Somehow most, if not all, of my students have absorbed the idea that you just need to scan a difficult and complicated reading and figure out what the "main idea" or "gist" is, and then they've done the work required of them and they're prepared for class discussion and/or writing about the reading.
It's one thing to skim and look for main ideas as preparation for closer reading; I do that all the time. But that works for me because I have a lot of experience reading difficult and complicated texts and figuring out what's going on. And then, of course, I go back through and pay closer attention during the next go-round and note where my first impressions need to be corrected. It's like my students were taught a multi-step reading process and then only ever do the first step.
And even that doesn't work for them. They never seem to get what the "main idea" is anyway, because they're primed to not pay attention. They just hop onto the closest cliche or stereotypical argument they're familiar with and ride it from there--all the way off the track and down into the ditch.
I want to shake them and yell, "This is COLLEGE! COLLEGE is for discussing the DETAILS! Everyone expects you to know the 'main idea' ALREADY!"
Please tell me I'm not the only one enduring this particular misery.
It's my feeling, teaching in the sciences, that this is very much the case. The way I usually put it is a disinclination to even accept that there are ideas that they haven't already seen. To wit: all is banal and superficial.
ReplyDeleteConvincing them they have to look at things in detail and consider wider implications of simple things is neigh impossible.
Totally with you. Let's blame the Internet!
ReplyDeleteI once had a student get mad because I was teaching them stuff they hadn't learned yet.
ReplyDeleteThat's just classic! I'm so glad this isn't just an experience I have! I am told that I'm just "scary" and making them "try new things" is "really, really hard." How dare learning be uncomfortable.
DeleteYep.
ReplyDeleteI once had a roomful of students (sophomore-level) get mad at me because my midterm exam (on The Scarlet Letter) did not ask basic questions, but rather asked them about Hawthorne's themes and devices (which we'd been talking about for two weeks). They had to write essays rather than take a multiple-guess test, and it threw them for a loop.
My upper-year biz students complain that the scholarly articles I ask them to read are "dry" and "boring."
ReplyDeleteFucking story of my life.
ReplyDeleteI've been hauling students through critical articles all week: Let's make a Venn diagram of the author's topics and see if we can extrapolate his/her argument from that! Let's make a list of his/her evidence! Let's write down the names of all the critics he/she uses to build his/her argument and what each critic contributes! Let's figure out what kinds of questions this article generates for your own work! They don't know how to do any of these things, yet they seem insulted to be asked to do so.
ReplyDeleteOne student actually admitted he "just skimmed the article." Not apologetically, either.
When I tell students close reading usually requires them to use the three-pass method, they often get huffy, telling me they don't have time for that. I simply cannot imagine reading something complex just once and then thinking I understood it.
ReplyDeleteAs a scaffolding assignment leading to a final paper that required a bunch of research and paper-writing skills I was teaching all term, I started assigning what was a short, straightforward journalistic article to help the students to summarize and develop a position about a topic.
ReplyDeleteAs I said, the article was short and journalistic. It had maybe a handful of compound, complex, or compound-complex sentences amidst a plethora of simple, declarative sentences. It was about 5 paragraphs long. One of those paragraphs was one sentence long!
Most of the classes (I used it about 4-5 times) couldn't tell me what the article was about. It was clear none of them had read it. It was clear none of them bothered to skim it as we were discussing it. It was clear they didn't know how to skim. It was clear none of them could even bluff. Another prof tried to shame me because I expected them to read at all. I mean, how dare I?
Try this exercise: assign a short reading with the assignment that they're to take notes on it, as if they're going to use it as a source for an essay. The catch is they need to pretend they'll have no access to the original after they take their notes.
DeleteMost semesters ***100%*** of them fail to include some or all of the following in their notes: author, title, source publication, date of publication.
We discuss the results in class...I typically ignore the appalling quality of their notes (can't do anything about that) and just focus on the citation data. Surprisingly, about half of them usually get the message (which would rank it pretty high for effectiveness).
I tell my students they need to make their own writing "skimmable" by putting key points in the customary/expected places (and not, for goodness' sake, burying their transitions at the ends of paragraphs). But I'm always very careful to point out that skimming is appropriate when trying to determine if a potential research source is germane to their topic, or perhaps, occasionally, when seriously pressed for time. You'd think that, if all they do is skim, they should be able to place and write the skimmable portions very well, but might have more trouble writing the in-between stuff. Somehow, that isn't the case; they tend to have trouble with all of it.
ReplyDeleteI find that annotation exercises -- making them use the comment function in Word or Adobe (available in the X version of the reader) to mark places where an author does particular things -- helps a bit. So, I'm told, do quizzes, but I really hate giving quizzes (actually, what I hate is arguing about whether a question worth .001% of the final grade is "clear," "fair," etc., etc.).
You've nailed the key to surviving online education in the classroom forums. Since online, asychronous forums are the way they are, you don't have to know anything going in. Right before the deadline to make a first posting, you post some general information about the reading or a vague response to the questions. Then when a classmate or the prof posts a follow-up question to you, you can look up more detail as needed. Then post your response to the follow-up right before the deadline so there is no more time to follow up with more. Then, the week is over, the forum is over, you have fulfilled your word-count requirement and posted substance as well, since you addressed all the issues required and even gave some detail.
ReplyDeleteAt no point in the process did you have to have anything actually stored in your mind, except perhaps during the few moments it took to turn your head from the reading to the computer screen.
Maybe someone can tell me had to get them to *start thinking*?!
ReplyDelete