Atlantic article: Elite college students who can't read books

[cintinative]

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

 

"The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books
To read a book in college, it helps to have read a book in high school."

 

Scroll down the thread because EKS has posted a gifted article.

Edited Wednesday at 02:07 PM by cintinative

[Terabith]

 

 

Okay, apparently I cannot copy and paste this because it's a horrible formatted mess.  I'm sorry.  Arg!!!!

Education

 

Illustration by Masha Krasnova-Shabaeva

October 1, 2024, 7:30 AM ET

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Education

 

Illustration by Masha Krasnova-Shabaeva

October 1, 2024, 7:30 AM ET

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Education

 

 

 

 

 

Edited Tuesday at 09:24 PM by Terabith

[prairiewindmomma]

Nicholas Dames who teaches Literature Humanities at Columbia University is encountering students in his classes who've never been required to read an entire book during their public school experience, let alone several books over the course of a semester as has historically been required in his classes. Students are unable to keep up with the workload expected of them. In addition, they struggle to follow a plot or to stay focused in deeper discussions.  Dames believes this is because expectations of middle and high school students have changed. 

[Terabith]

I'm so sorry.  I can't even fix it by deleting.  This is awful.

[prairiewindmomma]

Just now, Terabith said:

I'm so sorry.  I can't even fix it by deleting.  This is awful.

You tried harder than me. I just read it and lazily summarized it. 😂

[Terabith]

3 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

You tried harder than me. I just read it and lazily summarized it. 😂

I swear it didn't show up like this when I was trying to copy it...  I'm so embarassed!

[prairiewindmomma]

Dont be. Cutting and pasting into WTM is always weird for me. I cant even get my phone to post links. I have to use my laptop.

[KSera]

If you have Apple News, it’s available there (and by tomorrow I’d think the Wayback Machine will have it)

https://apple.news/AVNDbZdXnSLKRA0DRN8qkKQ

[cintinative]

9 minutes ago, KSera said:

If you have Apple News, it’s available there (and by tomorrow I’d think the Wayback Machine will have it)

https://apple.news/AVNDbZdXnSLKRA0DRN8qkKQ

It's behind a paywall. I don't have Apple News though

[cintinative]

25 minutes ago, Terabith said:

I swear it didn't show up like this when I was trying to copy it...  I'm so embarassed!

No worries! thanks so much for trying!!

[kbutton]

I can’t read it, but based on the summary shared…

I had a lot of reading in high school, including novels and plays on top of short story/poetry anthologies every year, and when I was heavy into lit classes, I massively struggled to keep up with the reading even if I dragged my books everywhere all day and read every spare minute between classes. If I had other reading intensive classes at the same time, it was awful.

And I read on the faster side.

I wonder if previous students were more adept at skimming or using Cliff’s Notes and such? 

[Toocrazy!!]

The article had a couple ideas why this was happening-

-smart phones making everyone more distracted with shorter attention spans

-schools teaching to the tests which use excerpts and shorter summaries

- grade inflation. A couple professors said the students just wouldn’t read that many books so they didn’t assign them. Students didn’t have to work as hard to get the grades and so, they didn’t. 

[Terabith]

I would argue local school districts telling teachers they aren't allowed to use books (because controversy) and also state standards that explicitly call out teaching novels as old school and that they are supposed to be teaching short informational text.  

I just realized that my current college freshman never wrote a term paper since sixth grade.  She entered public school in 7th.  

[bookbard]

In Australia, so a different situation, but I still feel like I've spent years discussing the whole 'teens don't read whole books' thing, such as trying to get various nephews to actually read the books they're set for high school. In our book club we almost always end up spending half the time bemoaning teens who won't read. Is it graphic novels, is it phones, is it distractions, are the books better or worse or not appropriate . . .

It's hard to make someone read. It's hard to make a teen do anything at all, I'm finding. 

[Rosie_0801]

There's a lot of badly taught dyslexics out there. I think that's a good part of why kids prefer graphic novels. And it's genetic, so probably their parents didn't read much to them, so they don't know what they're missing as far as complexity is concerned, and don't need to either because school doesn't make them. My dd is a trade student, so in "veggie English" where they don't read more than excerpts and the government thinks making a yay autism poster is a reasonable year 11 assignment. (The English lit teachers wanted her because she'd heard of most of their books and watched them on the BBC.)

Also, so dd tells me, reading actual books is a grandma hobby, up there with knitting. Glad I taught her to read, because I'm not sure anyone else would have. Pop culture, the stuff you can talk to your friends at school about, doesn't include books, other than the occasional graphic novel or modern lesbian romance. Ideally gay romance graphic novels, because they're less messed up than straight people romances.

Back in the day, even the barely literate dyslexics got a few novels a year because they were read aloud in class.

[dauntless dandelion]

This is so sad. This reminds me of the kinds of deficits Richard Rusczyk talks about in the math realm.

Maybe someone will need to write an AOPS for literature/language arts. But I would think a higher fraction of the student population could be taught to read a book 🤔🤯

 

[Kalmia]

I love this article because it is so clearly written and argues that the kids are not to blame when the educational establishment has abdicated responsibility to provide the foundational literacy skills that were the norm in the past. It is akin to medical malpractice in my opinion. Add to that the smartphone, designed to distract and addict, and it is a catastrophic failure of adults to do the right thing for the upcoming generations.

My husband who has tutored thousands of high school students  for the SAT, ACT, GRE and LSAT for the past 30 years has seen a dramatic decline in student vocabulary, ability to follow an argument, attention span, and perseverance (they give up very quickly when presented with things they cannot immediately figure out) over the past 10 years. When asked, very few of his students report reading for pleasure. Often my husband asks this question during the initial phone call when both the student and the parent is on the line and the parent is both aghast and embarrassed. The student is usually unconcerned. Then it comes out that the student has read very few whole books in school as well and the parent gets angry. Parents have expectations of what is being provided to their student based on what they experienced in school and are shocked when they find out that things like reading books (you know what they sent them to school for) is not a focus. This is exacerbated by the computer portals hiding schoolwork from parents, as opposed to the olden days when the books came home in the backpack along with all the graded assignments. By the time the parents of my husband's students realize what has been going on, their student is 16 or 17 and remediation is unlikely. Even his LSAT students, who are at the end of their college careers, have shown significant decline in reading skills and vocabulary compared to his students 10 years ago.  My husband is most worried about the lack of ability to follow a written argument, a skill necessary to be an informed citizen and to make vital personal decisions (medical, legal, and economic).

Also this: "Reading full-length books can feel like a transgressive act when the National Council of Teachers of English in 2022 announced its support for the idea to “decenter book reading” in English language arts education. Instead, it suggests “critically examining digital media and popular culture” as more worthwhile." Tim Donahue "High Schoolers Need to Do Less So That They Can Do Better" NYT Opinion 9/7/24

 

 

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 02:38 AM by Kalmia

[SKL]

It's interesting.  I do agree that it's an issue, but I don't know that it's entirely new.

I have an avid reader and a reluctant reader.  They both took honors / AP English in high school.  They were assigned some novels, although not as many as I read at their age.  Well, more specifically, they were to read and annotate the books and write analyses of certain sections.  According to my reluctant reader, she never finished any of the books.  She just read enough to support whatever output she needed to give in order to get credit.  (And honestly, some of the assigned books were so dumb that I don't think she missed much*.)

But, I go back to a conversation with my uncle back in the day.  He was born in 1943.  He was extremely intelligent and, despite being brought up in an impoverished broken home, he completed college and podiatry school.  However, he declared that he never read a single book throughout school.  I have to believe that books were assigned, but he insists that he never read any of them.  So ... this is not a new thing.  Some people just won't read.

But screen life does seem to encourage a lack of concentration.  My avid reader (who is also a screen addict) is having a hard time getting into Wuthering Heights, which was one of my favorite books as a teen.  It does take some patience to let things develop in the beginning.  I keep telling her it's worth the effort.  She put it down and plans to pick it up again after reading a couple other classics.

Speaking of screen life ... other than the few novels for English class, my kids' high school education was almost 100% on the Chromebook.  That didn't help matters either.  To the extent they had online textbooks, they very rarely read from them.  They learned to use all sorts of online resources, of questionable quality and ethics, in order to complete their assignments.

*[FTR I did make sure my kids had exposure to classic literature, through read-alouds and audiobooks.  And they did have to read a reasonable amount in print through middle school.  Not the same as having read good quality classics through high school, but better than nothing.]

[Heartstrings]

3 hours ago, Toocrazy!! said:

schools teaching to the tests which use excerpts and shorter summaries

I think this is a huge part of it.  

[Heartstrings]

1 hour ago, SKL said:

Some people just won't read.

I agree this has always been true.  I do think it’s increasing now though.  

[busymama7]

When my oldest was a freshmen in highschool (so 2011?) I was *panicking " because I was convinced I couldn't possibly be doing enough and high was intimidating me.  My friend's husband called me after I had expressed my concerns to her. He was a high school English teacher at what was considered a good school for the city.  He taught honors sophomore English. He was not allowed to fail anyone and had to pass everyone with I think a C.  So he couldn't assign readings outside of class because the kids wouldn't do it and he couldn't have a consequence for that.  His solution was to read everything he wanted to discuss aloud in class.   He assured me that if my kids read "at all* they were better off than even the honors English students.

We persevered and all 3 of my oldest have finished college.  The 4th is a straight A student in mechanical engineering.  Most of my kids are dyslexic but the not only read but enjoy reading.  It was my number one goal. Forr the record I'm not done yet.  I still have 4 at home. 2 of them like reading. The youngest two are still struggling to catch on due to my being sick for a couple years but they listen to *a lot* or audiobooks.  

 

Edited Wednesday at 07:02 AM by busymama7

[HomeAgain]

We have a lot of chicken/egg problems here.

We have kids who are just chronically behind in reading skills thanks to Lucy Calkins.  When you can't read well enough to get into the first layer of actual literature books, you're not going to love reading.  You're not going to get into the second layer.  Or third. 

There's also the problem of literature that kids cannot relate to without a ton of effort.  The books chosen are not ones that mean anything to the students.  They're not chosen because the kids have experience with the same ages the characters are, or the issues they're wrestling with, or have been exposed to anything near what the book talks about.  I read The Awakening with a group of 19-20yos, and the sheer lack of ability they had to understand a woman unfulfilled and stifled by society's expectations was eye opening.  They couldn't understand the story because they had no experience with anything close to how this woman felt.

And then there's the issue of the teachers not understanding the material. DS's teacher this year is assigning To Kill A Mockingbird, but wants to explore it from the perspective of 'white savior'.  All well and good - EXCEPT, it's disregarding the author's intent, her father's background, and the interwoven story of Harper and Amasa within Scout and Atticus.  It's literally changing the story to fit modern day ethics and values.

[cintinative]

46 minutes ago, HomeAgain said:

 

We have kids who are just chronically behind in reading skills thanks to Lucy Calkins.  When you can't read well enough to get into the first layer of actual literature books, you're not going to love reading.  You're not going to get into the second layer.  Or third. 

 

Someone commented on the FB post (on The Atlantic) that they thought the reading recovery program had something to do with this--their statement was kids were not progressing past a fourth grade reading level.  

[Heartstrings]

Its a really nice sleight of hand. 

Why can't the kids read?  Its's the screens, definitly not that we used methods that we KNEW weren't working for decades and never taught them to actually read.  It's definitly the screens.  

Because if they admit that this enourmous injustice has been done and that public school has basically disabled 25-50% of the population by keeping them functionally illiterate, at great tax payer expense, there might be some consequences or repurcussions. 

Look over there....at the screens, blame tiktok.  Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.   

[EKS]

Summary:  Kids aren't reading whole books in high school, and they are horrified when they are expected to read a book a week in college.  This issue was exacerbated by the Common Core, with the whole informational texts thing, which had kids read excerpts of nonfiction works and then get tested on them.  Also the internet and phones have made kids be unable to concentrate long enough to deal with longer works.  Oh, and everyone should be required to read the Iliad in high school.

Let's see if this works: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/11/the-elite-college-students-who-cant-read-books/679945/?gift=nuDpKeIYbV7mivG86voby-cIqaK0OVUz_gp1LZv2KGw&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

Edited Wednesday at 01:28 PM by EKS

[Serenade]

31 minutes ago, EKS said:

Summary:  Kids aren't reading whole books in high school, and they are horrified when they are expected to read a book a week in college.  This issue was exacerbated by the Common Core, with the whole informational texts thing, which had kids read excerpts of nonfiction works and then get tested on them.  Also the internet and phones have made kids be unable to concentrate long enough to deal with longer works.  Oh, and everyone should be required to read the Iliad in high school.

Let's see if this works: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/11/the-elite-college-students-who-cant-read-books/679945/?gift=nuDpKeIYbV7mivG86voby-cIqaK0OVUz_gp1LZv2KGw&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

It worked for me.  Thank you.

[wisdomandtreasures]

12 hours ago, Kalmia said:

I love this article because it is so clearly written and argues that the kids are not to blame when the educational establishment has abdicated responsibility to provide the foundational literacy skills that were the norm in the past. It is akin to medical malpractice in my opinion. Add to that the smartphone, designed to distract and addict, and it is a catastrophic failure of adults to do the right thing for the upcoming generations.

My husband who has tutored thousands of high school students  for the SAT, ACT, GRE and LSAT for the past 30 years has seen a dramatic decline in student vocabulary, ability to follow an argument, attention span, and perseverance (they give up very quickly when presented with things they cannot immediately figure out) over the past 10 years. When asked, very few of his students report reading for pleasure. Often my husband asks this question during the initial phone call when both the student and the parent is on the line and the parent is both aghast and embarrassed. The student is usually unconcerned. Then it comes out that the student has read very few whole books in school as well and the parent gets angry. Parents have expectations of what is being provided to their student based on what they experienced in school and are shocked when they find out that things like reading books (you know what they sent them to school for) is not a focus. This is exacerbated by the computer portals hiding schoolwork from parents, as opposed to the olden days when the books came home in the backpack along with all the graded assignments. By the time the parents of my husband's students realize what has been going on, their student is 16 or 17 and remediation is unlikely. Even his LSAT students, who are at the end of their college careers, have shown significant decline in reading skills and vocabulary compared to his students 10 years ago.  My husband is most worried about the lack of ability to follow a written argument, a skill necessary to be an informed citizen and to make vital personal decisions (medical, legal, and economic).

Also this: "Reading full-length books can feel like a transgressive act when the National Council of Teachers of English in 2022 announced its support for the idea to “decenter book reading” in English language arts education. Instead, it suggests “critically examining digital media and popular culture” as more worthwhile." Tim Donahue "High Schoolers Need to Do Less So That They Can Do Better" NYT Opinion 9/7/24

 

 

 

 

That's so depressing. 😱

[Serenade]

As I read how the professors don't assign things because students won't read them, it made me wonder about the impact of those teaching surveys that students fill out at the end of the semester. If the teachers were to assign books that students don't read, and then grade them accordingly, it probably would result in negative reviews, which can be damaging to teachers' reputation. Also, with grade inflation being a real thing, there is a lot of pressure to give most students A's and B's, whether or not they deserve them.  The problem is that the less that is expected of students, the less they do. When expectations were high, I would say that the majority of students in an appropriate class would strive to reach up, rather than down.

[Happy2BaMom]

2 hours ago, Heartstrings said:

Its a really nice sleight of hand. 

Why can't the kids read?  Its's the screens, definitly not that we used methods that we KNEW weren't working for decades and never taught them to actually read.  It's definitly the screens.  

Because if they admit that this enourmous injustice has been done and that public school has basically disabled 25-50% of the population by keeping them functionally illiterate, at great tax payer expense, there might be some consequences or repurcussions. 

Look over there....at the screens, blame tiktok.  Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.   

It's not an either or situation, for pete's sake.

It's very well documented the negative effect that screens are having on *adults*, let alone developing brains.

And it's also true that public schools are degrading constantly. Most of the best teachers are left, or will be, and they are being replaced by high school graduates with no teaching skills who get awarded "emergency certifications".

[Ailaena]

13 hours ago, dauntless dandelion said:

 

Maybe someone will need to write an AOPS for literature/language arts. But I would think a higher fraction of the student population could be taught to read a book 🤔🤯

 

michael Clay Thompson!

https://www.rfwp.com/

I can’t even comment on the rest since it seems like a systemic issue that one band-aid can’t fix 😞 

 

 

[livetoread]

56 minutes ago, Serenade said:

As I read how the professors don't assign things because students won't read them, it made me wonder about the impact of those teaching surveys that students fill out at the end of the semester. If the teachers were to assign books that students don't read, and then grade them accordingly, it probably would result in negative reviews, which can be damaging to teachers' reputation. Also, with grade inflation being a real thing, there is a lot of pressure to give most students A's and B's, whether or not they deserve them.  The problem is that the less that is expected of students, the less they do. When expectations were high, I would say that the majority of students in an appropriate class would strive to reach up, rather than down.

I was just talking about this with my recent college graduate. They were complaining that their university took out questions in the evaluation about whether the professor graded things on time and whether the professor was responsive to email or other communications which is pretty important feedback IMO. My kid thought the evaluation questions overall were pretty useless going both ways. With fewer professors having tenure or being on a tenure track, those evaluations are more important to the professor, but, at least in my kid's school, also seem to be poorly written and unhelpful.

[EKS]

2 minutes ago, livetoread said:

I was just talking about this with my recent college graduate. They were complaining that their university took out questions in the evaluation about whether the professor graded things on time and whether the professor was responsive to email or other communications which is pretty important feedback IMO. My kid thought the evaluation questions overall were pretty useless going both ways. With fewer professors having tenure or being on a tenure track, those evaluations are more important to the professor, but, at least in my kid's school, also seem to be poorly written and unhelpful.

I just wrote my feedback and didn't pay attention to exactly was was asked.  So if there is no place for timeliness of grading, I would write it in.  Though I will say that there were instructors (not tenured faculty) in my previous program who were notorious for not grading things until the end of the semester, but they are still there years later.

[marbel]

Maybe I missed it, but how are these kids getting into elite universities? It seems that "teaching to the test" is working? Am I way off in my thinking? (I did read the thread and the article.) 

My homeschool relied heavily on literature, sometimes read by me but mostly read by my kids, and my young adults can and do still read books, though I'd say the quality of literature they're reading has declined since they graduated from college. So I do find it appalling that high school students are not actually reading books.

[kbutton]

I think the article makes some good points about how students are spending time out of class—work was one of the things mentioned. It also says a decline in lit and humanities students means fewer students for whom this is a primary interest of any kind.

None of this is in the article, but what a teacher asks you to do while reading can influence how long it takes to read. If you have to do tons of response journals, annotations, etc., it can be a slog and take far longer, especially if the instructor seems to want an investment of self and constant originality of thought. 

[kbutton]

The pace of a semester is different at college than high school too, so even if high school prepares someone well, reading novels in and amongst poetry and short stories means a slower pace through a novel. A novel a week that is dense and long without breaking that up with lighter assignments that give you a little time to digest the novel is an adjustment.

It’s not unusual for a student to find that an adjustment.

I think adding up all the factors mentioned in the article is more likely to be truthful than trying to pinpoint a single cause.

My young adult kid has always been a reader, but he hasn’t always tackled dense books. He has some language issues that made some aspects of reading challenging lit slow to develop, so short classic stories were good for him. Then he got busy and didn’t read a lot. He recently picked up A Tale of Two Cities at an estate sale and is enjoying it. For some kids it’s a journey, but they get there eventually.

I also think that professors might have to do more pedagogy than their fields have prepared them for because of the shift in student behavior. That’s not to say that many or even most professors haven’t absorbed good pedagogical habits from mentors and past teachers. The model of facilitator who provides the materials to help you learn yourself can be fine, but we all know there are professors who use this like trial by fire. I think the current trend could be improved by professors embracing solid pedagogy. Classes taught by professors in the education department were always vastly more productive and useful in the long run for me than classes taught by those who were not education department professors. 

[Heartstrings]

3 hours ago, Happy2BaMom said:

It's not an either or situation, for pete's sake.

It's very well documented the negative effect that screens are having on *adults*, let alone developing brains.

And it's also true that public schools are degrading constantly. Most of the best teachers are left, or will be, and they are being replaced by high school graduates with no teaching skills who get awarded "emergency certifications".

I see a lot more hand wringing and concern about the screens than I do about the growing number of adults who are functionally illiterate or nearly so, despite most having graduated high school. The population is certainly more concerned about one than the other.  I've seen congress haul Facebook and Tik Tok in, but not Lucy Caulkins or anyone else about the literacy crisis or to figure how this is going to impact the economy or nationl security. 

Edited Wednesday at 06:19 PM by Heartstrings

[Bootsie]

3 hours ago, livetoread said:

I was just talking about this with my recent college graduate. They were complaining that their university took out questions in the evaluation about whether the professor graded things on time and whether the professor was responsive to email or other communications which is pretty important feedback IMO. My kid thought the evaluation questions overall were pretty useless going both ways. With fewer professors having tenure or being on a tenure track, those evaluations are more important to the professor, but, at least in my kid's school, also seem to be poorly written and unhelpful.

But the feedback from faculty evaluations is helpful only if it is accurate.  I know a professor who taught for decades and always had the exams graded and returned at the next class meeting (and he was teaching physics and giving problems--not multiple choice).  He began noticing that more and more students were giving him low ratings on "grades work on a timely basis"--all he could figure out was that they were used to online exams in which they got immediate feedback, so they thought having to wait until the next class meeting to get a grade was "slow".  

 

 

[Bootsie]

I know a young person who went to teach literature at a local public high school and got in trouble because he assigned an "entire book" as a reading in a junior-level honors class.  They were not allowed to assign an entire book (no matter the length of the book) as a school policy.  At the end of the year, he moved to a private school.

I have a relative who graduated from high school, summa cum laude, in May (in a different location) and reports that she never was assigned an entire book to read in high school.  

 

[rebcoola]

Well interesting I thought my kids high school was a little light on reading in the english/lit classes being a stem school.but I guess not.  They read at least one assigned book a trimester plus anthologies, poetry and.excerpts etc. Plus have like time tbey have to read but choose their own books and journal them.  

[freesia]

46 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

I know a young person who went to teach literature at a local public high school and got in trouble because he assigned an "entire book" as a reading in a junior-level honors class.  They were not allowed to assign an entire book (no matter the length of the book) as a school policy.  At the end of the year, he moved to a private school.

I have a relative who graduated from high school, summa cum laude, in May (in a different location) and reports that she never was assigned an entire book to read in high school.  

 

And, meanwhile, homeschool umbrella schools or companies require/claim things like honors must be 24 plus books read in order to be an honors class! So homeschoolers who are reading literature, but maybe only ten well analyzed books, feel that they cannot claim honors! Ugh

[cintinative]

18 minutes ago, freesia said:

And, meanwhile, homeschool umbrella schools or companies require/claim things like honors must be 24 plus books read in order to be an honors class! So homeschoolers who are reading literature, but maybe only ten well analyzed books, feel that they cannot claim honors! Ugh

yeah, I didn't claim honors for any of my homegrown lit classes and we probably read more than 10 books a year.  I thought it was too light. shrug.

ETA We did 6 novels (if you count Inferno as a novel.)  3 plays and 5 short stories.

Edited Wednesday at 08:02 PM by cintinative

[Heartstrings]

I'm definitly feeling better about my homeschool credits.  

[Laura Corin]

For a comparison - traditionally,  students in England from age 14 - 18 read relatively few books, but analysed them in great depth, writing several essays on each. 

Edited after talking to a school friend - 

I don't remember 14-16 clearly, but there was A Midsummer Night's Dream, and I think Silas Marner.

Age 16-18 was a 19th Century special course, so in addition to the obligatory 2 Shakespeare plays and Chaucer passage it was a Keats anthology,  a Tennyson anthology, Wuthering Heights, Our Mutual Friend, The Mill on the Floss and The Importance of being Earnest with An Ideal Husband.

Edited Thursday at 07:28 AM by Laura Corin

[Ausmumof3]

My DS has to read one very short one for his y12 English. Everything else was speeches, movies and play scripts. DD is in y10 and only gets excerpts. I find it ridiculous that they have discussion assignments on context and purpose without reading the whole book. How are you meant to talk about context when you haven’t read the context?

 

I tutor in literacy intervention and most of my students struggle to read more than four or five paragraphs by the end of y6/7. There’s no way they’re doing whole books. I wonder if one issue is trying to keep everyone together for too long - maybe English could be streamed a little earlier so those who are capable can do more and the kids who need intervention can get it and at least achieve functional literacy. 

[Harriet Vane]

I'm quite concerned about the lack of deep reading in American high schools and have been for quite some time. I also worry about the preponderance of super-dark modern works. 

And I feel really happy that I required my kids to read a ton in our homeschool. They did so growing up (read-alouds together in the morning and independent reading also each day). Ds went to a private high school and was definitely required to read full books in multiple classes, though it was fewer than what I would have assigned. That was absolutely fine with me, though, as his focus was math and science, heavy on the math. Dd homeschooled all the way through high school and her reading list was extensive, and that was appropriate for her strengths. She is now a research analyst and her job fits her well.

I have taught multiple semester-long high school classes for co-ops for many years, and I always assigned a mix of poetry, short stories, and full-length novels. All those teenagers have done just fine with it, and I remember fondly that there was a lot of energy and camaraderie in those classes. The junior high classes I taught were Lightning Literature. That curriculum choice meant that all my middle school kids were reading some full-length novels each year. My senior high classes were a syllabus of my own devising. When we read a novel, I spread it out anywhere from 1-4 weeks. As I said, I mixed in short stories and poems as well, so a few heavier reading weeks were always preceded by and followed by much lighter weeks.

When I compare that to what my various friends' kids are doing in their high school courses, I am just plain worried. The AP courses tend to have more rigor, of course. What my son studied in his particular (private) high school was totally acceptable. So it's a mixed landscape, but I worry because it really does seem that the expectations on reading in so many places are so very low. And often focused on dark, deeply unhappy literature choices.

[Rosie_0801]

4 minutes ago, Harriet Vane said:

And often focused on dark, deeply unhappy literature choices.

Omg! This! 

It's as though the education department thinks kids have never had any real problems so use literature to introduce them, then do absolutely nothing to help them process any of it.

I don't think my kid needed to endure ptsd flashbacks during her year 7 English class. I don't think I needed to write a poem about death in year 8, the year my favourite grandpa died. Or, you know, ever.

[Clemsondana]

Our co-op English classes have usually read 1 Shakespeare,  6 novels, and a bunch of poetry and/or short stories.  This may vary if there is a themed class, like American Lit, but it follows the same basic pattern minus the Shakespeare.  The kids usually grow to love Shakespeare, which they do in the spring as a readers theater.  My kid was appalled when talking to public school classmates who might read 1 book in a year.  Then kid took British lit DE at the CC and found that there was a lot of overlap with one of the high school classes kid had taken (which was fine) except the CC class mostly read excerpts.  Kid just read the book, saying that it was easier than trying to make sense of part of a book.  Our co-op teacher does often teach a pop culture class to seniors, but by that point they have a good foundation in other lit.  

[EKS]

2 hours ago, freesia said:

So homeschoolers who are reading literature, but maybe only ten well analyzed books, feel that they cannot claim honors!

My feeling about what was honors level changed drastically when my son attended a well regarded private high school for a year.  They read whole books, but something like two per semester.  And there were maybe two essays assigned in the whole year.  Meanwhile, the year before, he had done American literature, and read eight novels, three plays, and a whole slew of shorter works (twenty short stories, for example).  And in the companion course, American history, he read six nonfiction books in addition to the textbook.

[SKL]

The article was focused on elite university students, who mostly had elite private high school educations.

I would think that in that situation, if one expects candidates to have read a lot, one could screen for that.

I'm not really sure how I feel about all of this for the general population.  Kids are all different.  I personally loved reading the classics, so I read them.  (Even then, I didn't read a ton of them each year, because I am a slow reader, but I probably read enough to be considered educated.)  Most of my siblings couldn't care less about reading the classics - they were more into math, science, or getting a job and moving out - and I don't see that it made much difference in the long run.

As for my kids, I am pretty OK with the amount of reading they've done.  The one who reads less has difficulties that make reading very laborious.  And math is even harder, so figuring out her math curriculum is more important than reading a Bronte novel.  And yes, my kids have jobs and extracurriculars.  My wish for my kids is that they not be ignorant.  That includes a certain amount of knowledge of real literature (and other arts), but it also includes real world experiences.  For kids who get a lot out of books, I'm super happy for them!  For those who get more out of the science lab, sports, or their job, I'm happy for them also.

[Ausmumof3]

The flip side of this is people still seem to be reading a lot as a whole. Judging by the number of books for sale in the shops, on kindle, etc and the number of books about books being written.

Maybe with the world changing faster due to more communication technology the gap between the kids and the older books being taught is even greater. 
 

I know my DD struggles with stuff like Anne of Green Gables and Little Women. Not because the text is too hard but because the ideas and lifestyle seem so different to here, whereas to me they seemed pretty relatable. 
 

I feel like language is changing more quickly since internet though I don’t know if anyone has studied it?