Unpopular General Opinions • Page 11

i wrote an essay for ap english test about paradise lost (i hadn't read it) and got a 5 on the exam lol

 

Audiobooks are great. I'm an addict. But listening to audiobooks does nothing in regards to the educational side of learning how to use English grammar intrinsically by reading.

 

I can't listen to audiobooks, I can't focus on them at all. Same reason I can't do podcasts. Love reading though.

 

I'm one class away from pulling a 4.0 in grad school and I literally didn't read a single required text in full.

I can't remember the last book I read that I was assigned. The 25th Hour my senior year?

 

i cant stand podcasts or audiobooks, i absolutely need the visual component or else its pointless for me. gimme a transcript and ill read it front to back but im never gonna listen to it

 

i read Palace Walk senior year because it was actually extremely dope

 

"So you see, paradise was lost. And it was terrible."

 

I watch gaming podcasts.

 

Yeah I love podcasts. I grew up on sports talk radio and stuff so podcast is just a much muchh better version of talk radio

 

Yeah I mean I return to texts after they're assigned if they interest me but that hasn't happened in a while.

Actually I lied, tho, I did read a lot of texts on Urban Education/Oppression/Processing/NeoLiberalism and stuff like that but a lot of it became me doing my own research

 

but do you tell the students that you have read the books you havent? Lol you hypocriticizer

 

That's honestly pretty impressive. I wonder how I would approach grad school (or even undergrad again) now. Undergrad, I read everything except for one class. That semester I was taking six English courses and ran out of time.

I agree with your statement of forcing kids to read Classics is harmful, above. But aren't classics the foundation of education? How do we determine which are the right ones to "force" to teach analysis as opposed to which ones we let them know are there?

Hamlet feels like a non-negotiable, but idk.

 

I love talk radio, but I can't do podcasts.

 

No, I explicitly tell them that I barely read books in college and that learning to pull out essential information from texts and forming coherent ideas based off of that information is probably the number 1 skill they can learn in school.

 

Similarly I really don't think it matters what people read, like if the only thing you read is Twilight I'm not going to shame you for it

 

Nick Hornby wrote a good article about how you shouldn't bother with classics or highbrow literature or whatever, if you're not engaged in them.

Can't get into highbrow novels? Ditch them, says Nick Hornby

I have massive blackspots about classic literature - I don't care for any of those costume drama Jane Austen type novels, I haven't read any of those Russian guys, or the classic 19th Century French stuff etc.

 

Agreed. I have other things I'd prefer someone reads, but if they're reading, the hope is that the love of reading leads them on to better books anyways.

 

i tried reading brothers karamazov for like 4 years straight and never got more than halfwya. not for me, i guess. gimme a ridiculous fantasy series and ill read all 13 installments in 30 days lol

 

The skill of literary analysis is, imo, the foundation of education. Providing students with the canon helps them in terms of recognizing allusions and archetypes and cliches within other works, so I still read them in my class, but its moreso about the skill than the actual text. How to Read Literature Like a Professor was an essential text that I read in my AP class in HS that shaped the way I view reading literature for academic purposes

 

Podcasts usually aren't for me. I take most things in visually.

I also find myself taking in multiple visual mediums at once. I was watching wrestling, watching Agents of Shield, and reading comics at the same time last night.

 

Have they added the feature to change the voice yet

 

lol no but I play with the sound off anyway

 

I agree on that foundation. Yeah, that book is huge for a lot of very good reasons.

 

I will say that the accessibility of so many forms of technology at once is definitely harmful on my attention span. I practically need to force myself to sit down and watch a film/show without my computer open or my phone out. It's becoming increasingly worse with age.

 

I'm trying so hard to get better about this. I used to hate going to the movie theater but I've been doing it just to actually focus on what I'm watching.