'm SO grateful that I learned to read in elementary school in Massachusetts, and that I had a family who encouraged my love for books

The summer between my sophomore and junior years in high school I read Anna Karenina, just for fun. 800 pages give or take, depending on the edition. It wasn't the only book I read that summer, either. In middle and high school I went to the public library every other week and checked out as many books as I could carry - that was their limit. I consumed numerous works of classic literature that I was never assigned in school - but in school we read several books each year, and again it wasn't a rigorous school system. I *was* in honors English classes and tested at the graduate school level for reading comprehension as a sophomore in HS.

Years later when I taught college composition as a GTA while pursuing my MA in English at a state university, I was dismayed by the average reading comprehension and writing ability of most of my students. That was nearly 3 decades ago and I'm not one bit surprised to hear it's much worse from friends who still teach at both public schools and universities. Most kids aren't reading long form fiction or nonfiction anymore. Heck, I'm not reading much these days anymore either - but trying hard to break the digital addiction that has become an obstacle to exercising my brain. [/quote]

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