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Posted on 02/21/2014 5:24:09 PM PST by Zeneta
Why Can’t College Students Write Anymore?
Is it just me, or are student competencies like basic writing skills in serious peril today? Granted, I am about a decade in to my teaching career, but even within this fairly short span, I have noticed a startling decline in the quality of written work turned in by my students, regardless of which institution (community college, private, four year school) the papers are coming from.
It’s not just that students aren’t demonstrating critical thinking skills in their writing, basic competencies like proper syntax, spelling, and even proper structure like paragraph indentation and how to cite sources are being done very poorly. Teachers have been reporting anecdotally that even compared to five years ago, many are seeing declines in vocabulary, grammar, writing, and analysis (e.g. Westin, 2013; Bloomberg News, 2012). Moreover, on an international scale, our standards in literacy is similarly on the decline (McGuire, 2014).
There are only so many times you can correct a “their” that is meant to denote “there” before wondering, when was the last time this college student’s writing abilities were actually assessed? As a psychology professor, I am starting to feel like an English instructor, because so much of my feedback on these papers is focusing on such basic writing skills, that the coherency or theoretical merit behind the content is getting lost in the shuffle.
Snip
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-first-impression/201402/why-can-t-college-students-write-anymore
(Excerpt) Read more at psychologytoday.com ...
/johnny
Because the don’t have Dominican nuns teaching them to diagram sentences anymore.
Gotta agree with you
I am a High school dropout and damned proud of it
Circa 1978-but I loved to read. Everything from crappy crime novels to Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451 and other science fiction, along with Greek classics
Joined the AF. Training was and is my love. Found an affinity for writing training scenarios and Operations orders, then instructions and regulations.
That skill has served well. I hire and fire now, and one thing I see is a complete unawareness on the part of most on decent (Not necessarily Proper) use of language and presentation. Idjits that have ragingdouche@yahamama.com for an e-mail just plain get chucked in the trash.
If they do make it for an interview, the inability to articulate a simple sentence just grates badly. “Like” and “You Know” take over any coherent thought.
I am by no means an English snob , but dammit, they don’t even know enough to at least make an effort.
God forbid they are asked to write a report
Make sure your children read and write well. In the kingdom of the blind, the one eyed man is king.
Teach your children, or grandchildren. Spend the time to do it.
I'll be hosting 3 of my grandbabies tomorrow in my house that one friend called a 'Darwin Test'. They will love the time they spend here. They will leave knowing the steps required to turn flour into bread. That is the lesson for tomorrow.
I will have succeeded when the 2 year old can chant my bread recipe. She'll learn to understand it after I'm dead and gone.
5 hours of fun with grand-dad, and they go away knowing something real.
Step up. It's our turn.
/johnny
It could be that the way they are taught in elementary school is to write it any way they want in the beginning. “See Jane run” is no longer taught. Garbage in, garbage out. There are no rules.
1 word: TEXTING
It corrects spelling, adds in colons and periods automatically, it encourages short, incorrectly spelled words.
Good catch.
Your whole post is excellent and to the point.
Part of the problem is the push to get everyone in college and the pressure to reduce admission standards. Hope scholarships don’t help because the standard for getting one is ridiculously low. In Tennessee it requires a GPA of only 2.75.
You are preaching to the choir.
I’m done with that.
To be clear, liberals and conservatives are living in two different realities.
You know this, we all know this.
Why is it ?
I have my thoughts as do soo many others.
I am looking for conservatives that understand the foundations of the left’s beliefs in order to formulate a way to undermine them.
A word most of them can't even spell.
Well... unless you can cause a worldwide flood, I don't think it's possible. The 'trick' is not to let them run things.
When my daughter was 5, I was thinking about something to do for the morning.
We took apart our computer. We reduced every possible component and laid them out on the floor. I went through each part/chip etc. and talked about their function and how they worked together.
They, They’re, Here, Here’s, Your, You’re so on and so forth ad infinitum.
Former KGB Agent Yuri Bezmenov Explains Our Four Stages – “The New Normal”…
Both the author's quote and your comment passed the SPELLCHECKER so what's the problem ?
: )
They cannot write because they are no longer expected to write much of anything in schools. Also, they do not read much written in standard, grammatical English so they have little sense of what that is.
I have seen BS degreed people struggle for hours to write a simple paragraph describing a lab procedure. This kind of writing need not be lyrical, but it must be absolutely clear and unambiguous. Most younguns now believe that technical writing means using a lot of multisyllable words and as much verbiage as possible.
I believe that if you cannot write about something, then you do not understand it, either. There are a frightful number of degreed people who know a good deal less than they think.
Just for giggles, ask a kid to write instructions on how to make a cup of tea for someone who has no idea how to do it—an alien, for example. Very few Americans can competently write exposition, but it is critical in many settings.
Simple answer: 80% of the people in college have no business being in college. They don’t have the intellectual background, they don’t have the intellectual skills. They cannot read, write, or compute at college-entry level, nor have they any understanding of logic, ethics, literature, the classical arts, or the basics of chemistry or physics. And I say this as an online instructor who would be in the poorhouse if they all ever came to their senses and gave up trying to be college graduates.
According to the commie ‘RATS, they don’t need to know how to read and write. They’ve got “smart” phones to do that for them. ROTFL!
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