Thursday, November 4, 2010

Super Summary pages 39-70

At the beginning of this chapter, Bauerlein went on the air in the Midwest to talk about leisure reading habits in the United States. A report had been conducted which illustrated that adults read literature at significantly lower rates than adults had in previous decades. The biggest drop was in the 18 to 24 year old age group. This caused a national discussion about the decline in reading. Bauerlein did a radio interview regarding the findings. He goes on to express that a "bright young voice" called in and stated that she doesn't read nor do her friends because reading is boring. Bauerlein was surprised by what this girl had said.
He states, " It's a new attitude, this brazen disregard of books and reading." (p.40) He reported that each generation has resented homework assignments, but no generation chose not to read because it wasn't a "valid behavior of their peers". He believes that today's generation thinks that reading books is an old fashioned custom and they will argue with people that criticize them.
He went to the University of Maryland to discuss the trend in the reading decline. After a discussion with the students, he determined that students care more about the celebrities than people that lead our world. If a students is caught reading a book that is not considered "accepted by their peers", they often times get teased and are considered nerds. Bauerlein states that "The middle school hallway can be as competitive and pitiless as a Wall Street trading floor an episode of Survivor." (p.43)
He described that reading is more of a social happening than a reading trend. He uses the example of Harry Potter. He articulated that the reason this book became so popular and so many copies were sold was not because children enjoy reading but instead other children were reading it and they wanted to be accepted among their peers.
Many studies were done and resulted in data that showed younger generations are reading less than older generations. A few examples of some of the studies are as followed: A report from the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts indicated that reading rates fell the most in the area of young adults and their relationship to books. The survey asked about voluntary reading not required reading for school or work. Their goal was to see what people do in their leisure time. The reason for the decrease was not because people couldn't find any appealing literature or because they don't have enough time or money. All the respondent had to do was scam a poem, play, short story, or novel in the previous 12 months outside of school or work to be considered a literary reader.
A similar reading decline between young adults and older generations was reported in the American Time Use Surveys. All respondents were asked to keep a journal of their leisure, work, home, and school activities during a particular day of the week. The survey stated that people in the 15-24 year old group, read about eight minutes per day. It explained that they enjoy more than 5 hours per day of free time, and watched more than 2 hours of television.
The American Freshman Survey indicated that 74.7 percent of freshman read outside of school for less than 17 minutes per day. It also states that "one quarter of high school graduates that went to college have never read a word of literature, sports, travel, politics, or anything else for their own enjoyment or illumination." (p.54)
The author explains that he is concerned about how many high school graduates enter the workplace with little or no reading and writing skills and how many freshmen end up in remedial courses.
The end of the chapter talks about E-literacy. President Jonathan Fanton of the MacArthur Foundation claims that "today's digital youth are in the process of creating a new kind of literacy, which extends beyond the traditions of reading and writing and evolving community of expression and problem-solving that is changing not only their world, but ours as well." (p.67)
Bauerlein's concern about E-literacy is why are businesses having to spend significant amount of money to offer in-house literacy tutoring to help new employees with reading and writing skills.
I think this chapter reflects only the negative side of technology and today's generation. He states that the generation that grew up on the Internet is intellectually lazy. He supports this opinion by facts but Bauerlein's evidence of how technology effects the youth is only what he wants us to read and understand. I don't think there is enough information to know if our new digital lives will make the next generation disinterested in reading, writing, art, history, etc. as adults.

7 comments:

  1. I thought the comments on a-literacy were interesting - how it's not that kid's can't read, (they aren't illiterate) they just don't want to read. Even the kids who read books that are socially acceptable by their peers (and I know the Twilight series was a big hit with my middle school kids the last couple of years) many of them just went to the movie. We actually had kids who "read" the book and tried to take Accelerated Reading tests based on what they watched in the movie. Crazy. So even when a book is acceptable for a young person to read, if there's a movie out - and now days if a book is a hit, it seems there's always a movie - kids still opt for the movie.

    I was surprised at how many college kids had never read the classics. Don't they still require that in high school and college classes? Perhaps the kids aren't to blame if we are no longer making it a requirement. I don't know.

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  2. As an avid reader and teacher, I was dismayed by this chapter. I too have heard students say, I don’t like to read or reading is boring. Who is to blame for this lack of reading; parents, schools, TV or the internet? Or is this just a progression of our culture? There is a plethora of audio books, video games and movies that students really don’t need to read. Have students’ attention span changed to reflect the fast pace of TV, video games and the internet? They no longer can sit and enjoy reading for an extended period of time. As we all know the times are changing and we as educators will also have to change.

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  3. I think that many times kids really can't find anything to read that interests them. The key is interest. And in today's world, their interests are so different than they were when all of us were learning to read and then reading for pleasure. I know that my students read more than I did when I was in their grades. And maybe the definition is just changing. Like Peggy said, attention spans are shorter and not many kids I know will sit down with a book for a couple of hours to leisurely read for pleasure. But I don't think it's quite the doomsday that the author seems to portray in this section of the book. Things are just changing. And should be continue to base our opinions on situations from the past, or from our days in school?

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  4. I believe that there will always be those students who like to read and those who don't. I am older than the generation this chapter is talking about and I couldn't tell you the last book that I read for enjoyment. I will read to gain information on a certain topic, needed for my professional career, but I don't read other material just to read. With technology, we are able to access topics that are of interest and learn about them. That might be why this generations reports that they don't read books.

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  5. To all:
    I don't totally agree with all the author has to say about students being lazy. I am concerned with the fact that it seems students who go off to college need remedial course work. It concerns me because to me it reflects on the high school curriculum/teachers. You know the old saying, "it's those middle school teachers, or elementary or now high school We blame the previous grade level. Maybe we need to look beyond that and see what we are all doing. It is true that most students do not have a love of reading and that is of concern.

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  6. In my social studies class we are talking about AMerican Culture and what shaped it. We discussed literature works such as Washington Irving's "The Sketch Book." I was surprised how many of my students had never heard of Rip Van WInkle or th eLegend of Sleepy Hollow.

    My students do read, but only because we make them, and even then, they try to get out of it. Perhaps we need to look at a different form of relating literature works? Otherwise they may never know about them.... I don't know.

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  7. In our HS, more and more books are being purchased for Kindles and IPOD's. It is one why they are trying to help those students who don't like to read or it is difficult for them to read higher level literature.

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