Today's students don't read!

[IIOY]

Another "I weep for the future" article that is hilariously sad. From WSJ:

Teaching 'Taco Bell's Canon'

Today's students don't read. As a result, they have sometimes hilarious notions of how the written language represents what they hear.

Is it true that college students today are unprepared and unmotivated? That generalization does injustice to the numerous bright exceptions I saw in my 25 years of teaching composition to university freshmen. But in other cases the characterization is all too accurate.

One big problem is that so few students are readers. As an unfortunate result, they have erroneous, and sometimes hilarious, notions of how the written language represents what they hear. What emerged in their papers and emails was a sort of literary subgenre that I've come to think of as stream of unconsciousness.

Some of their most creative thinking was devoted to fashioning excuses for tardiness, skipping class entirely, and failure to complete assignments. One guy admitted that he had trouble getting into "the proper frame of mime" for an 8 a.m. class.

Then there were the two young men who missed class for having gotten on the wrong side of the law. They both emailed me, one to say that he had been charged with a "mister meaner," the other with a "misdeminor."

Another student blamed "inclimate weather" for his failure to come to class, admitting that it was a "poultry excuse." A male student who habitually came late and couldn't punctuate correctly had a double-duty excuse: "I don't worry about my punctual errors."

To their credit, students are often frank when it comes to admitting their shortcomings and attitude problems. Like the guy who owned up to doing "halfhazard work." Or the one who admitted that he wasn't smart enough to go to an "Ivory League school." Another lamented not being astute enough to follow the lecture on "Taco Bell's Canon" in music-appreciation class.

Many students have difficulty adjusting to life in dormitories. One complained that his roommate was "from another dementian." Another was irritated by a roommate's habit of using his "toilet trees" without asking. A female student, in describing an argument over her roommate's smelling up their room with cheap perfume, referred to getting in her "two scents' worth."

Some find you can't go home again. After several weeks at school, one coed returned to her childhood house only to find life there "homedrum."

To be fair, many of the young men and women I encountered over the years are capable of serious thinking on social issues and international affairs. The Iraq War, in what one student called "nomad's land," was very much on their minds. Some were for it, some against it. The most ardent supporter was the guy who described his attitude as "gun-ho." One student lamented that we're becoming a society that "creates its individuals in a lavatory." Another worried that education reform might result in school being in "secession" year round.

When it comes to relationships, it is, in the words of more than one undergraduate, "a doggy-dog world." But I'm sure most of us could sympathize with the girl who said she resented being "taken for granite" by her boyfriend. Some learn the price of intimacy the hard way, like the coed who referred to becoming pregnant on "that fetal night." She might have been better off with the young gentleman who spoke of his policy of keeping relationships "strictly plutonic."

One struggling freshman summed it up for all of us when he wrote, "Life has too much realism." Maybe so, but I don't recommend coping like the guy who referred to getting away from it all by spending the day "sitting on a peer."

Among students' biggest complaints is that they have to write so much in college. In his end-of-semester evaluation, one honest soul complained that "writhing gives me fits." Sad to say, it's not uncommon to hear students remark on how much they look forward to being done with English.

Who knows what language they'll use then?

[charminglife]

I cannot believe that these errors are coming from undergrads. Did they not have to write papers in high school?

[IIOY]

I know that EmilyJ, harpy, and I have probably beaten this issue to death five times over, but I totally believe this based upon the stories my H brought home from the various college courses he taught.

[smock]

I see hilarious stuff like this all the time teaching freshmen in college. Although most of mine have to do with history, like talking about the "Otterman Turks" or calling medieval knights "robots of the king." Or this one, which I still haven't figured out: "Sparta invaded Peloponnesians because the trees were too rich."

[Deleted]

"California is in the northeast of the United States."

The above sentence actually appeared in a student's paper.

The fact that my husband didn't write You are too stupid to live on the student's paper is proof that he's a better person than I am.

[IIOY]

Jul 10, 2012 8:22:46 GMT -5 @angryharpy said:

"California is in the northeast of the United States."
.

If you turn the map sideways, it *totally* is.

[Deleted]

During the 2008 primary season, one student wrote in an essay that she was going to vote for the Democrats during the general election. Why? Because she didn't like Hillary Clinton. And why, you ask, didn't she like Hillary Clinton? Because while universal healthcare sounded nice in theory, it would never work in practice.

To recap: Because she didn't like universal healthcare, she didn't like Hillary Clinton, and she was therefore going to vote for the Democratic presidential candidate in the general election.

That's right. If you think too hard about it, your head actually will explode.

[dooneese]

Ha! Reminds me of the time a friend texted me to tell me that a football game was one "paper view". And she also has a college degree...

[chichimi]

I review college admission applications and its disheartening. I also work with professional women that havent read anything beyond People, Twilight, and now Shades.

[arborgold]

Former undergrad prof jumping to say that I, too, weep for the future. Because these types of things showed up in the papers of my students all the time.

Hell, similar things showed up in the papers of my fellow LAW SCHOOL classmates. I'm still a little miffed by the fact that a fellow contributor to the law review had the phrase "come to find out" in her article - somehow it made me feel a lot less special about the fact that my own article was chosen for publication if that was my freaking competition!

[KateAggie]

I vow to proofread every single thing my girls write until the day they leave for college.

No child of mine will write like this. God as my witness, they'll never write like this!

[msmerymac]

I know people who have said/thought that the idiom was "doggy dog world" and also used "granite" in lieu of "granted." Really? Like the stone? I mean, let's think about this.

Edition/Addition is something I see a lot, even among people my age, with college degrees. HOMOPHONES, people! Oh, and speaking of "plutonic/platonic," sanatorium and sanitarium are different, too. Quite different.

[One Girl In All The World]

I used to see stuff like this in emails from our sales guys at my old job all.the.time. In emails to external clients even. Of course, that's what happens when you hire morons who are usually just out of college, giving them no training and letting them run entire offices without any real corporate oversight.

[marie427]

Threads like this make me feel like a crotchety old person complaining about those darn kids.

[kasi]

Wow. Yea, these people are not readers for sure. Reading helps with your grammar and overall understanding of the language. These poor kids have not figured that out. Thankfully my daughter likes to read so I'm hoping she doesn't turn out like these poor souls. And like PP mentioned, I will always proof read her papers...always!!

The sad thing is she's only in 6th grade and I already want to tear her papers apart because I have the college level writing mindset. I have to learn to look at it from her grade level. So hard to do.

[KateAggie]

Jul 10, 2012 11:04:32 GMT -5 kasi said:

Wow. Yea, these people are not readers for sure. Reading helps with your grammar and overall understanding of the language. These poor kids have not figured that out. Thankfully my daughter likes to read so I'm hoping she doesn't turn out like these poor souls. And like PP mentioned, I will always proof read her papers...always!!

The sad thing is she's only in 6th grade and I already want to tear her papers apart because I have the college level writing mindset. I have to learn to look at it from her grade level. So hard to do.

That's a good reminder for me. I can see myself doing the same.

[heliocentric]

Yesterday AT WORK our safety guy presented the plan for what to do during "in climate" weather.

WTF?

[One Girl In All The World]

This also gives me flashbacks of writing my book reports in school with my mom standing over me the whole time. I had to write it, but she would give me such grief if I didn't do it up to her standards and she would me re-do it. That usually meant I had to actually come up with the "right" way myself, with coaching from her if I was stuck. She wouldn't re-write it for me as much as it killed her not to I'm sure. It was torture then but I'm so glad she did that.

[Deleted]

This is partly because their PARENTS don't read. It always amazes me how few adults read for pleasure...or even a newspaper.

[pixy0stix]

My favorite is when people use "shutter" instead of "shudder."

"I shuttered when I saw the spider."
"You closed the blinds?"

[chichimi]

As long as you are not reading mush, it also helps with logic, foreshadowing, and processing information. If I send you detailed instructions, I am counting on not having to come to your desk and show you.

[lyssbobiss, Command, B613]

My boss hyphenates the weirdest things, like 'thank-you' and 'turn-off'. It makes me want to scream.

[wawa]

My old boss could never keep raze vs. raise straight. And we actually use the word raze pretty often in technical reports - so I was constantly correcting it. (and then sometimes she'd change it back and I'd have to email her the dictionary.com listing)

[IIOY]

I PPH "torcher" and will attempt to work this into a sentence on CEP today.

Irish, we know the moms are reading Fifty Shades, amirite??

[Deleted]

ugh, don't get me started on that book. lol

[basilosaurus]

My problem was that I quite often couldn't pronounce words correctly bc I'd only read, not heard, them.

Writhe was one. Blythe (from anne of green gables) is another.

I've definitely seen granite on the bump.

[One Girl In All The World]

Jul 10, 2012 12:44:38 GMT -5 basilosaurus said:

My problem was that I quite often couldn't pronounce words correctly bc I'd only read, not heard, them.

Writhe was one. Blythe (from anne of green gables) is another.

I've definitely seen granite on the bump.

I've had that problem. For example I only just learned the pronunciation for "quinoa." Assuming the person pronounced it correctly on the today show the other day that is.

[brit1017]

This article is hilarious!

I keep seeing discreet/discrete mix-ups in a lot of the independent authors I've been reading. I guess that's what happens when you don't have an editor...

[marissa]

The problem is that NCLB had kids reading for speed and not actually working on other aspects of reading. I have told parents that I could make a nice sum tutoring if I could expand my hours because here they teach kids to identify the word but not worry about spelling or comprehension. It drives me bonkers!

[gault]

Hey, if it got through spell check, it MUST be okay. Right?