NEA: Americans are dumb because they don't read books

Among the findings is that although reading scores among elementary school students have been improving, scores are flat among middle school students and slightly declining among high school seniors. These trends are concurrent with a falloff in daily pleasure reading among young people as they progress from elementary to high school, a drop that appears to continue once they enter college. The data also showed that students who read for fun nearly every day performed better on reading tests than those who reported reading never or hardly at all.

The study also examined results from reading tests administered to adults and found a similar trend: The percentage of adults who are proficient in reading prose has fallen at the same time that the proportion of people who read regularly for pleasure has declined.

"pleasure reading" rrrroWWWWWrrr

why come americans reads books?

Dude, you have to go to school to learn to hate reading, is what I'm saying. It's no coincidence that reading-for-enjoyment rates flatten in middle school and drop thereafter.

Uh parents are perfectly capable of teaching disrespect for books on their own.

It does kind of ruin a book to spend three months writing down all its vocabulary words and reading the entire damn thing out loud and taking an insulting and pointless weekly quiz on it.

What distracts Tom Sawyer's church?

a. A dog
b. A cat
c. A rat
d. A bat

Injun Joe: hot or not? Please explain why________________________

hahah

I can't even count how many books I read a year, but then I was raised by a librarian and a history teacher

Apparently a librarian and a history teacher who didn't teach you how to count.

I was raised by two people who read.

hey did you guys hear that n/a hates me? its true!

Although I agree, having to read a book for school can suck the life out of it. It depends on the teacher of course.

Yeah, i was raised by two english teachers, who, despite their conservative ways, read a lot of progressive education books in the 70s & early 80s and decided that their eldest son would be the best receipient of all these new techniques.

So i got books shoved down me throat at a young age. This also worked for my sister, but not too much for my brother.

Why would kids wants to read books these days? For super imaginative stuff, video games, movies, and TV shows exist in high, complex forms, and for everyone else, the pace of life is too fast to spend an hour or two a day working on a novel. It's a rare nerd that enjoys literature for its own sake.

Dude, you have to go to school to learn to hate reading, is what I'm saying.

otm. except for the folks who wouldn't learn to read at all if not for school--it's better to learn and hate than not learn at all

We had mandatory reading time in middle school--I wonder, do they still do that?

For super imaginative stuff, video games, movies, and TV shows exist in high, complex forms

this is debatable

i exist in high forms when i play video games

(also note the article does not specifically reference novels - it refers to ANY book read for pleasure)

I have been wondering lately whether there's something to that new media theory. I teach 18 year olds right now and they are very sensitive readers of film and terrible readers of language. purely anecdotal evidence, but...

Well, a kid could play Elder Scrolls and get lost for hours. Back in the day, you'd read Tolkien for that kinda crap. When I was a kid the best we had was Final Fantasy 1 where characters could only have, at most, four letters in their name. HURR JEFF BART POOP

Well, a kid could play Elder Scrolls read Moby Dick and get lost for hours.

I was brought up by a guy who roofed houses (failed accountant) and a mom with a high school degree, but they read books to me all the time, so I read books all the time. The end.

I thin a thing is too, kids don't get props for what they do read. My youngest bro would only read video game mags (whatevs), and Calvin & Hobbes. My mom was all upset but I was like "do you know how complex the vocabs aer in C&H etc etc comics can be good reading too rant" and she was like, "huh, okay." And now he reads other stuff. And one of the best-read men I know said he didn't read anything but D&D manuals until he was 17, and then he read a D&D novel (eight times!). After rereading that one D&D novel, which he thought was probably the only good book in the world, he read other D&D novels and then other novels, lit, and pop-sci books. So it can take time and happen in a number of ways.

OTOH that stuff abt reading levels is sad for real and I do get kind of astonished at the very low level of reading & writing skills that my adult basic education ...tutees...? Well I tutor them and they need a lot of help for real.

I really don't see an elementary school kid being able to read Moby Dick, but there's the kind of "big challenging impossible" fear-vibe surrounding that book normally associated with calculus.

fuck fear.

funnily, the way the limited language skills tend to play out in my classes, humanities classes, is that the kids assume language is transparent but that image necessitates interpretation/analysis/etc.

xxp Maybe because the first, like, 150 pages are incredibly boring? I tried it, and I read slightly less than a book a day from 5th to 12th grade, but I didn't get anywhere with Moby Dick.

I agree but still I remembering trying to read Great Expectations when I was in fourth grade and was like "BOLTING? TAR WATER? What the hell does any of this MEAN?"

xxp

yeah I think the importance of reading has more to do with understanding language and learning to deal with it and analyze it and tease out all the information embedded in it.

xxx-post

Also hated Madame Bovary, Cannery Row, and The Winter of our Discontent, all of which were to be found on various English class shelves, and none of which I finished.

Forget The Turn of the Screw, that was "literary" in my mind and therefore as dry and bloodless as text could be.

The way to read Moby Dick is to read until Ahab shows up (which is like 150-220 pages in) and if you don't want to keep reading that's fine. It's more of a post-high school book anyway, I think. Anyway, that was the first book that popped into my head. Lord knows, i hated The Scarlet Letter when I read it in high school, but I loved it when I re-read it in college.

Steinbeck is pretty overrated! There's also soooo many books assigned in high school that aren't really good high school books, like Great Expectations.

in my experience, i kind of felt that certain books were pushed on us too early for us to be able to appreciate or understand them in any significant way. most of the novels taught, the "great books tradition" stuff, should probably be taught in college instead

yep.

oh I forgot to add that I taught this same class a couple of years ago and there were good readers then. obviously, the idea that something has changed in two years is ridiculous and again, anecdotal evidence (lol english majors), but still. the kids this time around are certainly as smart if not smarter than the ones I taught before. they just don't get reading.

there probably needs to be more research done on what age-appropriate reading actually is

I loved Great Expectations when I read it in HS! Olivia Havisham is like the funniest character ever. "Hyar Pip wave these flags about! This cake reminds me that all I have for men is a frozen hatred!"

Whatever the kid goddamn wants to read is age-approrpiate for the most part. I think.

i don't really know about this notion of "age-appropriate" reading. i think Moby Dick is unassimilable to a syllabus, though.

xpost Abbott otm

we had to read john gunther's death be not proud in grade seven. bummer.

(also criticism of English teachers makes me defensive lol)

yeah well that's the other thing--some books click with people, (i.e. I can't stand Steinbeck or Henry James, but I accept that they are good writers, etc.) and some don't.

Mr. Que you're like the anti-me (step off Steinbeck)!

Abbott otm as usual

Dickens? Are you crazy? Also "literary", that is: written by dead people for dead people and over-examined by high school students ever since. Not that we were ever assigned anything longer than Of Mice and Men. Frankly I preferred "The Faerie Queen".

I wholly agree, Abbots -- I disdained what I saw as "classics" but I got hooked on plenty of other retardedly long books that were really too adult for me, so it clearly wasn't an age or comprehension thing.

age-appropriate reading is going to be incredibly subjective -- i'm arguing for more sensitivity to this stuff, not less! all i'm saying is that there are certain books that are often regarded as classics, etc., that are pushed onto kids in grade school/high school, and kids aren't really able to appreciate because it's probably more appropriate for older kids.

xposts

it's okay though! it's good to like different writers. like when i don't click with a writer, i feel like it's my fault more than the writers fault. also i need to read East of Eden b/c people who like JS tell me it's boss.

but that's okay! The Great Gatsby is a book I didn't properly appreciate until I hit adulthood, but it's not like it was bad for me to read it in high school.

hey ian, richard morgan also has a really dope fantasy book out called the steel remains if yr the dude that likes george r.r. martin than youd probably like that one

i will look into it!
i was just thinking that i may have made a hasty judgment on morgan--it looks like the one omar little suggested is only available in hardcover, and i don't wanna carry that on the train. but anyway, cuz i don't mind (and sometimes even enjoy) the sex & violence in grrm, I don't see why it's less appealing to me in the context of a sci-fi thriller. maybe because sci-fi sex gets weird a lot? i don't know. it's not like the sex in grrm is like, elf sex or anything. i kinda draw the line at the sorta thing.

shit, that one's only hardcover too.
to the library!

altered states is pretty fukked up imo but steel remains is reasonably tame. the protagonist is gay and that fact isnt hidden or minimized so some of the reviews that call it ott are just lol fantasy readers and not really accurate.

morgan posts(ed) on another forum i post to he seems like a good dude and there's a lot of thought and craft put into his books

i decided to add this:
http://www.amazon.com/Crime-Novels-American-Postman-Nightmare/dp/1883011469/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231830006&sr=8-2

and axed the sound art book. art criticism always loses to good fiction in my world.

if we could get kids to read fucked-up bad-ass shit that works at a fifth grade reading level, like osamu tezuka translations, would that prepare them better for middle school and high school reading?

Most importantly, if teachers were equipped to explain the significance of the heavy shit students are required to read throughout 7th-12th grade (as vahid might be for his science materials etc), would that help? I tend to think the real argument here (as with lots of other seemingly esoteric college prep subjects, lit, math or otherwise) is how to get kids over the hurdle of understanding why this shit matters IRL, not getting them over the hump as regards boring. There's a lot of shit in life that's boring, but you got a dude hanging over your shoulder who can tell you why that boring part means your job, or another persons' life, or a promotion, or whatever. Teachers only get to speak in an abstract about another abstract (semester grades), which is nonsense; all knowledge can be explained in real terms, and all education is relevant, because nobody knows from 11-19 what kind of problems they might be asked to solve on Adult Planet

They can only visit this sexy planet at age 18 though.

hey ian you can find altered carbon in mass market paperback!

http://www.amazon.com/Altered-Carbon-Takeshi-Kovacs-Novels/dp/0345457692

(also oversized trade paperback if you prefer that)

lolz I couldn't get past the first 5 pages of that book - the noir-transposed-onto-sci-fi thing is SOOOOOOOO old and has been done way way better imho

the noir-transposed-onto-sci-fi thing is SOOOOOOOO old and has been done way way better imho

― Shakey Mo Collier

Seems like the idea got deaded off in the late 80s. Opening of Wetware runs some novel twists on it, only to (wisely) abandon the premise a few pages later in favor of some other shiny object. Lethem picked up the fragments, gave 'em new names and wrote a whole book around it, but couldn't improve on Rucker's original.

Others? Beyond, you know, that one?

not sure which Lethem you're referring to there (Gun With Occasional Music, I assume?) but yes that is way better than AC. Been a long time since I've read them but Gibson's cyberpunk trilogy comes to mind, as does KW Jeter (Dr. Adder, but also, duh, Noir). Also assuming "that one" refers to Bladerunner and not Obama

seems to me lots of Heavy Metal magazine also featured this noir-sci-fi hybrid, tho I'm blanking on particulars (there is that first sequence in the film)

"any questions?" zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.......

http://www.noircast.net/Images/cybernoir_opening.jpg

do androids dream isnt very noir

Jiminez wrote the cab driver story, but I dunno that it's based on anything he did for HM. Ranxerox was based in a kinda noirish, hard-boiled future, but was a different kinda thing, overall.

award for worst website goes to...

http://cybernoir.com/

do androids dream isnt very noir

yeah that's why I said Bladerunner

cool

Actually, the "one" I was talkin about was Neuromancer, didn't even think of Blade Runner til after I'd posted. But yeah, that. And good call, Shakey, on KWJ. Love Dr. Adder!

Cybernoir, sometimes also referred to as cybergoth fiction (not to be confused with the This article or section should include material from cyberpunk fashion Cyber subculture is, depending on ones perspective, a subgenre of the goth subculture or a subculture in its own right; proponents of the former view typically term it as cybergoth. ...subcultural movement), is a subgenre of Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ...Science Fiction. Though a somewhat contentious term, it is most often used to describe a combination of the A dystopia (or alternatively cacotopia) is a fictional society, usually portrayed as existing in a future time, when the conditions of life are extremely bad due to deprivation, oppression, or terror. ...dystopian focus of Cyberpunk (a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk) is a sub_genre of science fiction which focuses on computers or information technology. ...cyberpunk with heavy elements of The gothic novel is an English literary genre, which can be said to have been born with The Castle of Otranto (1764) by Horace Walpole. ...gothic fiction and Film noir is a stylistic approach to genre films forged in depression era detective and gangster movies and hard_boiled detective stories which were a staple of pulp fiction. ...Film Noir. Such works often contain some elements of Detective fiction is a branch of crime fiction that centres upon the investigation of a crime, usually murder, by a detective, either professional or amateur. ...detective fiction, for example the novel Chasm City is a science fiction book by author Alastair Reynolds. ...Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds is a Welsh science fiction author. ...Alastair Reynolds, or Forests of the Night (DAW Books 1993) First book in the Moreau Series of books by S. Andrew Swann (aka Steven Swiniarski) published by DAW Books. ...Forests of the Night by S Andrew Swann. This is one of the main features distinguishing works of such genre from cyberpunk, another being the heavy use such novels make of gothic For an account of the late 19th-century movement in poetry and the arts, known as Symbolism, see symbolism (arts). ...symbolism, dreams etc. as well as more gothic settings. Authors arguably working in this style include Alastair Reynolds is a Welsh science fiction author. ...Alastair Reynolds, Micheal Marshall Smith and Peter F Hamilton

Bladerunner just seems to be the apotheosis of the combo, its the most visible example in popular culture and has become an obvious reference point.

Sterling's "Islands in the Net" is pretty noir...

STOP IT SCOTT

who's that dude who writes those sci-fi books with plots that have benjamin franklin fighting hitler

I love Neuromancer.

"seems to me lots of Heavy Metal magazine also featured this noir-sci-fi hybrid, tho I'm blanking on particulars"

you can just blame moebius for everything. he was working the steampunk AND cybernoir stuff decades ago.

altered carbon is dope, as are the two novels that follow it up

lolz

<img src=http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n3/n17700.jpg>;
^ hugo-winner's oddball comic book entry in above mini-genre; basically blade runner, but with bears

dozen x-posts but everyone seems to still be on the same tangent

you can just blame moebius for everything. he was working the steampunk AND cybernoir stuff decades ago.

― scott seward

airtight garage!

dammit

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n3/n17700.jpg

http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj242/donaldparsley/garage11.jpg

"airtight garage!"

plus, didn't he illustrate that french series about the little girl in the 20's running away from robots and other new/old monster hybrids? (plus all the other stuff he did that makes the future look old and dusty.)

plus, moebius designed costumes and stuff for alien AND dune, so, basically, he is one of the kings of the dusty future.

yeah Moebius is so fucking amazing. would've been great if Jodo had been able to finish his version of Dune

okay, there is this too:

"Giraud's artwork for the Dan O'Bannon short story comic "The Long Tomorrow" was a key visual reference for Blade Runner."

see, i told you you could blame him for everything.

has anyone seen footage of that dune? i wonder if david lynch did? i never have.

Not sure what the series about the girl in the 20s is (not a JG expert), but The Incal, too.

I haven't seen any footage beyond the designs/drawings/storyboards that are on the Jodo box (and on the web, I presume)

http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj242/donaldparsley/Incal2.jpg

this is great, by the way:

http://www.duneinfo.com/unseen/jodorowsky.asp

(and he says lucas saw all the storyboards for dune before making star wars. yet another reason to blame moebius for EVERYTHING dusty in sci-fi.)

Just as sad to have missed the opportunity to geek on million-dollar Chris Foss spaceship efx.

new jodorowsky movie has the best dusty cast EVER:

Nick Nolte, Asia Argento, Mickey Rourke, Marilyn Manson, Udo Kier, and Santiago Segura.

here, both men talk about the failed dune:

orson welles. dali. pink floyd. magma. *sigh*

i wish they'd publish those dune storyboards

hey whaddayaknow, stopping by the local Goodwill whilst doing errands tonight resulted in me getting a copy of Altered Carbon for $2!

Why would kids wants to read books these days? For super imaginative stuff, video games, movies, and TV shows exist in high, complex forms, and for everyone else, the pace of life is too fast to spend an hour or two a day working on a novel. It's a rare nerd that enjoys literature for its own sake.

― burt_stanton, Monday, 19 November 2007 18:56 (5 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

rare nerd

i read a good amount of books but if the internet didn't exist i think i would have read a lot more by now, and also have a much less jittery mind.