**Breaking news from the AP 3/01/06:
“WASHINGTON --The ability to handle complex reading is the major factor
separating high school students who are ready for college reading from
those who are not, according to a new report.
“The study by ACT, a nonprofit company that tests students, found that most
states contribute to the lack of college preparedness by not requiring
complex reading comprehension in high school. In fact, ACT found that most
states don't have any standards at all for high school reading achievement.
“The ACT isolated reading complexity as a critical factor by analyzing the
results of the 1.2 million high school seniors in 2005 who took the
well-known ACT college entrance test. Based on that test, only 51 percent
of students showed they were ready to handle the reading requirements of a
typical first-year college course.
And the article continues... Does this surprise anyone? Of course not.
We all see this in the college writing classrooms: students don’t know how
to read. They don’t want to read. When I was in undergrad, I remember
feeling appalled at a co-worker who told me that he had never read a novel.
Granted, this guy was pretty dumb anyways, but still.
Yesterday, Chris had a long discussion with his mom about this topic, in
regards to papers he was grading. He was particularly irritated after
reading a grievous misunderstanding several times. The students were
writing about a Native American cautionary tale that warned against chasing
frivolity, abandoning tradition, and rejecting tribal values. This lesson
was enforced with an allegory about a young woman who was out picking
berries. She sees a beautiful butterfly and wants to catch it. She
abandons her baby to chase after a butterfly. She ran and ran, further and
further, eventually leaving her tribal clothes behind because they were
hindering her. She collapsed from exhaustion and when she woke up, the
butterfly man was next to her. He said he could protect her from the
dangers ahead as long as she followed him and kept very close. They walked
together and went into a field filled with other butterflies flittering
around. The woman tried to stay with the butterfly man, but she was
tempted by the other butterflies, and she gave into temptation and ran
after the other butterflies. She was never seen again. (This is a very
base summary.) Well, the students were writing in their papers sentences
like this: “The woman went against her tribe because she left them to marry
a butterfly” or, “This story is an example of the dangers that come when
you marry a different species.”
Sigh.
2 comments:
*chuckles*
Honestly, that last one cracks me up. It's depressing... but nevertheless funny.
Funnny, sad. We'll say.
It is painfully apparent that Chris's students are not of the same caliber that one would find in the Midwest. A Wisconsin student,for example, would quickly grasp the fact that the young woman in the story clearly had not read Tolkien. Had the young maiden read Tolkein she would have been secure in the knowlegde that fantasizng about a "butterfly man" can be just as, shall we say, satifying as having the real thing; she would neither have abandoned tradition nor rejected her tribal values. The real lesson to be learned from this allegory is that a fantasy (novel) will keep you much warmer and contented on a cold winters night then a silly little butterfly ever could!
Post a Comment