College Illiteracy

[lyonspotter]

Run time: 05:46 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRS9u0iEAto   Posted on YouTube: July 29, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: July 29, 2009 By DU Member: lyonspotter Views on DU: 3337

 
Video Synopsis:
http://livinnthebigtime.blogspot.com/

'A Reading (15 Excerpts From Collegiate Student Essays, 2002-2009)'
HD DVD
5 Minutes 40 Seconds
2009

"What, then, is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms—in short, a sum of human relations which… are worn out and without sensuous power; coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins." --Friedrich Nietzsche, On Truth and Lying in an Extra-Moral Sense.

As an artist committed to Nietzsche studies, I have always been inspired by his investigations into language and its relation to thought, metaphysics, and truth. His once-controversial claim above - a positing of truth as mere metaphor, metonymy, and figures of speech - propelled many of my projects, each being committed to the investigation of the "Creative Lie," or the inherent conceptual illusions and deceptive conundrums imbued in aesthetic objects. 'A Reading (15 Excerpts From Collegiate Student Essays, 2002-2009)', however, investigates language not to form postures about its nature or how its structures produce meaning, but to rather pose as a depiction of the growing problem within our country and abroad: illiteracy and the devolving educational system that gives rise to it. As such, the video laments a moment in US history when the "mobile army" to which Nietzsche refers is increasingly becoming less and less mobile, just not in the sense he meant.

Over the past 7 years as an instructor of art, I experienced a disheartening encounter with illiteracy at various colleges with a frequency that far exceeded my expectations. While teaching at the University of Santa Barbara, Fresno City College, Hillsborough Community College, and Bakersfield College, I decided to collect the student essays written for my classes that were egregiously composed and 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 archived these student essays as documentation of the growing illiteracy problem in the United States, for what I found in the contents therein mirrored and sometimes surpassed the most recent and demoralizing illiteracy data compiled by UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization), the National Right to Read Foundation, Jenkins Group, the National Institute for Literacy, amongst others.

As 'A Reading' depicts, its 15 selected statements were written by people of diverse backgrounds. Surprisingly, most of the students spoke English as their primary language. The students were always verbally notified on the opening day of class - as well as in writing within the course syllabus - that a term paper would be worth 10% of the entire course grade. Florida law, for example, dictates that each collegiate art history or appreciation class incorporate 3000 or more words of required student writing (When I taught at other schools, the length of the papers varied based on course subject matter). The students were always instructed to drop the course immediately if any of the course terms were disagreeable to them. I additionally informed the students that the college writing center makes itself available for their assistance. After a perusal of the writing, what becomes clear is that many students pass through high school without fortified reading and writing skills.

These 15 excerpts thus function as formidable stand-ins for the types of inadequacies that one will consistently encounter throughout the archived collegiate student writings, a collection that has now amassed over 300 essays. Interestingly enough, the broken grammar, misspellings, and made-up words fuse the video with a humorous sensibility. This comical aspect thereby gives the work a sublime punch of pleasure (a viewer’s pleasure in the form of laughter while hearing such horrifically composed statements) commingled with pain (the terrible potential scenarios one can project regarding the future of the United States if a successful educational remedy is not implemented).

[BlooInBloo]

1. Yep - dealing with the products of American k-12 teaching was really shitty.

[proud2BlibKansan]

42. This is what we get when we spend more time testing than teaching

[lyonspotter]

45. ...

...well put. What is worse, the results of multiple choice testing have been proven time and again to be an inadequate representation of student knowledge. The old joke of "C, C, C, C, C"...will still indicate a percentage of correct answers, even though this can be done without paying attention to a single test question.

[ceile]

2. That made my head hurt.

So glad I'm not a teacher. I keep in touch with my German prof and about 5 years back, he said the incoming freshman couldn't write to save their lives. Many were borderline illiterate.

[Libertas1776]

3. Hey, that article is unfair

American childrens do learn, don't ya know? Like OMG WTF is writing, LOL, must be caveman shit ROFLMAO I done never read no books and I turned out TV. :sarcasm:


Seriously though, having been educated in proper grammatical structure and writing when I was young, and really enjoying it as well, I was always surprised when I had to proofread fellow college students work in group like sessions and barely being able to understand a damn thing they wrote. When they would read mind, they would be all amazed with "oooohs," and "aaaahs," and inquiries as to where I learned to write "so good and shit." I considered my writing as average at best. Boy, I guess I was wrong.

[SemperEadem]

5. dig it... they believe texting shortcuts are real words

and therefore they don't have to know how to spell correctly.

psst-you might want to change "mind" to "mine". ;)

[Libertas1776]

23. EEEEP!

Talk about faux pas, Criticizing others who cannot read and I misspelled "mine." Thanks for pointing that one out.

[Lorien]

29. Don't beat yourself up. I think that's a form of dyslexia

I do it all the time. Didn't used to, but it happens a lot now and I have noticed that quite a few other people on this board make the same mistakes. We type words that sound like, or are close in spelling to, the word that we intended--but one that has a completely different meaning like your own sample. I've always read that dyslexia caused those afflicted to reverse letters and numbers, but I think substituting similarly structured or sounding words for intended ones must also be a symptom.

[SemperEadem]

4. that was just effin' sad

If I was the instructor, I'd have flunked them for the semester on those sentences alone. It doesn't make any sense to not know sentence structure, spelling and comprehension in college.

Now, the above sentence? I have seen it written like this: If I were the instructar, I'd of flunked them 4 the semster in this the sentences alone. It dusnt make any since 2 not now sentece strucher, spelling and comrehensin in college.

Seriously.

[lyonspotter]

7. Revishun (revision?)

Well said! (or should I say, 'worser' said??)

In any event, I've seen crazier statements than depicted in the video.

How about this:

"save tha link..iTs awsm...nextime thEy say smthn saY wEll how maNy paiRs oF shoEs do u laDieS hAvE..."

That was a 27 year old. Deciphering the misspellings and texting-bonics of some people to discover their meaning is a headache in itself. Like OMG.

[suse]

8. language changes

If I were the instructar....

"If I WERE" is actually grammatically correct. "WAS" would have been considered wrong ten years ago in this sentence - and many grammarians would still consider it substandard. I'm guessing most publications would correct "If I was". In fact, "was" has been steadily replacing "were" in the spoken language in this context. "Were" is actually the 1st- and 3rd-person singular subjunctive form of the verb "to be."

[lyonspotter]

21. Yes, for every ten occurrences...

where someone writes (or says) "If I were" versus "If I was"...I would say I see about 8 or 9 individuals choose "was" over "were."

Language is definitely as palpable as clay. I have always been intrigued by the etymology of the word "cattle." The past 250 years or so have seen it change dramatically from referring to "land," "property," and "space," all the way to "farming property" to its current use of "Bovine."

It's amazing what use and culture do to the meaning of words. I've often wondered what this holds for the words "truth" and "absolute." But that is for another discussion I suppose...

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. As for the video, I think I would have preferred not to have each statement read more

than once.

As for the statements themselves... :cry:

[lyonspotter]

26. Good take...

The repetition, for me, serves an important function however: it allows a viewer to absorb the statements in a more thorough, comprehensive way. Saying each line only once makes it harder to get a deeper understanding of what was written and how poorly so. While thinking about how the video should be edited, I kept in mind that reading a ticker at the bottom of a newscast or sports recap is a fast affair generally. I often find myself waiting for the cycle to come through again to make sure I didn't miss anything.

[Lorien]

28. Agreed. Having to sit through each three times was excessive

it's as if the filmmakers were assuming that the audience is as illiterate as the students who wrote those papers.

[lyonspotter]

33. Interestingly enough...

If the video were to be screened at a US college or university, the likelihood is that 20% or more of those students who viewed it actually embody the problem addressed by the video. This would be consistent with the findings of the archive collected over the past 7 years.

Moreover, the varied repetition of the video serves an important function. It slows the pace of the information down such that the errors are allowed to sink in more deeply, be reviewed, and compared within memory. The stock or sports ticker is a prime example. How many times do you have to sit through the entire loop to make sure you caught everything perfectly? Often, the speed of the progression of information mandates repetition for thorough understanding.

[CrispyQ]

9. Ouch! These statements sound like Sarah Palin.

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.*

===
What the hell is a shoke? :rofl:

[lyonspotter]

11. I know it....

Better yet, what is 'Thorst'???

Let's think about this a bit, lol...'Thorst' could be both a noun and verb, like the words 'film,' 'flood,' 'notice,' 'object,' 'increase,' 'respect,' etc.

Thorst as a verb? It sounds aggressive for some reason, maybe because of the way it was used in the student excerpt. How about using it in a Shakespearean way: "Thus come hither, or I shall thorst thee and blight thine eye." lol.

<END Silliness>

[CrispyQ]

15. ...

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[AlexDeLarge]

10. They're here.

or is it "there hear"? It's bad enough that you hear incoherence, it gets even worse when you see it. The level to which this country has sunk, educationally speaking, seems to know no bounds. I not only encounter everyday speech that borders on Palin-talk but the spelling is even worse. The products of the K-12 system have come home to roost. I read, or try to read, reports prepared by so-called college graduates that in a lot of cases are incomprehensible. It's no wonder they keep losing out on contracts. Their RFPs are so bizarrely written that it's hard to determine exactly what skills they're going to bring to the project being referenced. If they can't make clear what they plan to do, what can they possbily offer in the way of software. I'd like to see the correlation between the inability to construct grammatically correct sentences to the ability to construct efficient software. The logic of software has to be written in very strictly defined patterns, much like grammar, for it to be effective and easily maintained. Language is language, whether it's English or Java. And if you don't understand the value of correct grammar, you've already lost.

[Grinchie]

12. If this is Rote learning, then who is supplying the template?

Honestly, the monotony of the statements shows a consistent pattern of stupidity. So, where does the root stupid lie?

If people are so stupid as to parrot nonsense without actually performing any processing time on the nonsense, then is it any wonder why we have climate change deniers, Creationists and virgin birth?

What's a Shokes? (Strokes?)

[lyonspotter]

19. Not sure what to make of your...

commentary here.

The video's purpose is on many levels to spread awareness of the current problem.

The individuals that read the statements were instructed to do so from a sheet that listed some of the most egregious statements I encountered while teaching college art courses at 4 different schools in the US. These statements, however, are stand-ins for the contents of more than 300 essays that I archived, each of which are similar in their linguistic inadequacy. The readers' task wasn't to 'perform any processing time on the nonsense,' but to attempt at a faithful representation of it. (The laughter got in the way, but I concluded that the laughter was a sublime byproduct of the greater issue at hand).

[Chisox08]

13. Wow.... just... wow

This is what happens when we just teach the test. No Child Left Behind, left just about all of our children behind.

[CrispyQ]

16. ...

[Serial Mom]

32. This is great! Loved it....

I also have discovered that 2 people I know who have a Masters (in education no less) do not know things that I learned in middle & high school. They do not seem to have the curiosity to learn beyond their own little world of knowledge and teach via an outlined curriculum. Has creativity in teaching disappeared?

[AsahinaKimi]

14. All of this..

makes you wonder about the generations coming up. We have seen how the media, like Fox News, have swayed and manipulated people toward their own version of reality. Having students graduate without having learning the basics of knowledge; History, Science, Mathematics, English Grammar, Government, Language, etc, sets them up for failure. Indeed, sets us all up, to failure as a nation.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

17. Such pathetic writing is due partly to the decline of instruction in composition and grammar, and

partly to the decline in reading for pleasure.

I think this is why student writing from one hundred years ago is usually better than writing from students of comparable ages today. Kids one hundred years ago had no TV, no sound movies, no radio, and certainly no video games. They got their fiction fix from reading or from occasionally attending live theater.

Look at the books that were considered children's books in the nineteenth and early twentieth century: Little Women, Treasure Island, Tom Sawyer. The main characters are children and teenagers, but the language is adult, in the sense of using sophisticated vocabulary and sentence structure. How many children in the typical target audience ages 10 to 14 could even read these books now? How many would even sit still for their leisurely pace?

Whenever I found students who were good writers, they were invariably avid readers. The poor writers were the ones who declared that they hated to read or who would stare incredulously when I asked them what they had read over the summer. You have to see good writing over the long term in order to be able to produce it yourself.

One also has to wonder whether students who write so incoherently also think incoherently. Maybe Sarah Palin and George W. Bush sound just fine to them, and maybe the craziest wing-nut rant makes sense to them.

[BlooInBloo]

18. (thinks back to the DUer-teacher who replaced Great Expectations with The Hobbit...

in his or her class.)

[Lydia Leftcoast]

20. That's not half bad

The Hobbit was written by a mid-twentieth century British academic, so it models good writing.

It's when I hear of high school English teachers having their students read sitcom scripts that I fear for American culture.

[BlooInBloo]

24. (facepalm)

[Lorien]

30. I agree. I actually find a lot of modern literature somewhat difficult to get

through because so much of it ignores traditional rules of composition and grammar. My favorite books tend to be written between 1890 and 1945; I have a huge collection of antique books dating back to the mid 1600's and I find that I'm more likely to reach for one of them before picking up the latest bestseller that's big on individual style but low on substance. I grew up without a television, so the written word holds more of interest for me than video, games, etc.. It's hard not to notice that the literacy generation gap increases with each introduction of a new form of entertainment technology. It started with TVs and VCRs, and now twittering and gaming has only made the situation ten times worse. Originally I thought that the internet would increase reading comprehension, but depending on the sites or discussion board it either adds to or subtracts from a person's ability to form coherent sentences. DU is, overall, a site for very literate people. But read the comments on a Yahoo message board or Youtube and you'll find yourself wondering if there's any hope for the future of the human race!

Yesterday I received an email from a fellow illustrator. She's around age 30 and she has quite a bit of trouble finding freelance work, despite the fact that she is very talented. I believe that her lack of reading comprehension and writing skills is taking it's toll on her career. Here's just a snippet of something that she wrote:
"Do you think its good to work for a client if what they want you to do is-
do a character then take that and put it on a seperate background (possibly one you havent seen) then
get credit for the entire piece?
I cant see that being a portfolio piece and I cant think of what your portfolio/carear would look like if you worked for such a client alot?"


Unfortunately her website and blog are both filled with similarly structured sentences. She is reasonably well spoken in person, but she has no attention span for reading or writing. She twitters but she won't consider a Facebook account because there's too much text involved for her taste. The sad fact is that the kind of illiteracy we're seeing now should have held a student back during Middle school. They shouldn't be in High School or college if they still can't manage communication through the written word.

[CrispyQ]

22. k&r

I keep coming back to this thread. I re-read the statements (with great difficulty!) & I am stunned! Maybe these are extreme examples, but I don't recall any kids in my youth speaking anything similar to this 'word salad.' One kid used the word ain't & often kids would get their tenses mixed up. But it was never complete gibberish like the samples.

A few months ago some local organization sponsored a day where the kids were to take one 24 hour period away from their electronics. No computer, no internet, no TV, no cell. The local news got a hold of the story & interviewed some of the kids. They all agreed it was very uncomfortable for them. Many were lost, with nothing to do. But the one that really stands out was the young woman who said, "It was scary being alone with your thoughts."

I hope these young people are ready to tackle some of the really humongous problems we've left them!

[lyonspotter]

25. Appreciated!

Thank you CrispyQ. I'd like the video to get more exposure and generate more discussion.

[CrispyQ]

37. Wow. We could not get this thread on the greatest page.

There is some really good commentary in this thread.

#10 - AlexdeLarge - Great points on the linguistic structure programming requires.

It's no wonder they keep losing out on contracts. Their RFPs are so bizarrely written that it's hard to determine exactly what skills they're going to bring to the project being referenced. If they can't make clear what they plan to do, what can they possbily offer in the way of software. I'd like to see the correlation between the inability to construct grammatically correct sentences to the ability to construct efficient software. The logic of software has to be written in very strictly defined patterns, much like grammar, for it to be effective and easily maintained. Language is language, whether it's English or Java. And if you don't understand the value of correct grammar, you've already lost.

#12 - Grinchie - Rote learning - who is supplying the template?

Honestly, the monotony of the statements shows a consistent pattern of stupidity. So, where does the root stupid lie?

If people are so stupid as to parrot nonsense without actually performing any processing time on the nonsense, then is it any wonder why we have climate change deniers, Creationists and virgin birth?

What's a Shokes? (Strokes?)

#17 - LydiaLeftcoast - Great observations, especially her final comment about the relatinship between incoherent writing & incoherent thinking. very similar to #10

One also has to wonder whether students who write so incoherently also think incoherently. Maybe Sarah Palin and George W. Bush sound just fine to them, and maybe the craziest wing-nut rant makes sense to them.

And another gem from LydiaLeftcoast, which I agree with completely.

Whenever I found students who were good writers, they were invariably avid readers. The poor writers were the ones who declared that they hated to read or who would stare incredulously when I asked them what they had read over the summer. You have to see good writing over the long term in order to be able to produce it yourself.

[lyonspotter]

38. I completely agree! Greatest page candidate!!!

It has been thoroughly enjoyable, watching the comments and concern over the issue stream in...

Thanks for your interest, CrispyQ.

LS

[GOTV]

27. 15 excerpts out of 7 years of college essays ...

... probably is not enough to convince anyone not already convinced. Any college class I've ever taken there were always one or two people who just didn't get it, didn't have the skills and who didn't belong there.

I also found the repetition to be tedious and the style - the high contrast B&W, the focus on the mouths, distracting from the message.

I think it would have been better had someone read the text that was copied into the post and then simply read the 15 statements. It still would be only 15 statements but the point would be better made.

[lyonspotter]

31. Thanks for the feedback...

"...probably is not enough to convince anyone not already convinced." The 15 statements were a hand-picked selection, as clearly stated in the text under the video. They were not comprehensive. The archive is over 300 essays. If every egregious statement were read the video would turn from a 5 minute clip to a feature length film!

"I also found the repetition to be tedious and the style - the high contrast B&W, the focus on the mouths, distracting from the message." Further, the focus on the mouths was to retain a sense of anonymity. The companion piece to this video (here: ) blacked out the names of the authors to conceal their true identities. Cropping things to the general mouth area maintained such discretion.

The function of the repetition was to enable a viewer to experience a thorough experience and understanding of each statement. Similar to following a stock or sports ticker, it is often hard to keep pace with the information. The remedy to such a problem was varied repetition.

[lyonspotter]

34. Forgot to mention...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEb1OWano4U

[GOTV]

35. I understand the motivations ...

... but why do the actors need to remain anonymous?

I think I can understand that the sentences were horribly constructed and misspelled without the repetition. When I saw that each sentence was repeated 3 times, I clicked ahead to see if anything different ever happened and then got frustrated that the video would take 3 times longer than it had to and I stopped watching. So I think I get what you tried to do but the negative effect, the realization that after each sentence I'd have to wait through two more repetitions before something new happened, was much larger - at least for me.

[lyonspotter]

36. Follow up question...

Thanks for the response. This is why I love art and film criticism.

You have two points. 1) Unnecessary anonymity:

I believe the readers should remain anonymous to be congruent with the sister project (http://livinnthebigtime.blogspot.com/). In that previous project, the papers had a policy of anonymity, so why should random readers, who are NOT the authors, have to expose their identities? In the case of a lot of the readers, they felt a whole lot more comfortable participating in the project knowing that only their mouths would be visible. In addition, contrary to your assertion, I believe it is more distracting to have the entire face exposed because it draws the audience's attention to further signifiers, subjecting a viewer to varying levels of attractiveness of each reader, eye shape, hair type, etc., etc. Limiting the camera's view to the mouth is a way of harnessing attention onto the words themselves. Certainly I could have reduced the video to just text, so it appears you have an issue with what is too much or too little, and that is always a problem which rarely is agreed upon by everyone.....which brings me to your second point...

2) Alleged gratuitous repetition:

What do you suggest I conclude, then, when I have someone say: "I absolutely loved the repetition because it allowed me to see the different reactions and expressions of each reader, to see how each fought through the statements differently, how some found certain statements funnier than others, etc." In other words, it helped some viewers map difference in an entertaining way.

How does one go through an editing process with contradictory feedback? How does one decide who to listen to?

Further, how does one gauge how to approach an audience with different attention spans? You seem to be impatient to the point that you wish to see all the statements unfold as quickly as possible. Some don't share this disposition. Are they right and you wrong, or the reverse? How is this solved?

[ropi]

39. I can has A

cuz ill complain to mi mom n dad about prof and haz dept head overrule cuz my parents pay for my study

I am not shocked by this at all.

Ask anyone who teaches English 101 (or any college course) about how writing and grammar use has declined.

It's terrifying.

[Quantess]

40. Is it possible some of the students were ESL?

(English as a Second Language)

[lyonspotter]

41. If only it were because the students were ESL...

I was shocked and terrified that a great majority of the students who wrote the papers I collected were fluent in English and spoke it as their primary language.

[ejbr]

43. It would be interesting to know

how many of those students were under the influence and therefore too embarrassed to pick up what they may have guessed was trash. (I did Calculus homework while high in college, although I did well in the course). Nevertheless, for students to either not take their college work seriously or be so ill-prepared that this is what they present is a tragedy. As a future elementary school teacher, I say "thanks for posting."

[lyonspotter]

44. The best part is...

The students know all semester that this paper looms. From day one!

So I can't really have too much sympathy (Do the paper on a night when you don't plan on using drugs or drinking alcohol, right?).

The papers always range from 2-3 pages, depending on the class. So what the students are looking at is 4 months to knock out the research, do some proof reading, and have a few friends look it over (or the campus writing center).

I think what we can conclude from these findings is that something in the educational process has broken down, and broken down badly. We loved video games, movies, and TV in the 80s (major culprits that a lot of this gets blamed on instead of 'No Child Left Behind', etc.), yet I don't remember encountering college papers while as an undergraduate in the mid and late 90s that were this egregiously composed.