College Illiteracy

[lyonspotter]

As an instructor of art for the past 7 years, I have had the disheartening experience of encountering illiteracy at the college level with a frequency that far exceeded my expectations. Having taught at the University of California, Santa Barbara; Fresno City College; Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, FL; and Bakersfield College, I decided to collect the hundreds of student essays written for my classes that were abandoned by their authors (the fact that these students did not find the retrieval of their work to be important was in many ways discouraging enough). I decided to archive these student essays as documentation of the growing illiteracy problem, for what I found in the contents therein mirrored and sometimes surpassed the following data:

http://livinnthebigtime.blogspot.com/2009/07/look-like-if-words-are-bleeding.html


A video from the research: http://livinnthebigtime.blogspot.com/2009/07/reading-15-excerpts-from-collegiate.html

[moggie]

1. Good grief!

"According to Jenkins Group, 1/3 of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives, 42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college, and 80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year"

I can't imagine being without a book. I find it really hard to understand these people.

[lyonspotter]

3. Great point...

I'm personally not sure what is worse... the statistics you mentioned or the findings of the National Right to Read Foundation:

"42 million American adults cannot read at all, 50 million are unable to read at a higher level than is expected of a fourth or fifth grader, and 20 percent of high school seniors can be classified as being functionally illiterate at the time they graduate."

No Child Left Behind, eh?

[Arkansas Granny]

147. That is just unbelievable. I've always considered reading to be the most important

subject in school. Without good reading skills, you can't excel in any subject. They all require reading.

[Spider Jerusalem]

173. Some are going to be left behind through no fault of their own.

Some people simply are not educable. Not everyone has the same inherent capacity. It is unrealistic to expect that they should.

And those figures are somewhat vague; are the 42 million who cannot read at all included in the 50 million unable to read above a fourth-grade level? Or are they two distinct groups?

[lyonspotter]

174. Statistics may vary...

42 million is disappointing and scary. What if it were 20 million? Would that pacify us?

To return to the art project, in another context a commenter wrote:

"I sure hope these samples represent a small segment of our youth, because we are leaving them with a host of problems that I don't think our species has seen in its history. They are going to need every skill to solve them, starting with the ability to articulate the problem. I don't see that skill in these samples."

Sure, people might not have the same inherent capacities. I take that to mean that Hawkings will rise up, while most will have IQs much lower than that sort of intellectual giant. However, everyone should be able to read and comprehend, write out instructions, etc., for an informed and strong democratic society. The amount of people who cannot read and right should be extremely low, and the occurrence of illiteracy quite rare.

[Spider Jerusalem]

176. ....

'who cannot read and right?'

And the most you can expect for *everyone* is that they'll be able to read and write well enough for basic communication. To expect comprehension beyond a basic level for everyone is a bit optimistic.

[lyonspotter]

207. My misstep...

...in writing 'read and right' was the result of writing on the fly under pressure (there were a lot of comments being addressed to me in rapid fire). I accidentally overlooked it. Even in the same post I spelled "write" right and "right" wrongly when I meant "write." (How about that?)

However, there's an immense difference between my misstep above versus an instance where a student clearly does not know how to write, where the student's writing puts on a clinic in linguistic compositional struggle after having had an entire semester to compose the 1-3 page paper. (...A paper, we might add, that contains arguably some of the most egregious writing one ever will encounter). Is there not?

[tblue37]

206. In many other countries the percentage of illiterates is very low, as is the percentage

of functional illiterates. It is quite possible to teach people to read--we just are not doing it. On top of that, we have a very anti-intellectual, anti-reading culture.

[redqueen]

5. That is truly frightening.

I hope those statistics are wrong... but that would tend to explain how people seem unable to detect when the teevee or radio 'news' people are lying/distorting things.

[SpiralHawk]

40. These folks are the hope of the Republicon Homelander party

Sheeple in the making.

[lyonspotter]

69. It's scary.

That's why I feel this sort of project should come to light.

There is a sub-thread below where a few people are taking this art project to task. I can't understand the resistance to the implications of such grass roots findings...

[eppur_se_muova]

88. Spot on. nt

[madeline_con]

187. 80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year

OMG :yoiks:

[JonQ]

258. I can't remember a time

when I didn't have at least one book I was working on at any given time.

I don't get how people can not read when given the option.

[ZombieHorde]

2. My father is a professor.

He was told to pass a student because of his importance to the university's football team.

My father gave the student over to the dean since he could not bare to do the dirty work himself. He told me he still feels very guilty about this.

I hope this situation is unusual.

[moggie]

4. And the football coach is probably paid more than your father

Crazy situation.

[tuckessee]

6. Nobody pays to watch people read books. n/t

[redqueen]

16. Yes... and when $$$$ is all that matters... things work out great! (nt)

[ZombieHorde]

79. I understand entertainment is second only to a general feeling of safety in the U.S.,

but I often wish our values were a little different. Even on DU celebrities are treated better than non celebrities.

[Hippo_Tron]

156. Universities (at least good ones) aren't for-profit institutions

Therefore pay should not be directly proportional to how much money an individual brings in.

[abumbyanyothername]

19. And while we are at it

. . . since he could not BEAR to do the dirty work . . .

also, I could have a full time job correcting affect/effect errors, even just on DU.

[moggie]

31. How do you know nudity wasn't involved? n/t

[lyonspotter]

70. there their than then

hear here!

[ZombieHorde]

71. If you are going to be a grammar Nazi on a message board you could at least avoid fragmented

sentences in your corrections.

[NJCher]

100. oh come now

Have you not heard of the Freudian slip when writing? Yes, it exists and once you are aware of it, it can be quite interesting and very often amusing.

When someone is writing, their true feelings can be told through the slip of a keystroke. In this case, I am going to conjecture that our poster knew the difference, but the word "bare" came out because we are talking about the "bare" truth--a huge amount of people in our country are functionally illiterate.

Another possibility is the same meaning in the situation in regard to the professor father: he laid "bare" the truth about grading at his institution.


Cher

[NashVegas]

275. Yah. I'm Willing to Give People the Benefit When There's a Concept at Stake

At least showing the poster can engage in abstract thinking.

And accountants have transposition errors all the time. Doesn't mean they can't add.

[Alcibiades]

118. Um, that's "bear"

Not "bare." This is an especially ironic error in a thread about the decline of higher learning in America.

[ZombieHorde]

132. Uh oh! Either you failed to punctuate your first sentence or you capitalized the word "not"

unnecessarily. This is an especially ironic error in a reply meant to correct my post.

[lyonspotter]

151. Are things...

...unusually this hostile like this thread is in certain spots, or are all threads like this here on DU? Wow!

I usually peruse the videos more than anything else, and don't seem to find such sarcasm and personal attacks as I have seen here. (Not singling anyone out per se).

[ZombieHorde]

157. Grammar and spelling threads can be brutal.

As well as threads concerning guns, circumcision, porn, religion, celebrities, Israel, and personal attacks against favorite politicians.

[lyonspotter]

158. Thanks...there have been...

...commenters here who have attacked me in this thread regarding this project, calling it cherry-picked, false "research" (the science community has given me an enormous amount of 'crap' here), etc. I see a few posts above ribbing one another on spelling and grammar, which given the post seems appropriate, but I would hope not at the expense of the points being made in such a rapid fire posting environment.

Usually, like I say, I stick to watching videos, and in 2 years I have not seen such aggression. According to your findings, perhaps I should venture into the other discussion forums more often than I do to see that this is no isolated event.

[Alcibiades]

168. You got me

I do it all the time. Damn subject line!

This actually goes to a larger point about how the internet has contributed to this problem. Personally, I think failing to punctuate between a subject line and the message is a bit less of a party foul than committing such a blatant phonetic misspelling. I probably wouldn't grade you down much on it, but it's unsettling.

Why are you wearing such huge headphones?

[ZombieHorde]

181. You're a member of the fashion police as well!

"I probably wouldn't grade you down much on it, but it's unsettling."

I proofread my school essays and generally receive high marks on my papers. I had one professor who hated the words "it" and "that." He was really fun to write papers for.

[Alcibiades]

250. My freshman comp prof had one word she would not accept:

any form of the verb "to be." That was difficult, to say the least.

[ZombieHorde]

251. Would she accept the word "seems?"

I sometimes use "seems" and "seemingly" in school papers.

[Alcibiades]

253. I'm sure she would

I usually went with "consist" or "constitute."

[NashVegas]

276. Did You Know There Are Message Boards That Have Rules Against Starting Responses With "Um" and "Er"?

TWop. Check it out sometime. It's banned because the admins all know that 9 times out of 10, what follows is going to be snark that adds nothing to the conversation.

[Odin2005]

131. Not unusual at all.

Even in high school the jocks get a free pass.

[ZombieHorde]

183. I would suggest the removal of sports from schools, but so few would agree with this.

Sports are worshiped around the world.

[Odin2005]

189. I agree. Schools are for learning. Youth sports should be a responsibility of the local government.

[Selatius]

209. I would not even push that burden onto local municipalities. Let the parents do it themselves.

Since local government ultimately pays the bulk of the budget for the local school district anyway, making the local government pay for it directly rather than through the school wouldn't solve budgetary issues. In the longest recession since the Great Depression, it would only make sense to cut sports spending in local schools.

[timtom]

214. No! No! I agree with you.

Been saying so for years and years.

[timtom]

213. Never mind.

Overkill on my part.

[ddeclue]

7. Is our childrens learning?

:rofl:

[lyonspotter]

10. You said it! EOM

[csziggy]

8. My high school English teacher had been a college professor

By the time he retired from the college, he was disgusted by how few college students could understand what they read and how even fewer could write clearly.

So he moved to Florida and got the job teaching senior high school English. Even teaching Honors English to the top ten percent of the students in our school was frustrating for him, but he did teach us a few things along the way.

:applause: for Mr. Outlaw, the only teacher to challenge me in high school with lessons that needed real concentration and hard work!

[lyonspotter]

73. Absolutely...

My inspiration in HS was a teacher named Cassad.

She taught us how to diagram sentences, boy (girl) I tell ya!

Even in the mid 1990s, the introductory collegiate English courses at the university I attended taught nothing of such structure. This is an unfortunate college curriculum omission.

[csziggy]

115. I was in high school while they were phasing out sentence diagrams

So I got that in seventh and eighth grade but not after.

Mr. Outlaw did not deal with that basic level - he made us actually write essays and the essays had to have an overall structure. You know how reporters are supposed to include the essential information points in the first paragraph (well, they used to anyway)? Our essays had to have the concepts laid out in the first paragraph, the various points expounded in the following paragraphs, then the premise reiterated and summed up in the final paragraph.

It did not matter if it was a one page essay or a thirty page report, we had to keep to that structure. To do that, Mr. Outlaw taught us how to use outlines to shape our thoughts and information.

With his instruction, I tested so high on my college entry exams to not have to take English at all in college. Thank you, Mr. Outlaw!

[timtom]

215. We had to diagram the long sentence

in William Cullen Bryant's wonderful poem, "Thanatopsis". (Yeah, I know. The period goes inside the quotes. But I'm a scrappy cuss.)

"So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan which moves
To that mysterious realm where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged by his dungeon; but, sustain'd and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams."

Can everyone determine the subject?

[InkAddict]

240. Implied "you." The sentence is a command.

[timtom]

246. Well done!

And, as Clifton Fadiman used to say on "Information, Please,":

See? It's really quite easy.

[lyonspotter]

241. Yes, it is an implied "you"...

Proper notation would be (You)/ ......and the rest of all that!

[timtom]

247. Very well done!

I would have expected no less from either of you.

[lyonspotter]

248. Thanks!.......

Now...sorry that I might have missed this elsewhere where you might have posted this information TimTom, but are you an Eng professor or teacher?

[timtom]

249. No.

I was a bachelor degree candidate in the Department of Rhetoric at UC Berkeley in the late 60's/early 70's.

Even though my degree is finally in Management, I will be tutoring in the Writing Lab at a local university beginning at the end of August.

It's just a knack with me.

[Warpy]

9. I tutored English at the college level in nursing school

in 1980 and it was just as dismal. I saw the students who knew they needed help, probably the smarter of the functionally illiterate.

The hard part was convincing them there were good things to be found in books so that they'd finally begin to read just for the hell of it. It didn't much matter what they were reading, from porn and romance fiction to things that actually fed their heads, they were absorbing sentence structure and spelling while they read.

The students who were willing to start reading and do the work were rewarding. I'm afraid my college professor grandfather was correct about the rest: they ultimately managed to graduate with a degree of A.S.S.

The human race is not smart, on the whole, and nowhere is this more apparent than in an English class in the US.

[TheMightyFavog]

11. This is why I'm not going to go for a master's or Ph.D.

It's too much to pay to qualify for a job for which you will be underappreciated by little shits who think they know everything.

If I did, I know my teaching style would be something like this: Reward knowledge, punish ignorance through insults and humiliation in front of their peers, particularly in 100 and 200 level courses. Not unlike Gregory House.

[Johonny]

65. some fields pay you to enter them

so it's more time than money to get the degree.

[TheMightyFavog]

72. I'm thinking that Media Studies is not one of them.

That's my background.

[Johonny]

101. If you're intelligent and can't afford to pay

You are probably better off changing fields than denying yourself higher education. But it's your choice.

[lyonspotter]

145. That's a point to ponder for sure (EOM)

[Orsino]

12. How does your college administration defend the admission of these students? n/t

[lyonspotter]

15. That's an excellent question...

One that I have not delved into too deeply. You have given me a great thing to do in the future, however, as I currently do not have access to the students in the data and research I have collected.

I would enjoy looking up a specific student's records, prior to entering the college. By doing so, we might be able to locate if there has been a massive 'drop off' in skill at the time I encounter these students from the time their test scores were achieved.

[XemaSab]

28. Especially at a UC!

:o

[Alcibiades]

122. The students in the UC system are not particularly bad

Most of them have potential, and a few are quite eager to learn. The south is much worse.

[lyonspotter]

126. I do agree with your overall assessment of the UC...

Still, the students (even back 5 years ago) at UCSB were not blameless in composing substandard papers...

They have a fair share of the essays in the art project grid.

[Alcibiades]

170. The ones I hated were the complainers

Lots of kids in the UC system have gotten straight A's in high school, and so it can be a shock to no longer be at the top of the curve. Still, they are mainly compliant, and not openly opposed to learning itself.

[lyonspotter]

172. Compliant...Yes and No...

I didn't like dealing with the parents when an A- grade was administered...

(When the student earned that grade!...The parents often believe paying tuition is the action of purchasing straight A's...but we'll save that discussion for another day perhaps...)

[XemaSab]

138. The students in the UC system should be better than "not particularly bad"

The UC system is supposed to take the top few percent. If this is the top few percent, we're in trouble.

[Alcibiades]

171. The top few percent in California

are off the charts in many other places in the country.

And, yes, we are in trouble.

[amborin]

188. not all

uc students are equal, as you're surely aware

the uc system's campuses are themselves ranked

ucla and ucb are top tier, and rank among top universities, both public and private, worldwide; they attract the best and the brightest, both from in California and outside. Nonetheless, you can stumble upon some students now and then who are not up to snuff.

ucsd occupies a tier by itself, second from the top

all the other campuses comprise the third tier, although here, too, they're ranked

of the remaining third tier campuses, ucd is pretty much the top of the third tier; ucr has pretty much always been at the bottom; ucsc was/is near the bottom; ucsb is next up from the bottom, and has always been viewed as a party school; the other campuses vie among themselves for position.


the truly shocking cases are at the cal state campuses; here, too, the cal state campuses are ranked; at some of the bottom tier cal state campuses, you can find master's degree students who cannot read or write; no joke!

[mudplanet]

82. What would you have them do?

The inability on the part of the students isn't a matter of intelligence, it's due to the quality of their secondary education.

I taught for ten years at a third rate college and one of the best things about it, IMHO, was it's open enrollment policy (if you had a HS degree or GED you were admitted). I am a high school dropout with a GED and I've managed to earn two graduate degrees (from second and third rate colleges but, still ....). It was an opportunity for people who had been short changed by the system to improve themselves, as I had (well, I admit I was probably responsible for most of my problems in school, not 'the system.').

You can get an excellent education at a second or third-rate college, you just have to work at it. Just as you can go to Harvard and Yale and graduate still a moron (witness George Bush - he had to have hired someone to write his papers).

Unfortunately, the secondary school system is financed in the US by a system (property taxes)that does the reverse of what is needed. Children from low income families and neighborhoods need low student-teacher ratios and excellent physical resources (labs) while children from high-income families can usually excel without these things. If there are no books in your home, you've never seen your parents reading, and you parents don't have a good command of the English language, you need to compensate for those deficits in school. If your parents are professionals and you have a library at home, chances are you'll learn to read at a high level no matter what happens at school, and the ability to read is THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT DECIDING FACTOR IN SUCCEEDING IN SCHOOL AND LIFE.

If you lock a small group of students in a environment that is conducive to learning, for eight hours a day, five days a week, with a reasonably intelligent adult that gives a damn about what he/she is doing, those kids are going to learn something by the end of the year. No level of special, graduate-level study in pedagogy is needed, and very little administrative support.

If you lock a thousand kids from a rough neighborhood into a facility that looks like a prison and is staffed at a 40-to-1 ratio, no amount of special training or "incentives" is going to change the outcome. Most of those kids are going to fail to learn much of anything.

I'm fed up with the culture in America which tolerates, even celebrates, deceit and lies in the leadership. Republicans love to say, "Our children are our most important asset," while what they really mean is "My children are very important to me, fuck you and your children."

[mudplanet]

84. yes, i know, it's "its" not "it's"

[Orsino]

87. Identify a trend, if there is one, for a start.

Admit that entrance standards have dropped, if they indeed have.

This is how we get the political ammo we'll need to dismantle (or fully fund) NCLB, and grow better secondary students.

[RobinA]

255. I Went to a

damn good public high school, a second or third tier college for undergrad and a third tier for graduate. The only people I have met who are generally (I'm not talking areas of expertise) better educated than I am is people (or the person) who went to the top tier PREP school. He went on to several Ivy schools, but whenever I asked him where he had read such and such a book, or learned this or that, it was in prep school.

[sweetpotato]

99. admitting illiterate students

"How does your college administration defend the admission of these students?"

They can claim that they were deceived - that the student misrepresented him/herself.

Many colleges and universities, in their selection process for incoming freshmen, rely on grades from school, standardized test scores and MAYBE a writing sample - that was written without oversight - anyone could write the application.

Some of the more selective schools will interview the candidate, but the school I work for relies only on the application (who knows if student or next door neighbor wrote it), SAT or ACT scores and grades from high school.

How can you tell from an application, a few scores on bubble sheet tests and some high school grade reports if an applicant can read?

[Orsino]

123. Eventually, you learn to tighten admissions standards...

...so that semi-literate students are not admitted, or are funneled into remedial classes.

[lyonspotter]

152. As money-making institutions...

...I would hope that standards have not decreased in order to maximize the earning power of a school. That's maybe a discussion for another day...

[mudplanet]

180. State universities receive money from the state legislature for,

among other things, student-credit-hours-taught. So, of course, there is a push to increase enrollment at schools that aren't already turning students away (all the second and third rate state institutions).

Everything at a state university is incredibly political, from the institution's relations with it's funders (students, alumni, legislature), to how that pie is going to be distributed among the schools and departments, to the political views of the faculty.

While I was teaching we had legislators literally trying to breakdown our "efficiency" by calculating how many hours faculty was in class each week and suggesting that we didn't need so many teachers because typically a faculty member was only "in class teaching" for approximately 12 hours a week. One idiot legislator had heard that a class on Marxist theory was to be offered and stated that, "As long as I'm alive we won't be teaching communism in our schools."

I wrote grant applications that were awarded and then rescinded because the Black university system hadn't received what they thought was a fair share of the money. I'm not complaining about spreading the money around equitably (I think it's a good idea), but don't tell me it's an impartial process based upon the merit of the ideas proposed and the credentials of those proposing the idea when it's not.

All money spent on education in a state is a giant political football. Everyone want's a share, because by being able to hand out that money they build a political base.

[sweetpotato]

272. Are you in South Carolina, too?

We've had that argument with the legislature for years.

[Bucky]

13. This isn't illiteracy. This is bad written spelling & grammar. And it's inevitable.

Ignore for the moment that many of these examples of bad writing doubtlessly occurred in a classroom in a timed situation, when the easiest mistake in the world is to write "what" for want, or "I" for in, or to leave off a verb in a sentence you have formed in your mind. The fact is that in a society in which our culture strongly pushes for every student to go on to high learning institutions, you have to expect to see more instances of substandard writing showing up at what used to be elite venues.

Don't be shocked at the need for more remediation in a world where the bars are lowered and the gates of privilege are thrown open. Democratization of career and learning opportunities doesn't mean the world's going to hell in a headbasket.

[redqueen]

17. I like your response.

It's very encouraging.

[lyonspotter]

21. I'm a little perplexed by your confidence in asserting...

the claims above.

The following sentence is not indicative of illiteracy? "VanGogh use many shokes in his paint and many color in each shoke."

What is of note is that the statement was hand-written. Twice the made-up word "shoke" appeared, seemingly intended to denote the word "stroke."

Contrary to your assumption, not one of the statements were written in "timed" classroom situations. The students offered these papers after an entire term of knowing the papers were due at the end of the term. We thus have only two conclusions to draw from this: either the students in the research are incorrigibly illiterate, or incorrigibly irresponsible. Judging from the content I have before me in my research, I deduced the former, but neither speak well for the space of academia.

[lyonspotter]

22. Statement examples from the main article.

<snip>...

I'll close with a few meticulously copied "statements" that one can find strewn about within the essays/writings, followed by photographic documentation of the finalized project.

1) The people that are around the three crosses have source and many other weapons showing hate thorst Jesus.*

2) I like art so much intil I was shild.*

3) The artist work was native drawing and use on ink without carbon.

4) The video was made with funny reaction twenty feet long, and the footage of the tress were spinning systematic ally.

5) Art refers to describe a particular type of creative production generated by us human evil beings, and the term usually implies some degree of aesthetic value.

6) There was another fish creation on a larger canvas when in was orange wax fish on turquoise wash background.

7) The board itself has a collection of Warhol paintings how do know they have all authentic and they just so happen to own the largest portion of Warhol works to sell as they see fit.

8) The one particular eye catcher in the picture is to the left of the painting are two red lines almost as if I the background.

9) On the other hand, the photo that was shown in ceiling room contains these materials: flat screen projector, audio the here the supposedly wind.

10) There is more water then anything in the painting to the visual importance is present yet the closer the waves in eyesight the larger they are as along with the birds.

11) I mentions Jasmine painting are totally different then the others.

12) Sol Lewit Was a key figure in conceptual art, and the way the middle eye and physical space interact.

13) Schnabel says Banquiat gifted yes, but unable to use gifts in sustained, meaningful way.

14) Rembradt has paint very classic well detail on his paints.*

15) VanGogh use many shokes in his paint and many color in each shoke.*

[wickerwoman]

80. Some of those are ESL.

I'll bet $5 that #14 was Chinese or grew up in a Chinese speaking household. There's at least three very characteristic errors of Chinese English learners.

[lyonspotter]

85. Indeed, some of...

...these collegiate student essays were written by ESL students. I don't give it a pass, because I cannot, given my belief that discrimination is inappropriate in the grading process. If evaluating the language fairly is the goal, then there is no excuses available at my disposal for ESL students.

However, many of the essays were written by students who speak English as their primary language. For example a US citizen, White Anglo Saxon Protestant female composed 6): "There was another fish creation on a larger canvas when in was orange wax fish on turquoise wash background."

Kinda scary.

[moggie]

108. "There is no excuses"?

Is our professors learning?

[lyonspotter]

110. Touché

With the rapid fire of comments, I was bound to stumble somewhere. "Are."

I've offered over 20 comments on this thread trying to keep up.

[wickerwoman]

109. You don't have to tell me!

I used to evaluate placement exams for freshman composition classes. Students had three hours to read a page or two from Richard Rodriguez's "The Achievement of Desire" and had to write a short response to a few questions. Most students wrote 10-15 pages and managed to get the general gist of the essay at least to the point that they could answer the comprehension questions if not formulate their own argument about it.

But I had one essay which was only two pages long and read like: "When I was in school I didn't like reading no books. Then my teacher says "Read more books." Then my mother made me read more books all summer. Then I like reading." It was the most absurd thing I'd ever read in my life. Obviously, he was a football player because he ended the essay "Now I'm so happy to be in college. Go RU!"

I wrote "third grade" on the placement recommendation. He was not placed in third grade. He was placed in 098 (the lowest class we could put him in.) He failed it twice. Then he failed 099 twice. Then he failed 100 three times. Then he failed 101 twice before finally passing his *first semester freshman English requirement* in summer school after his senior year. And that was a charity pass... I tutored the hell out of him and he still could barely put together a sentence or understand a high school level reading assignment.

I agree that ESL students shouldn't have their grades handicapped in mainstream classes, but at the same time sentences from those essays don't make a good case for the illiteracy of the general American population. Basically I agree with everything you're saying but think some of the examples aren't really on point.

[lyonspotter]

111. Very good clarifications...

Thank you.

How comprehensive should such an art project be? What biases should it avoid? Should it only put up essays that were written by English speaking students who use English and have always used English as their primary language of communication? Do we neglect that millions of ESL citizens participate in all walks of US life? In many ways, this art project raises many important questions that it, by itself, cannot answer.

[wickerwoman]

116. I guess it depends on the point you want to make.

If you want to expose the failure of the American public education system to adequately prepare students for college level reading and writing then I think it's fair to use products of the American public education system to make the point (even if they are "heritage speakers"... student who grew up speaking a different language at home from the one they spoke at school) as long as they are identified as such. I'd be the last person to say that only native speakers of English are "Americans".

But if the person who wrote that essay is a foreign exchange student then what you are really exposing is the failure of their home country's educational system to prepare that student to study in a foreign language. Or you are exposing the failure of the language testing industry (ETS and IELTS) to adequately screen out students who are not prepared to study in US universities. Or you are exposing the screening methods used by the university, or the failure of the university to provide adequate ESL support before allowing students to take mainstream classes.

So I'm not sure if I would use that essay as an example unless you know the back story on the person who wrote it.

[lyonspotter]

119. I would be inclined...

to agree with you and your comment above.

What I do like about the project as it stands is that it does not make those distinctions you offer, but rather the algorithm in making it was as follows: Any incident of illiteracy (to my subjective view) should be incorporated into the grid as an event of illiteracy within a specific place and time in academia (SB, Fresno, Tampa, Bakersfield, etc). As it stands, one of the things the project does is posit a general expose of the screening methods used by the university. It doesn't say how the screening process is inadequate. It just manifests the inadequacy. I don't think the essays themselves can say 'how' the system is inadequate. That would be a different project with different elements.

Now, I think it would be an absolutely fantastic sister project to narrow the elements down, to target different institutions, as you have noted wonderfully above. I would like to do much more with all this and diversify what each project tries to locate as a contributing feature driving the problem of illiteracy.

[AngryAmish]

225. Alan Page agrees with you on football players academic abilities

[wickerwoman]

269. I never said all football players are stupid.

I did, however, spend three years reading something like 10 or 11,000 writing samples from incoming college freshman. I read hundreds of essays from kids who were going to struggle with reading and writing in college but I figured "well, they must be good at engineering or art or physics and they're not so awful they won't be able to muddle through eventually."

In addition, I read about five or six essays where my instant reaction was "you have to be kidding me!" and every single one of those kids was in either the football or basketball program. We're talking sub-middle school level reading comprehension, limited vocabularies, inability to form sentences with clauses and on and on.

I think it would be fair to say that at least the thirty worst essays I read were all kids on sports scholarships.

And I don't think it's fair to tell those kids that sports will get them a "college" education, when they end up struggling to pass freshman requirements in their senior year.

[lyonspotter]

271. This art project...

presents, as you say, student writing "where my instant reaction was 'you have to be kidding me!'...We're talking sub-middle school level reading comprehension, limited vocabularies, inability to form sentences with clauses and on and on."

Very few of my students were athletes. Guess I got the end of the stick where athletes funneled elsewhere. But I am shocked at the amount of opposition that the evidence I have presented has received. People from English departments across the country have visited my blog and asserted that these samples are not "illiterate" or "do not indicate illiteracy."

Fine, any of these students should feel free to apply and see what a potential employer says when the employer reads their application! With that, I think the PhDs have gone a little to theoretical on this and need to backpedal into a more pragmatic view...

[immoderate]

124. When students handed me work like this...

I taught middle school. I would call them up to the front and have them read it to me. Too often, they would be surprised by what they were reading. In most of these cases the problem is clear. They don't read what they write. I send them back with the admonition to not make me read what they wouldn't read themselves.

I don't see illiteracy here. I see laziness.

--imm

[lyonspotter]

140. If all we can deduce from this project...

is laziness, I find great value in such a finding.

Laziness, in many ways, is just as great an ill within our society.

[immoderate]

148. Just my experience...

I know my students. I know that they can express themselves. When I'd tell them to "read this to me," they would stumble over their own words.

I asked them, "Did you read this before you handed it in?" And after a nervous laugh, they would shake their heads.

I'm not saying this accounts for all the illiteracy, but that's what I see in many of these examples.

--imm

[lyonspotter]

150. You are making a strong point...

...and I am grateful for it. Thank you.

[NJCher]

175. thank you

I was going to write that if you didn't.

Same thing here. I let them read their colleague's work (sometimes aloud) and they shame themselves into putting more into their writing. I make peer pressure work for me.

Here's another tactic that was quite revealing. Each person had to bring a little notebook and I showed them how to log in a start and end time for their research and writing. The purpose, I told them, was to see how many total hours they put into the research paper. My intent was to have them take the number of hours they worked on the paper and multiply it toward an hourly wage that was typical of what an college graduate might make.

Well, big surprise--I found the poorest level of skills were with people who logged in 0 hours on their paper.

So we can add "laziness" to the list of reasons, too.


Cher

[immoderate]

178. Back at you.

I'd love the look on their faces when I called them up to my desk and said, "read this to me." They would look at their own words as if they'd never seen them before. After a couple of stumbling starts they would say, "I can't read this."

And I would answer "So how am I supposed to be able to read it? You wrote it."

Soon enough the word got around not to "submit anything that you haven't read yourself." And the writing got much better. I have to add that I was a math teacher who also taught computer. My aim at the time was to use the word processor to improve the writing process. I got to work with them in a way their English teachers rarely did, over their shoulder, while they were composing and editing. I taught the difference between writing and blurting.

Another of my shticks: "Sing it to me."

"Huh?"

"Yes. Good writing sings."

--imm

[mwooldri]

199. Should these people be made to take the GCSE English exam?

GCSE exams: the examinations that schoolchildren in England and Wales take during the school year in which they turn 16. Most schools put their students through the English, Mathematics, some science (either separate disciplines: physics, chemistry or biology or a combined exam), and usually some other electives. If you're in Wales, then Welsh is usually added into the mix too.

I didn't pass with flying colours; I only obtained a "B" grade in English Language. In English Literature, I was even worse since I only graded a "C".

I am positive that if those sentences were in the essay portion of the English Language examination, that those candidates would be seeing grades of E, F, G or even worse - U (for ungraded, ie a fail).

[immoderate]

236. I'm in favor of some sort of accountability.

I grew up in New York. The state has long administered rather rigorous exams in all subjects. Passing them is required for receiving a Regents diploma. But students could also get a general diploma. As a teacher, I found that the Regents curricula provided reasonable goals for academic achievement, but not for every student. Some needed remedial work, some needed more time, either to absorb the material, or to mature. And some were just not capable because of special needs.

Anecdote: I had a student who was a good writer and speaker, and a natural leader at our school's "town meetings," An excellent student otherwise, he could not do arithmetic, nevertheless, he was tracked into an algebra class. I gave extra help, before and after regular hours, but I had 150 students. He needed to work with a Resource Room teacher, trained to diagnose and find strategies for dealing with learning disabilities. But our school didn't have that service, and to get it, the student would have had to have been classified "special ed" and his parents would not allow that.

Where it got really stupid was mid 90's when every student had to be in a grade appropriate Regents class whether ready or not. I saw that as a disaster, and left the system. It seemed to me the system was weighted toward failure, and it could have done otherwise.

--imm

[lyonspotter]

242. That is the issue, isn't it?

Things appear, decade after decade, to be weighted toward failure with increasing frequency, and yet things "could be" otherwise!

[immoderate]

243. Yes. The problem is...

educational decisions are not made by educators. They are made by politicians and judges.

Edit to add: Educators don't have any magic bullets either, but at least they know that.

--imm

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

25. "or incorrigibly irresponsible."

Well there you go. Some kid going to a community college in Florida isn't going to get all worked up over and proofread an irrelevant essay for an art class he doesn't even like.

[lyonspotter]

26. What about the UC? N/T

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

27. What about it?

[lyonspotter]

29. You asserted...

that "...Some kid going to a community college in Florida isn't going to get all worked up over and proofread an irrelevant essay for an art class he doesn't even like."

My research indicated the same types of illiteracy are extant in the UC. With as much money riding on the entire process of going to such an institution, the students had better 'get worked up' and proofread an essay that could ding the GPA.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

33. Research? What research?

You just collected all the bad shit for your own amusement and then displayed it for the public to see and laugh over.

If I'm taking some bullshit art course with a dick art instructor who likes to pull that sort of shit, I wouldn't put any effort into writing an essay either, even at a UC.

[PVnRT]

39. Wow, I agree with HFPS for once

You're right - these reek of cherry-picked miswrites meant to be displayed to humiliate the people who wrote them. Kind of like a Fox reality game show.

[lyonspotter]

45. You must be looking only at the selected...

and isolated statements.

Obviously you have not spent very much time looking at the JPGs on the site that show an amazing amount of red markings throughout the essays. The quality of writing is egregious.

[sammytko]

146. i agree with HF also

It's just wrong to make fun of people like that. My SO has terrible writing and spelling skills, but can speak eloquently. There is just some disconnect between what he wants to say and how it comes out on paper.

[lyonspotter]

149. Why must we interpret...

this project as making fun?

What is interesting to me is that people do laugh while they look at the project. Why would people find something so terrible to be so humorous?

The sublime object is something that brings pleasure and pain simultaneously. I feel we have before us something that is just that. Why not bring this incredibly important subject to light? Why should I have left the essays I collected in a box somewhere or, worse still, thrown them away? How is 'that' the right thing to do?

[sammytko]

153. what should have been done is offer help

i'm retired but working on a new career - middle school math teacher. if i see grievous mistakes on a paper, it is my duty to dig out the root of the problem. hell, go back to the beginning and find a way to help the student. of course i have the time and don't need the money, so different strokes for different folks.

[lyonspotter]

154. Good points...

The paper is due at the end of the semester. I offer to proof-read or help discuss ideas in class. Usually, an entire class is devoted to how one can avoid logical fallacies, how to compose clear statements, where the writing center on campus is located, etc. I'm not sure what else I can do for the students. My favorite instructors when I went through school were the ones who took an active interest...didn't hold my hand, but where available for assistance. I try to be that for my students.

I am finding as the years go on that a lack of commitment is present and laziness is more and more infecting the youth. I am not quite sure how to fix it all on my own. Illiteracy has many contributing factors. Often, a lot of these students are attending school and don't know why or are not interested in being there. It doesn't add up.

[Fire1]

229. Oh, it adds up alright! Students who don't want to be there

are indicative of a diminshed value system, particularly, in the area of education.

[lyonspotter]

230. I revise my...

...statement to: "I am baffled by this craziness."

[lyonspotter]

44. Wow

I am not far from refusing to dignify your comment with a response.

Still, you call what I have done devoid of research, which is a laughable claim. The essays are documents of a larger problem. The fact a great many students cannot read and write is something to which we must call people's attention. When I encountered this problem, it became clear I had an ethical duty to spread awareness about it.

As someone who values literacy, writing, and the ability to read, it is bothersome when I find a very high percentage of college students who cannot do it effectively. The statistics to which I referred in the the article have deeper, unsettling findings.

Good day.

[PVnRT]

46. What hypothesis did you test?

In other words, what was the null hypothesis? What was your control group or what standard were you comparing these too? Were these mistakes rampant through these essays, or did they occur in only a few spots? Were there any patterns (certain words, etc.) that seemed to present problems? What factors are worth studying to interpret the results further?

Simply choosing essay mistakes and holding them up as examples of "illiteracy" is not a study.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

48. Scientific illiteracy.

As an instructor of science for the past several decades, I have had the disheartening experience of encountering scientific illiteracy at the college professor level. Where's the rigor? Where's the methodology? Where are the controls? And they defend this as "research?" Even dare to use the term "ethical duty?"

[lyonspotter]

50. This specific project stands as a type of photograph.

The other ideas to which you refer would make for great follow projects, which are underway. When the project deals only with the tangible evidence (essays on paper), it can limit the manifestations of that visual information.

Getting involved with other media can then more strategically turn to other questions that you pose. Engaging digital media is something I have down the pike, for example.

Besides, you think there is only one form of research? Your scientific method is all that exists? Is all that produces knowledge?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

54. I think research lacking any sort of rigor is guesswork, at best.

Yes, there are other kinds of research besides scientific. And I wouldn't qualify what you've done here as any of them.

[lyonspotter]

61. Does philosophical reflection...

in the form of essays and books count as research? What about 'pure' philosophy, which has no necessary referent in the real world, but deals only with the workings of logic, language, and reason? Does that count as research.

If you admit that it does count as research, and you must, (unless you want to say Kant through Derrida produced no research or knowledge), then you must admit that the philosophical reflection upon a large project such as the one we are debating counts as research...just not of the type you privilege. That of the scientific method.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

63. If some actual thought is put into it, sure.

But I repeat myself.

[lyonspotter]

67. Here is some actual thought for you:

(which is simultaneously implied in the grid of essays, and if you were visually literate you would be inclined toward those philosophical implications)...There are over 150 essays in the grid. I encountered approximately 700 students in the time the essays were collected. Of the 150, these are not comprehensive. Many students did have similar writing skills, but picked their papers up at the end of the semester. We are looking therefore at a collegiate archive that points to 20-30% of students who turn in official essays that are illiterate, as evidenced by the 'proficiency' of their compositions.

What can we deduce from this tangible evidence? What philosophical deductions through reflection can be logically made? We can go your philosophical route, that the students think the professor is a big bad meanie, and therefore the students decide to throw away the tuition money involved in enrolling in the course by doing a poor job to spite the instructor, or we can take at face value that the students did in fact take the time to turn in an essay and from that fact assert that of the 20-30% a great many of these really don't have a sufficient sense of how to read and write.

[PVnRT]

So, you're saying you drew from a skewed sample?

The students not bothering to pick up their essays? Yeah, it stands to reason they would have worse ones.

Were these all art majors, or people picking up Gen Ed requirements? Could it be that Art tends to attract people who express themselves better through visual media rather than the written word?

More questions left unanswered by this "research."

[lyonspotter]

139. the algorithm of this 'particular' project...

conformed to the following:

"Any incident of illiteracy (to my subjective view) will be included in the grid of essays."

This project showed no discrimination of race, background, discipline or major, etc.

There were students endeavoring to major in all disciplines. It is an archive of 7 years worth of material.

What science likes to do, and what I am not opposed to, is narrow variables to to help distill its results and conceptual conclusions. It acts in the reductio method. I am not against that method. But the reductio method is not the only method. This project did not define itself by that method. This project endeavored to collect artifacts and bits of evidence, and from those it forces a viewer of the grid to make philosophical extrapolations. This project's ambition, where a viewer is concerned, is to highlight the viewer's experience in the process of looking at the art.

Your reduction of what all research should do is indicative that you did not take very many - if any - contemporary art history classes.

Further projects are down the pike, and they will use and isolate elements and variables in different ways.

[lyonspotter]

49. Right, you wouldn't put any effort because...

...the instructor is an arrogant jerk, and you would therefore throw your money down the drain, earn a bad grade, and dent your GPA...all to get back at that big, bad, mean professor, right?

Right.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

52. Revenge? No, I just wouldn't give a shit.

Treat students like shit, their grades go down.

Welcome to teaching.

[lyonspotter]

59. I never treated anyone inappropriately in the classroom...

The only reason I have the essays in the first place is because the students did not come to retrieve their work at the close of the semester. (indicators of anything from lack of responsibility, lack of passion, etc)

The fact of the matter is, the students are indicating a lack of reading and writing skills at the college level. This problem emerged from previous periods in the students' lives, far before I encountered them. You are trying to blame their poor writing output on me, the instructor. My job is not to teach them to read and write, although I am always helpful if a student wants assistance, and I always refer them to the writing centers on campus.

I find it highly peculiar that you want to pass judgment and blame on the instructor, to place responsibility for the poorly written papers (for the evidence of illiteracy) on the shoulders of a person whom you have not engaged within the context of the classroom. Odd... (not to mention logically flimsy)...

[timtom]

216. I can tell that the people to whom you are responding

are some that I've had on "ignore" for some time now.

Consistently annoying.

[lyonspotter]

222. I have never interacted with...

these individuals. I can say that they did give me some ideas for different ways to approach projects in the future. However, I believe it is clear that they were not able to see the value of the intention behind this art project for what it was. Many people can only see through the lens of their field, and these individuals seem to fit that mold.

Thanks for the comment.

[AngryOldDem]

238. You don't need to defend yourself.

It is NOT your job to teach basic grammar, unless you are an elementary school teacher. You should have some level of expectation of those who take your classes.

[lyonspotter]

239. Thank you, AngryOldDem.

I concur, yet I still do try to cover the basics with the students.

You should see how they are attacking me over on my blog! http://livinnthebigtime.blogspot.com/

People from Syracuse University to Stanford are all coming out of the woodwork...

[XemaSab]

86. How can you honestly defend this?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6284548&mesg_id=6286294

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

92. Picture's not showing up.

I think you need to put a little more effort into your presentation.

[XemaSab]

94. It's showing up on my screen

n/t

[lyonspotter]

95. The picture loaded in my browser.

Here is another location of it:

I am curious as to what flaws you would remedy in the presentation itself. Are you an artist? (Just curious).

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

96. Still not showing up. Tsk tsk tsk.

[lyonspotter]

98. Try this one, my kind sir/madam.

http://tiny.cc/JjjjP

[wickerwoman]

112. It's a Chinese ESL student

it's even more obvious in the full essay.

Sorry, it's a good example of a student who shouldn't have been placed in a mainstream class.

It's not a good example of "American Illiteracy".

[XemaSab]

120. And what makes you think this?

:shrug:

[wickerwoman]

133. I taught ESL for 5 years

and spent three years determining writing program placements for incoming college students.

OK, so he/she is Mexican, not Chinese, but he/she is obviously not a native speaker if you know what you're looking for.

Native speakers will have brain farts and forget verb endings or subject-verb agreement but they will rarely substitute completely different parts of speech like "paint well detail" instead of "paint details well" or "paint fine details". That's obvious second language interference. They rarely make preposition mistakes like "on his paints" instead of "in his paintings" which are extremely common with ESL speakers. "Shokes" instead of "strokes" the way it is written here isn't a spelling mistake/penmanship blur. It's a non-native speaker taking their best stab at a vocabulary item they don't completely remember.

Starting a sentence with an irrelevant "personally" is a trick ESL students are taught to stall for time on language exams. "Much emotion" instead of "more emotion", the irrelevant "this" before "bright"... these are classic grammar confusions for English language learners.

[XemaSab]

135. Interesting analysis

Thanks! :hi:

(And cue Miss South Carolina: "I personally believe..." :D )

[lyonspotter]

137. Now, for the sake of argument...

...let's say that I told you that when I spoke with this student over the course of the semester, I had no reason to suspect that she would be illiterate.

Let's say further that she sat in the front row and always asked questions, none of which in form or content gave me any reason to suspect she would write "shokes" twice or fail to pluralize (writing 'color,' instead of the appropriate word choice of 'colors'). She had no accent. She was articulate in expressing her artistic likes and dislikes.

What do we conclude then? I was literally astounded when I received her paper.

[wickerwoman]

142. Many students have uneven skill development.

In China, students are taught English in classes of 150-200 students and are almost never given a chance to actually speak the language in an authentic situation. I can't tell you how many people I met who could read the Wall Street Journal in English but if you asked them "How are you?" they would stare at you in stunned silence. Their reading skill level was far in advance of their speaking skill.

Likewise, if your student grew up in CA, she had lots of opportunities to develop her speaking and listening skills through watching television if nothing else. But if she was rarely asked to read books in English at home or rarely had to write essays in English in high school (maybe she was in a bilingual program or just went to a high school that didn't ask much of its graduates) it's entirely possible that she could speak reasonably native sounding English but not be able to write very well.

And because of the speed of speaking, it's very easy for the listener to miss some mistakes. A speaker saying "I knowed that" quickly can sound exactly like someone saying "I know that." So it's easy when you're only listening to an ESL student with a strong speaking level who talks fast to miss a lot of the mistakes they are making.

Also, many non-native speakers make careless mistakes when they are tired or stressed out that they wouldn't make on a normal day. It's probably a combination of her writing skill lagging behind her other skills plus not trying very hard in this particular essay.

[lyonspotter]

144. I appreciate your analysis...

and thoughtful delivery in this discussion. Thank you for your respectful tone as well.

I will bare what you have said in mind.

[lyonspotter]

121. Not to deflate your confidence...

but the student was not Chinese. She was a Mexican-American, born and raised in CA.

[CrispyQ]

117. "...I wouldn't put any effort into writing an essay either..."

Ok, so it would not be your best work, but would you have produced the drivel that is in these samples? I've read your posts, & no, you would not. In fact, you would have to work, to write an essay as bad as these!

[Dora]

60. Whatever. Next.

I don't even have to hand-write "stroke" myself in order to understand how it can become "shroke." This is not illiteracy - it's poor penmanship.

A paper littered with poor grammar, spelling mistakes, and bad handwriting does not mean its author is illiterate. Obviously, the author is able to read and write, just not to the standards necessary for an A, B, or even a C grade. Context (or motive) is important in any written situation - some of these students may be able to write a moving love letter, or organize a household to-do list, or schedule 20 employees at work. So you've encountered a lot of students who are not interested in writing a polished paper that's been through an outline, two drafts, and a rewrite. That's their choice - and they may not know that help is available to them or that they need it.

Your two "conclusions" are actually one - these students are incorrigible, whether they're illiterate or irresponsible - and it demonstrates that your attitude doesn't speak well for you as an educator.

Some "teachers" obviously don't give a shit about the teaching, and only want their students to hand in perfect responses in order to validate the perfect "teaching" at play in the classroom. I have to wonder if you belong in the classroom at any level if your attitude is so punitive and judgmental.

:boring: and :puke:

[lyonspotter]

64. Poor penmanship? Twice?

The author wrote "shoke" twice. Hand-written! That is not poor penmanship, but rather the lack of knowledge concerning how to spell the word he/she wished to communicate.

Yes, all the blame here is upon the college instructor, who was certainly present with the students in the formidable years of their education and skill development.

[XemaSab]

76. Don't even bite on the "poor penmanship" bait

The student's printing is actually fairly clear. If I was his kindergarten teacher he would get an A in penmanship. :P

The problem is that his essay is 100% garbage.

[lyonspotter]

78. Absolutely, XemaSab! N/T

[Dora]

90. No, the blame for their so-called illiteracy is not on you. My criticism is on you.

How "present" were you? For one semester out of at least 13 years of education. You. Know. Nothing. About. Your. Students.

These "incorrigibly illiterate, incorrigibly irresponsible" students did write essays in response to a demand placed upon them. Put the grammatics, misspellings, etc., aside for a moment. Did they get anything right? Was somebody accurate in their description of an artist's work? Did somebody get the content right - even if it was obscured by their syntactical and grammatical errors? If they did, then they learned something from your class.

It's your responsibility as a teacher to impress upon these students that their writing skills are important. And to impress upon them that there is help available to them - the campus writing center, for starters, a remedial writing course, a tutor, writing groups, study groups.

I saw a fantastic essay on remedial classes at the university level in a recent Chronicle of Higher Ed - if you can locate it, I recommend you read it.

By virtue of being their teacher, you have a relationship with each of your students.

You have abused their trust and sullied your profession by cherry-picking the worst of their work and presenting it online as evidence of their "incorrigible illiteracy."

Educators who cannot abide ignorance shouldn't be teaching.

[lyonspotter]

102. I have always...

..encouraged students to seek out the assistance of the writing center (I say this verbally often, and the admonition is even a part of the contractually binding syllabus).

Generally, every semester I make a point for an entire class period to go over logical fallacies that students might be tempted to make. A corresponding hand-out is given to them of various types of fallacies and examples thereof. This is to help the students strengthen the quality of their thinking as they approach the writing process. I also go over grammar, carry out short exercises with them in diagramming sentences to re-enforce structure and how the structure of a sentence generates meaning, and the like. You say I am making assumptions about their 13 years and experience, but you are certainly making many assumptions about how I teach, all of which this art project is not about.

This project is about evidence, in the form of official collegiate essays, that indicate the students do not know how to write. If they knew, they would not compose the papers in the manner ostensibly on the essay grid.

Their identities have been blacked out, so no trust has been breached. On one hand, I have a responsibility to make these things known, in as many forms as I can. "No Child Left Behind."

[XemaSab]

75. Here's the full "essay"

[lyonspotter]

77. Thanks for posting that...

The essay was to be one to two pages in length and compare / contrast Vincent Van Gogh to Rembrandt Van Rijn in terms of their self-portraiture.

This was the writing offered to such an assignment.

[XemaSab]

37. A few mistakes here and there is understandable

but most of these kids obviously had much, much deeper problems than a few spelling errors.

For example, here's a blog written by a friend of mine from high school:

http://chad-cambodia.blogspot.com/

When we were in high school she was a terrible speller, and she's clearly availing herself of the spell check feature now.

Her sentences are clear, and there are few or no grammar problems.

Here's a blog written by two little home schooled Nazis:

http://www.heritageconnectionband.blogspot.com/

There are some spelling and grammar errors, but it's still clearly written.

Some of the examples from the OP are unreadable. It's totally unclear what the writer is trying to say. Even most ESL students are more attentive to spelling, grammar, and word choice.

I don't think it's an exaggeration to call it illiteracy.

[northzax]

62. see, there's the problem

in real life, there is no spell check feature. or even better, autocorrect. I, personally, cannot write very well by hand. I just don't do it very often (really, it's only when I write thank you notes or a few sentences here and there. everything else I do is on a computer. ask me to handwrite a response to an essay question, and you'll laugh at the result. ask me to type it, and it's a whole different thing. but then, I have been using a computer for all this since 1984. I can type many times faster than I can write legibly and coherently. If I'd really needed to handwrite my way through high school, college and grad school, my life would have been much different.

[CrispyQ]

91. Are you kidding me? This is exactly what illiteracy is!

This is pure babble:

1) The people that are around the three crosses have source and many other weapons showing hate thorst Jesus.*

4) The video was made with funny reaction twenty feet long, and the footage of the tress were spinning systematic ally.

6) There was another fish creation on a larger canvas when in was orange wax fish on turquoise wash background.

10) There is more water then anything in the painting to the visual importance is present yet the closer the waves in eyesight the larger they are as along with the birds.

14) Rembradt has paint very classic well detail on his paints.*

Thorst? Shoke? I could write better when I was in the first grade! I sure hope these samples represent a small segment of our youth, because we are leaving them with a host of problems that I don't think our species has seen in it's history. They are going to need every skill to solve them, starting with the ability to articulate the problem. I don't see that skill in these samples.

[lyonspotter]

104. CrispyQ, you have got to....

try to go through the sub-thread above where many DU writers are taking this art project to task. It is literally dumbfounding. The blame is largely being placed on the college instructor, or interpreting the essays in such a way that one "should not" deduce that the essays indicate illiteracy.

This has been a wonderful learning experience in how perspective dictates interpretation.

[Spider Jerusalem]

177. At least four of those are ESL students.

The writers of four of those examples are pretty obviously native speakers of Asian languages (Chinese dialects, I'd say, most likely, especially the 'orange wax fish' one).

[lyonspotter]

201. Nope....

"Orange wax fish"...was a WASP female. Serious. Reminded me of Britney Spears. :0

[Johonny]

103. I was thinking the same thing

[BlooInBloo]

106. K-12 teachers aren't any brighter. Ex nihilo nihil fit.

[Alcibiades]

125. I doubt that very much

Look at the exhibit: the displays are of essays, which students have some time to complete. They have spell check, access to tutors, and a writing lab at many schools, but you still encounter this sort of writing. I have graded many such essays, and collected a few, though I'm sensitive enough not to make them into such a depressing art project as this.

And then there's the plagiarism. How do you spot plagiarism in a college essay? Well, if they spend the first paragraph writing as though they are Tarzan, but suddenly morph into an accomplished public intellectual, you have a candidate. Sadly, nine out of ten of them are not even smart enough to plagiarize correctly: they have simply cut and pasted text off the internet. So you just do an google search and you have their source material, material they could have used properly in quotations and citations if they really wanted to pad out their paper, but that would also require too much work.

I once had a student (an African student, so we can see that this part of the problem is not uniquely American) make the case, badly, that his entire essay happened to match a published paper by a well-known economist by random chance.

This isn't simply the result of democratization. It's the result of the loss of a love of reading, learning, and the increasing intrusiveness of television and the internet into the lives of young people.

[lyonspotter]

128. Depressing art projects such as this...

are valuable in that they can bring awareness and incite large discussions like this thread.

I am not sure it was insensitive toward the students to exhibit their essays. If their identities were exposed to the public, that would be an unprofessional gesture, but as such it doesn't actually throw the students under the bus. What it does is bring the problem to light in a sort of grass roots way...

[janx]

194. People aren't reading books. n/t

[chatnoir]

14. These are native English speakers??

How the hell do they get into college to begin with?

Shameful.

[Deja Q]

35. Very shameful. The First Lady is correct about our educational system needing reform...

It's got to be done. Especially as that will negate some of the right-wing and corporate-wing talking memes about Americans being stupid and everything else. They want things both ways, it seems...

[ShamelessHussy]

186. Actually, they may not be. That was my first thought while reading them.

And would explain how they got into college as well... where they are expected to work on, study, practice and improve their skills.

Just a thought.

[PVnRT]

18. Those look like test responses

In other words, stuff written for an in-class test. It's not good, no, but the first person to say they never fucked something up writing out an essay test is a liar.

[lyonspotter]

24. Right, but these are from essays due at the end of the term...

The students had the entire semester to write the essays.

Read the rest of the article. It is pretty demoralizing.

[graywarrior]

20. OK, so now I don't feel so bad about taking Basic Writing this semester.

[Romulox]

23. It goes both ways. I once had a Prof. attempt to correct my use of a "nonsense word":

"salable"

:eyes:

[XemaSab]

41. I had a teacher change "canny" to "uncanny."

:eyes:

[SoCalDem]

30. More and more kids are arriving at college, and wasting the first two EXPENSIVE years

taking remedial classes. It's one thing for a person who dropped out years before, and is now returning, to take remedial, but some of these kids are recent grads of high schools.

I think a lot of it stems from the fact that teachers may have had so much piled onto them, and "tests" have morphed into "true-false", multiple choice. Back when I was in College-prep classes, MOST of our tests were essay tests. I'm sure those poor teachers did not enjoy late nights, reading our drivel, but they did it, and those tests came back with all kinds of "red-pencil marks" on them.

One of my teachers always said "Please..NO NOVELS" as he passed out the blank paper & the test question page :)

[Deja Q]

32. In college, we have some fairly steep essays - even for an Associate's degree...

Oh, there are the multiple choice quizzes which, 9 times out of 10 (if not every time), the answers are taken, word for word, from the book. Thankfully those are worth the fewest points, because the essays show the actual ability - rather than the verbiage in the multiple choice questions (which are sometimes poorly written too...)

Just my two cents. All I know is, I'm going to prove yet another stereotype wrong about Americans being dumb and that's why _______ is happening. I have standards and I WILL go out of my way to say anything I deem is necessary.

[PVnRT]

34. This is what happens when you have to teach to tests in high school

You strip education of anything creative and interesting, and students learn things just well enough to pass and then move on.

Of course, the solution now appears to be....more testing! Because someday it just might work!

[Deja Q]

38. There's a time and place for BOTH philosophies. The core problems are

1) Efficacy of the concepts being taught
2) Willingness of the children to learn
3) Accurate discipline of said children
4) Discipline of teachers and principals as necessary

The educational system has been out of whack for decades in many of these aspects. And it's high time something gets changed. Changed for the better.

[PVnRT]

42. Tell me something

In Ye Olde Days, when students were smarter and wrote better, how many government-mandated standardized tests were there? Were teachers as blamed and reviled as they are now? How politically-driven were standards made and textbooks chosen?

You seem to focusing almost exclusively on the classroom, and that's only one part of what's wrong with our educational system. No one seems to want to go after the bureaucrats and school boards that are generating most of this nonsense.

[lyonspotter]

130. Let's do it! (NT)

[Deja Q]

161. Aren't principals part of the school board, with bureaucracies of their own?

Oh, trust me, with the idiocy my parents endured with the school system I was stuck in, rest assured - there are problems everywhere. But consider this: Most boards and teachers are tied with a lot of government regulation too...


Here's a gem I know you will appreciate -- it's on a tangent, but some of the themes seem quite the same:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zj-vIOMtVY0

[timtom]

217. Now, THAT'S an excellent point!

Standardized tests!

Bah!

[lyonspotter]

36. Oh wow, you are funny!

Thanks for the comment.

I can completely relate to the teacher begging for 'no novels.'

Not that many, if any, students ever wrote more than necessary...but reading the 'drivel' was extremely time consuming. Additionally, deeply engaging the errors and placing red marks all over the essays further compounds the time one has to spend. When the students do not pick up their work, it is frustrating to say the least.

[SoCalDem]

66. Unfortunately for my teachers, I was an exception

:evilgrin:

I was an avid note-taker, and when I was taking a test, I could close my eyes and "see" the pages, so I just "flipped pages" in my mind, and always had a LOT to say :rofl:

The "ability" is still with me in my old age (60) and sometimes it's annoying as hell :)

WHY on earth do I still need to know the phone numbers of my junior high best friends, or all my old locker combinations, or the address & phone number from everywhere I have lived :grr: I "see" them as I wrote them down , all those years ago:)

[alcibiades_mystery]

83. Even students who pick up the work don't learn from massively marked up papers

A fact which has been known, and verified, and verified, and verified again in writing assessment studies for 40 years or more. So yes, you are wasting your time with those extensive editorial marks, and not teaching anybody anything when you do that. I'm curious: have you looked into the massive body of research on college writing instruction? Do you participate in a Writing Across the Curriculum program? What does the assignment sheet look like, and how does it shape the way students will approach the writing assignment? Do you include drafts and feedback in the process (apart from the public upbraiding, that is?)?

Do me a favor. Go through your emails from students - especially those explaining absences - and see what errors you find in those. If my ten years teaching college writing can predict it, I suspect you'll find few if any similar errors (apart from capitalization and similar so-called "errors" that relate to the medium). Do you know why?

Now read this:

http://www.stthomasu.ca/~hunt/williams.htm

[lyonspotter]

93. Well...

Here's one of the e-mails from a writer in the grid (there are many more, and some are more egregiously composed. This was the first response to a gmail search with the terms "miss" and "class"):

Hello Mr. Lyon (a misspelling of my name)

This John Smith, i apologize fir miss class today.I had couple question before I submit my extra credit asignment. I forgot the name of the movie, I for the name the artist, but I remember all the ress events.

[Greyhound]

43. I tutored freshmen that entered on academic scholarships in a variety of

topics, mostly math and science but in English as well. My experience was similar to yours and it truly shocked me. Reading skills were at a level I would estimate to be about the 3rd or 4th grade (sounding out words, for example) with virtually no comprehension at all.

Remember that these were kids that graduated with honors and entered the University because of their academic achievements in HS.
Just:crazy:

[AwakeAtLast]

47. I see a difference in how writing is taught

When I was in school we had to learn sentence structure before we even got to an essay of any kind. I remember diagramming sentences until I started dreaming about them. The downside was that I never got the creative writing bug that I probably would have gotten if I had been able to dabble early on. I became the classic bullshitter. My spelling and sentence structure would be great, but substance usually was lacking.

My daughter started 'writing' in Kindergarten. Does she have perfect structure? No, but she will get there. I can see that she enjoys it. She was awarded "Most Creative" in her class last year (1st Grade). I thought that was a good award to get. They didn't give out "Best Sentence Diagrammer" :) .

Thanks for posting this link. Reading through some of it sure made me think :wtf:

:hi:

[XemaSab]

53. I have never diagrammed a sentence

Never. Not once.

And I really wish I had been taught that in school.

I was well into high school before I learned what a noun and a verb were.

Now I'm all depressed because my education was substandard. :(

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

56. Here, I'll give you a sentence you can diagram:

"You're so vain, I bet you think this song is about you, don't you?"

[CrispyQ]

97. Or pick any Sarah Palin sentence.

;)

[AwakeAtLast]

143. You would have to remove the hot pokers from my eyes after the 1st attempt

;)

[SoCalDem]

58. I was a word-geek, and LOVED diagramming sentences.

It's sad that so much latitude is given these days.

As a person who used to review employment applications, I can only say that on slow nights, we would take some of the "precious ones", and howl with laughter...and the sad part? Those people probably never knew why they did not get the job.

Truthfully, the ap was just one part of the process, but it's a biggie, since it's the FIRST thing a prospective employer sees. It tells a lot about a person, too.

neatness counts, so does spelling, and the ability to string cogent thoughts together, is a plus.

[lyonspotter]

68. Diagramming sentences was the best thing in...

high school, to my view! I loved the especially long, convoluted sentences.

Yep, nerd!

[sweetpotato]

113. Don't forget the cover letter

Sometimes cover letters are the best part.

We received a cover letter at our office that asked us for the wrong job. Obviously, the applicant applied several places and didn't remember to update that part of the cover letter.

Can't figure out what you are applying for?

Sorry - no soup for you!

[SoCalDem]

114. We had a guy once, who "forgot" too.

the poor guy was so "unconnected" , that for personal references, he listed his ex-wife and his parole officer..

he was applying for a cashier position :rofl:

[timtom]

218. Why, it's never too late to learn, XemaSab.

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/diagrams/diagrams.htm
http://drb.lifestreamcenter.net/Lessons/TS/diagram.htm

I used to LOVE to diagram sentences. I would probably have to relearn the whole process.

By the way, imagine my surprise when, in my first quarter at UC Berkeley, as a brand new linguistics major, I discovered Noam Chomsky's ground-breaking "Deep Structure."

np (noun phrase) and vp (verb phrase) diagrammed just like in high school.

[lyonspotter]

224. When students get introduced...

to linguistic structures and how these structures produce meaning, there is a corresponding increase in writing prowess. We should be emphasizing the process of diagramming at every stage in high school English. As I recall, in the early 1990s, the CA curriculum introduced the concept of diagramming in 10th grade English as well as senior English, English 4. I gather from many that now it is a process unfortunately long abandoned or largely neglected. Can anyone speak to this here?

One thing this art project does not show is why there is a problem. It just points to a series of events that has produced a certain problem, without naming such events. My fellow science friends in this thread have let me know that in order to have value as research, this project has to give us a few 'why' answers... I love such disagreements!

[Johonny]

105. I remember doing that too

Now you could pay me 1000 $ to do that to a sentence and I don't think I could. It seemed really important at the time to the teacher though. The point of language is to express an idea and be understood. If the student can do that then the rest is really just gloss. Following the complex and often non-nonsensical "rules" of English is really important to a small fraction of people. Those that don't find they can still communicate just fine. LOL, ROTFL, etc...

Illiteracy is something else altogether.

[lyonspotter]

107. Agreed.

Illiteracy is an inability to communicate effectively through writing, an inability to understand the meaning and layers of a text one reads, at base.

I enjoyed what CrispyQ wrote somewhere else in this thread, and I'll quote it now:

"I sure hope these samples represent a small segment of our youth, because we are leaving them with a host of problems that I don't think our species has seen in its history. They are going to need every skill to solve them, starting with the ability to articulate the problem. I don't see that skill in these samples."

[Odin2005]

127. Most kids don't learn formal grammar anymore.

The needed backlash against completely made up rules like no split infinitives and similar BS went to far and trashed all formal grammar. Though I will say that the nonsensical "passive voice is bad" crap is annoying and actually interferes with good style.

[lyonspotter]

"Passive voice" proponents of the world UNITE!

I "was thinking" that very same thing.

To be serious, I completely agree. There are rules that have been blown way out of proportion (like refusing to stack two prepositions together...like "out of" etc., lol).

Ultimately, saying things clearly (so that meaning is precise), as Bertrand Russell advocated, should be the focus of communication.

[Deja Q]

162. +1

I too use passive voice; mostly for dramatic effect. That's one of the few rules I have no qualms bending. But for others, I won't be loose.

Yes, "loose". Not "lose". :evilgrin:

[Odin2005]

191. The passive voice is useful for bring the topic to the front of the sentence,

John poured the milk into the glass.
The milk was poured into the glass by John.


The passive voice can also be used to eliminate the agent doing an action, which is useful when trying to pass the buck, like Reagan's Iran-Contra remark:

"Mistakes were made".



The purpose of the passive voice, when it exists in a language, is to promote the thing being acted upon, what linguists call the "patient" of a sentence, from a direct object to the subject, which has many important and useful effects.

[timtom]

219. Me too!!

Grammar Nazis refuse to admit to stylistic choices as being valid.

[BolivarianHero]

51. My God...

Reminds of passing good English through an online English-to-Japanese translator and then translating the result back to English.

[XemaSab]

55. Like this?

It transfers good English through the Japanese translator from online English, it remembers that it does again to translate the result in English.

:rofl:

[Hatchling]

57. I can believe it.

Ten years ago, I had just transferred to our State College from my local Junior College. I had been asked by my previous instructors at the JC to remain as a TA for the Intro to Drama class, to read their theatre reports.

They had each been handed out a guideline as to what they were to look for at the performance: Venue, audience size, and then concentrate on a particular aspect of the performance that they like- costuming, acting, etc.

Only one in an entire class of fifty managed to follow directions. She got an A from me.

I prorated the other point and most of the class received C's and D's ( One of the reports was only about finding a parking space and meeting up with her friends to buy the ticket. She didn't even include the name of the performance in her piece!)

There was an uproar over the grades. The instructors let them all re-submit the papers and gave them all much better grades. I protested that they weren't going to be able to compete when they got to the State College. I was let go.

Unfortunately, I was wrong.

[Maru Kitteh]

74. Otherwise known as ......... the collected writings of Sarah Louise Palin

"There is more water then anything in the painting to the visual importance is present yet the closer the waves in eyesight the larger they are as along with the birds."

- from the article above



"And getting up here I say it is the best road trip in America soaring through nature's finest show. Denali, the great one, soaring under the midnight sun. And then the extremes. In the winter time it's the frozen road that is competing with the view of ice fogged frigid beauty, the cold though, doesn't it split the Cheechakos from the Sourdoughs? And then in the summertime such extreme summertime about a hundred and fifty degrees hotter than just some months ago, than just some months from now, with fireweed blooming along the frost heaves and merciless rivers that are rushing and carving and reminding us that here, Mother Nature wins. It is as throughout all Alaska that big wild good life teeming along the road that is north to the future.

- from Sarah Palin's farewell address

[redqueen]

81. Holy crap...

I'm sure glad I didn't visit that link.

Fucking hell.

[BlooInBloo]

89. Once they're past the age of 12-15, their idiocy is pretty much locked in.

[lyonspotter]

164. My hope is that with time and maturity they can somehow...

...snap out of it. If what you say is true, it precludes my hope!

[Odin2005]

129. That's horrifying.

:wow:

[RedCappedBandit]

134. My friends frequently ask me to proof-read their essays.

It is infuriating to know that I go to the same school as some of them. This is definitely a widespread problem.

[BlooInBloo]

155. I refuse to proofread anybody below a grad student. There's really no point.

[lyonspotter]

159. I think the writing center has this as its main responsibility...

...and what often happens when I proof-read a student's paper is that he/she gets caught up in believing the instructor is there to proof-read every little correction and in turn help write the paper. I don't mind assisting and going over approaches to writing strong papers, but students need to find in themselves a the desire for excellence and competence. If the instructor needs to 'help' write your essay, those qualities are not as developed as we should see at the collegiate level, IMO. The instructor's job is to present the course material, present a vocabulary through lecture to help the students articulate course terms and concepts, and from there the student needs to put those into play in their own creative way. Anything more than that actually deprives the student and impedes her/his growth.

[BlooInBloo]

160. People with education degrees don't write significantly better. Ex nihilo nihil fit.

[litlady]

233. Remember that the modern writing center will not proofread.

I have not worked at any writing center that will proofread. The modern model is to help the writer through the various stages of the writing process and never to edit or even touch their paper.

[skypilot]

136. bookmarking for later.

Looks scary.

[lyonspotter]

141. ...come on back. n/t

[leftyclimber]

163. Wow.

I get fairly incoherent writing from some of my students, but that's just flat-out word salad.

[Hekate]

165. I'd forward this to my husband but he's depressed enough about his SBCC students...

He teaches in the Business Division...

Hekate

[lyonspotter]

166. Please do...maybe after a trip to the beach and a...

...leisurely walk on State Street.

I miss SB.

[Hekate]

dupe delete

[Hekate]

167. We love it here -- I'll bet you miss it. nt

[lyonspotter]

169. Very much so.

I lived on the mountain and enjoyed the ocean sunset every day there for two years.

UCSB is right next to the water, and the art department is a rock toss away from the Pacific. Amazing.

Cheers.

[Selatius]

211. Oh my God, as a recent graduate of business school, I had some horror stories of my own.

In the upper level classes, group projects are the norm. Final reports are usually written by several people. The report is divided up into sections, and each student takes a section to write. I had to proofread the whole report because I ran into laughable statements like, "The data indicate the plan shames the competition." I struck out the entire sentence and wrote something like, "The data supports implementation of this particular plan in light of the competition," or some other variation.

I can't believe people like George W. Bush hold MBAs. It's sad to know fuckwipes can actually fail upward.

[leftofthedial]

179. I teach Composition (among other things) at a local two-year college.

It is impossible for me to overcome 12 years of failed education in one 12-week term.

About half of my students come into my class with no higher than a 4th-grade level of literacy.

[BlooInBloo]

184. I'd guess it to be about 7th grade level in a 4 year uni.

[lyonspotter]

227. That sounds similar to my findings... (NT)

[leftofthedial]

244. Last Spring, my daughter asked me to proof an essay she had written.

She was a freshman in high school. My god, I wish I'd just get *one* piece of work of that caliber from any student in any of my classes.

[Blasphemer]

182. It is quite scary

After returning to school as an adult, I was surprised to see what passed as "A" work. However, after seeing what that professor has had to deal with, I finally understand. If work that is not even middle school level is crossing your desk, I suppose anything that shows a basic command of the language and even a minimal level of original thought is worthy of an "A".

[downeyr]

185. Don't even get me started on this stuff...

the amount of people who can barely read in my Gen. Ed Philosophy class was more than I care to count.

[TexasObserver]

190. Recommend

[johnaries]

192. As someone who used to hire for entry level Tech positions,

the vast majority of resumes I read were rampant with spelling and grammatical errors. And that was AFTER HR had "filtered" them.

I thought it was appalling, but I never would have believed it if I hadn't seen it for myself.

[XemaSab]

195. My FORMER BOSS submitted a resume for a senior biologist position

referring repeatedly to the "Army Corp."

She got the job.

I hated that woman. x(

[johnaries]

198. Hey, at least she spelled "Army" right.

This is no lie, my company sells Unix- and Linux-based systems that our customers start by typing in "menu" at the login. So many of our customers could not spell "menu" (mune, menue, minu, etc) that we changed the login to "go". And many of them still misspell it (the most popular spelling is "goe")

I AM NOT KIDDING.

[janx]

193. Reading isn't cool these days. n/t

[ladywnch]

196. My stepson's writing is equally bad.

I've been trying to get my husband to get his son into some kind of remedial writing class but his wife won't hear of it. She is convinced his writing is on par for his age. (my stepson is now a sophomore in HS - his writing reads like a 6th grader!) His vocabulary is that of a 4th or 5th grader. Oh,BTW, my stepson is in the International Baccalaureate program!!!! It scares me!

[DatManFromNawlins]

200. I roomed with a college football walk-on...

... who graduated from my high school. I took virtually every AP and honors class we had, and he just scraped by. I have no idea how he was accepted to my university, yet there he was! His ability to write was on par with my writing in the 2nd grade, as was his grasp of the English language.

I won't date a woman who cannot write beyond a high school level. I can't do it. It isn't that I didn't try, but it is one of my pet peeves. I work for enough stupid people that I won't willingly indulge in a relationship with one.

[Fire1]

228. Can't say that I blame you. n/t

[litlady]

197. I think I would cry if I did similar research with my students.

I teach college English and I absolutely concur with your findings. Students are not prepared for college writing and many don't seem to be at a middle or high school level. I have also taught at both community colleges and universities in two states and found similar problems. Your exhibit looks interesting.

[NYC_SKP]

202. It's good enough to become president, no? "Put Food On Your Family"...

[lyonspotter]

204. The biggest...

..."illiterate" ever to assume office.

[TheKentuckian]

203. You will gain little ground on getting me to believe

that the average person can't reasonably be expected to read at high school level and nothing on passing people up that haven't reached some level of mastery. If you are reading on the 8th grade level at 17 then that should be the grade you are in.

I'd also worry first about content before getting the editor's cap and red pen out. The focus on punctuation and spelling is worthless when the person doesn't understand the content and has nothing to output. The polish is the least important part of the puzzle. The crucial thing is to be able to comprehend and relay information.

[BlooInBloo]

210. "If you are reading on the 8th grade level at 17" - then you are likely in college.

[XemaSab]

205. Update:

I am enrolled in a grammar class this fall. :D

[Swamp Rat]

208. Sarah Palin, is that you?

[timtom]

212. Funny you should say...

I'm going to be tutoring students in the Writing Lab at a local university at the end of this month.

I've been saying the same thing for years.

[JCMach1]

220. As a Writing Prof--- It seems funny how quick the author is to complain

as opposed to how the students need to be taught writing skills as it relates to art.


Typical professorial arrogance...

[lyonspotter]

223. Have you spent any time reading the...

evidence within the art project?

It is a stretch to assert that the students just need to learn a new art vocabulary. They lack a grasp of simple sentence structure, spelling skills, etc., in order to put a new set of terms to proper use.

In other words, your suggestion is that they need amenities like air conditioning, GPS, and HD radio. While the art project exposes, as the evidence reveals within their work, that the engine is blown up and there are 4 flat tires.

[JCMach1]

252. I did... and yes they were bad... What was clear to me was that they needed

help with their writing...

Brandishing her RED marker, I don't think the students would be learning anything about writing from this professor.

I have dealt with this type of attitude for years from professors around the world. They would walk a mile on hot coals to show you how students can't write. But, when it comes to setting-up writing across the curriculum they would be the sharpest opponents.

My question to the artist: So, what are you going to do about it?

[chrisa]

221. This isn't as bad as,

Students who use AIM speak "Cya, lol, omg, etc." in College or High School papers.

[litlady]

232. This is very common.

I get all of the ones you mentioned but also lots of "u" for "you" and "thru" for "through." And yes, I have even gotten emoticons on papers.

[lyonspotter]

234. Now that is just bad! EOM

[AngryAmish]

226. This is why going to an academically rigorous high school is so important

Back in my day (80s) most high schools did not require term papers regularly. I went to an ok high school and by senior year I had to do 4 or so a year of 5+ pages - no spelling or grammar mistakes allowed (which sucked on a typewriter). My friends that went to the best high schools (Fenwick, St. Ignatious, Quigley) had to do essays/term papers weekly. By college they could crank them out in no time (especially when word processors got popular).

So, the moral of the story - don't be a cheapo - send your kids to the best schools possible.

[litlady]

231. I don't know about this actually...

I have had just as many students with writing problems that went to rich and rigorous schools and some of them are less motivated than the students from low income public schools. On a personal note, I went to an inner city public school and then got into a good university and found myself prepared. My fiance, on the other hand, went to a 15K per year private school and was unable to test into the highest levels at community college. Part of the equation for college success include student motivation and other circumstances, but academic preparation is a part of it as well.

[XemaSab]

237. We had to write a lot of papers at my high school

but they were mostly on REALLY BORING STUFF.

One of the biggest favors that teachers pushed on me that I resisted, though, was learning to construct an outline.

Outlines make boring papers fly. :D

[lyonspotter]

235. (4000 views...)

[lyonspotter]

245. I am happy to announce...

...but also surprised at the same time, that a big flood of collegiate educators visited the blog where the article of this thread is posted.

These individuals came from far and wide, Stanford and Syracuse University, University of Denver and University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and many other places within academia...each commenter intent on attacking this project and its findings.

The blame, according to them, should all rest squarely on the shoulders of the artist who compiled the essays and presented them in the form of an artwork.

Where I attempted to bring awareness to the public so that this problem of illiteracy could be addressed in the open, they deemed it as making fun of my former students and "getting my frustrations out." Sometimes one can't win for losing.

[Dora]

254. There's no such thing as bad publicity.

Or so they say.

Sometimes criticism has merit. As recipients of criticism, we can choose to take it or leave it.

Congratulations on the attention your work has received.

[lyonspotter]

257. Thank you, Dora...

I feel your words are filled with wisdom.

[TexasObserver]

256. I thought your work was superb.

You have addressed a problem that many in education do not want to acknowledge: that schools and universities are doing a poorer job teaching students how to write than at any time in the past 50 years.

None of the students you displayed could have passed freshman English in college 35-40 years ago. We have a sizable chunk of students who often don't understand sentence structure, paragraphs, or how to organize and frame thoughts in writing.

[lyonspotter]

259. These are very kind and affirming words...

I thank you for them.

I wish the people on my blog could see that I am not interested in blaming them for the shortcomings to which we are witnesses, but that I (as just one person) am sounding an alarm so that we can spread awareness and address the problem.

Again, many thanks...

[TexasObserver]

260. "If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs

and blaming it on you;"

Any time you say or do something important, as you have, you will be scorned by those who have a stake in defending the status quo.

Keep up the good work. Be reassured that their attacks are evidence that you have struck at the heart of an important issue.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

261. Now it's artwork?

I thought it was research.

But thanks for admitting that the people who know better are attacking you. That's worth some lulz.

[Name removed]

262. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[lyonspotter]

263. But by all means...

...please feel free to keep exposing your ignorance.

[sudopod]

265. 4chan is THAT way... nt

[lyonspotter]

266. My apologies...

I was not aware that 'artwork' and 'research' are mutually exclusive.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

267. One's objective, the other's subjective.

It's OK, I'm not expecting you to keep up.

[lyonspotter]

268. Is this research?

http://makrolab.ljudmila.org/

Or this: http://www.allosphere.ucsb.edu/

Or this: http://www.georgelegrady.com/

Or this: http://vv.arts.ucla.edu/projects/current.php

It's ok. I'm not expecting you to keep up.

[lyonspotter]

270. If you are working with that definition...

...then you are way behind in the times.

It's fine if you don't think my work counts as research. Feel free. (And I would be glad to not speak with you about it anymore).

But this comment that art is 'subjective' and research is 'objective' is problematic on so many fronts that it is not worth the time to deal with rigorously. Just one angle on it...all the computer science individuals who have crossed over into fine art would laugh your comment out of the building.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

273. You think so, eh?

Were you expecting all those other college professors to side with you to?

While I'm sure computer science individuals do some very fine art with some very fine equipment, I'm sure that most of them, at least the smart ones, would appreciate the difference.

[lyonspotter]

278. Some of them would appreciate the difference...

...if indeed they chose to inscribe it within the ethos of their work.

Those that write all the computer programming specifically for their art projects I imagine would not enjoy you discrediting that process as mere subjectivity devoid of research.

[Missy Vixen]

264. I was at Shoreline Community College in Seattle, WA, twenty years ago

I took English 101 because the credits from the Bible college didn't transfer, but that's another story. I will vouch for your story. Why? I ended up tutoring MOST of the people in my class on the most rudimentary construction of a paper -- namely, writing a complete sentence, and paragraphs.

My grammar isn't perfect to this day, and I struggle with some construction issues, too, but I was shocked at what I saw there. It looks like it's gotten even worse as the years have passed.

:scared:

[Starry Messenger]

274. Your exhibit makes me grateful that I teach ceramics.

:scared: I posted the link to your blog on my Facebook page and a couple of my fellow art instructor colleagues snagged it and posted it on their pages. I'm sorry the project attracted a bunch of haters to your blog. I thought it was great!

[lyonspotter]

279. That is great that you posted...

...the link, and thank you for doing so. I am glad it has attracted a lot of attention. I honestly believe the project points to a problem that needs to be better discussed and solutions proposed and found. Most of the "haters" as you call them are willing to admit that the problem has long since been identified, but as I see things...very little is happening to effectively curb the problem. A wider audience needs to start engaging how to fix the problem.

[Starry Messenger]

280. Yes, I completely agree.

I was being a bit flippant about being a ceramics teacher and not having to critique written work, but I know that I have students (this is high school I'm talking about) that cannot read or have very low levels of literacy. I tend to get students that the counselors track as "non-traditional learners". I'm not sure why getting students to love reading and writing has been so neglected in lower levels of education. I give a "getting to know you" survey every year with the question "Who are your favorite authors?" and 90% of the responses are often "I hate reading and books".

[arcadian]

277. That "teacher" has opened themselves to a lawsuit.

If I saw my work up there I'd sue the fuck out of them. That would still be my intellectual property and the teacher has broken confidentiality.