Unable to load image

The Elite College Students Who Can't Read Books

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/11/the-elite-college-students-who-cant-read-books/679945/

Nicholas Dames has taught Literature Humanities, Columbia University's required great-books course, since 1998. He loves the job, but it has changed. Over the past decade, students have become overwhelmed by the reading. College kids have never read everything they're assigned, of course, but this feels different. Dames's students now seem bewildered by the thought of finishing multiple books a semester. His colleagues have noticed the same problem. Many students no longer arrive at college—even at highly selective, elite colleges—prepared to read books.

This development puzzled Dames until one day during the fall 2022 semester, when a first-year student came to his office hours to share how challenging she had found the early assignments. Lit Hum often requires students to read a book, sometimes a very long and dense one, in just a week or two. But the student told Dames that, at her public high school, she had never been required to read an entire book. She had been assigned excerpts, poetry, and news articles, but not a single book cover to cover.

the future is r-slurred :marseygigaretard: :marseybrainlet: :marseyfoidretard: :marseyspecial: :marseyretard2: :marseydramautist: :marseyshitforbrains: :marseyretard3: :marseystroke: :marseyawardretard:

142
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

>the student told Dames that, at her public high school, she had never been required to read an entire book. She had been assigned excerpts, poetry, and news articles, but not a single book cover to cover.

The trick is to bind the book into a larger collection of books and then ask the students to read a 300 page excerpt.

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Link copied to clipboard
Action successful!
Error, please refresh the page and try again.