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Why Students Don't Read What is Assigned in Class
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xcriteria Offline
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Post: #1
Why Students Don't Read What is Assigned in Class

A montage of student interview clips about assigned English readings... thoughts?



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10-06-2013 12:38 PM
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RE: Why Students Don't Read What is Assigned in Class

That was definitely my problem in high school.

Not only was I disinterested in the required reading, it was made worse by the fact that they made it important to analyze the book for a grade.
Reading should not be homework or an assignment or a grade.

Something I've noticed is that saying, "It's good for you" doesn't motivate anybody, even though that's a very sound, solid reason for doing something.
10-07-2013 01:14 AM
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brainiac3397 Offline
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Why Students Don't Read What is Assigned in Class

I have a pet peeve with people telling me to do things, then threatening with grades. At that point I go into a "Fuck you and fuck this" mood(notice the strong profanity to really emphasize the strength of that mood).

Think of it as "I'm going to let my hand get sliced to pieces in the grinder just because you ordered me to move my hand and threatened me with something if I didn't."(Not that drastic though. I'd like to keep my hand, so I'd move away and shove your hand into the grinder for pissing me off)

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(06-14-2013 08:02 AM)Potato Wrote:  watch the fuq out, we've got an "intellectual" over here.

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10-07-2013 04:36 AM
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Why Students Don't Read What is Assigned in Class

IT'S GREAT TO BE IN MIDDLE SCHOOL!

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10-07-2013 11:04 AM
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xcriteria Offline
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RE: Why Students Don't Read What is Assigned in Class

(10-07-2013 11:04 AM)kfcnyancat Wrote:  IT'S GREAT TO BE IN MIDDLE SCHOOL!

Why? Smile

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10-07-2013 11:21 AM
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KFC Nyan Cat Away
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RE: Why Students Don't Read What is Assigned in Class

(10-07-2013 11:21 AM)xcriteria Wrote:  
(10-07-2013 11:04 AM)kfcnyancat Wrote:  IT'S GREAT TO BE IN MIDDLE SCHOOL!

Why? Smile

Because we don't have to read shit books like "The Scarlet Letter" and "Eden's Outcasts."

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For anyone who remembers me going on an archive binge: Thank you all. I know I ended it being a drama queen, I don't really agree with the ideology anymore, and I'm really not the same person I was (I went through a neopagan phase!) but still this site was the first online community I was in. I graduated from school and turned 18. Time flies. KFC Nyan Cat, June 20, 2019.
10-07-2013 11:46 AM
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Miab419 Offline
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RE: Why Students Don't Read What is Assigned in Class

Hated the grades, enjoyed the books. I even enjoyed our conversing of the book (though I hated the "contribution" part of it) , as it opened up new ways to analyze readings
10-07-2013 03:20 PM
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no Offline
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RE: Why Students Don't Read What is Assigned in Class

Death of a salesman.
GAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!
It was OK to read. But trying to analyze it was hell.

Hello, traveler.

This is an ancient account I have not used in a long time. My views have changed much in the intervening months and years.

Nonetheless, I refuse to clean it up. Pretending that I've held my current views since the beginning of time is what we in the industry call a lie. Asking people to do so contributes to moralistic self-loathing. "See, those people have nothing damning! I do! I'm truly vile!"

Because you can never be a good person with a single blemish on the moral record, I thought that simply entertaining some thoughts made me irredeemable. Though I don't care for his writing style, William Faulkner presents a good counterexample. He went from being a typical Southern racist to supporting the civil rights movement. These days we'd yell at him for that, probably.

People are allowed to change their views.

Nevertheless, this period of my life has informed some of how I am today. In good ways and bad ways. To purge it would be to do a disservice to history. Perhaps it will not make anyone sympathetic, but it may help someone understand.

If, after reading all this, you still decide to use the post above as evidence that I am evil today, ask yourself if you have never disagreed with the moral code you now follow. In all likelihood you did, at some point. If some questions are verboten, and the answer is "how dare you ask that," don't expect your ideological opponents to ever change their minds.
10-07-2013 08:14 PM
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brainiac3397 Offline
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RE: Why Students Don't Read What is Assigned in Class

I found that a year or so after being forced to read a book, I would see it in a better light. However, it will take 4 years till I like it enough to voluntarily grab the book,open it and read.

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(06-14-2013 08:02 AM)Potato Wrote:  watch the fuq out, we've got an "intellectual" over here.

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10-08-2013 03:33 AM
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xcriteria Offline
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RE: Why Students Don't Read What is Assigned in Class

(10-08-2013 03:33 AM)brainiac3397 Wrote:  I found that a year or so after being forced to read a book, I would see it in a better light. However, it will take 4 years till I like it enough to voluntarily grab the book,open it and read.

What would you say changed? If the book was presented in a different way earlier on, would that have made a difference?

Maybe there's a better way to do instructional design and teaching...

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brainiac3397 Offline
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RE: Why Students Don't Read What is Assigned in Class

Because the aura of the book is tainted by the school system and their forcing it upon us.

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(06-14-2013 08:02 AM)Potato Wrote:  watch the fuq out, we've got an "intellectual" over here.

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10-08-2013 03:47 AM
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xcriteria Offline
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RE: Why Students Don't Read What is Assigned in Class

(10-08-2013 03:47 AM)brainiac3397 Wrote:  Because the aura of the book is tainted by the school system and their forcing it upon us.

There's a quotable line... I get that. So, what's the solution? How could it work instead, where there's no tainted aura of the (hypothetical) learning experience?

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10-08-2013 04:34 AM
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Asder Miller The Second Offline
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Why Students Don't Read What is Assigned in Class

im in 8th grade, i have to read Fahrenheit,america street: a multicultural anthology of story's, The Great Fire!, did i read them, NOPE

School isnt as bad as you think
10-08-2013 09:14 PM
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James Comey Away
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Why Students Don't Read What is Assigned in Class

The last book I seriously read was "The Giver" in 8th grade. I actually enjoyed it. It also reminded me of Call of Duty because I always thought Jonas was seeing numbers like Mason from Black Ops (we may need spoiler tags on SS, by the way).

It's true that schools shouldn't force required to read books, because not everyone is going to actually be interested in it. Some I found interesting, but others not. We should be allowed to read what we want to read. That way, students will actually see reading as important as anything else in their life.

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10-10-2013 10:23 AM
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Ky Offline
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RE: Why Students Don't Read What is Assigned in Class

(10-07-2013 08:14 PM)planetfall666 Wrote:  Death of a salesman.
GAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!
It was OK to read. But trying to analyze it was hell.
I loved that play. I acted out a scene as Willy Loman. One of the few fun moments of last year's English class.

Unfortunately the teacher insisted that there was more to it than could be seen at face value (erm...isn't it a play? Why write it to have a deeper meaning if people will only see it once?), and took most of the fun out of that unit. :(

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10-10-2013 10:28 AM
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thesupremeanarchist Offline
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Why Students Don't Read What is Assigned in Class

My father forced me to read 'To Kill a Mockingbird' and write a fifty page essay on it.

The book was boring as fuck. I'm not joking. And, instead of the fifty page essay, I wrote a five-page review of the book.

Very strong, X-rated language. He was pissed.

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07-28-2015 12:19 PM
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brainiac3397 Offline
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RE: Why Students Don't Read What is Assigned in Class

Lol 50 page? Clearly he has never read the book. You should have just copied the first 50 pages.

i hate forced books because they are inferior or uninteresting. Ive already developed my reading habit, and its usually beyond that of my age group for at least another decade or two.

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(06-14-2013 08:02 AM)Potato Wrote:  watch the fuq out, we've got an "intellectual" over here.

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07-28-2015 12:37 PM
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RE: Why Students Don't Read What is Assigned in Class

(07-28-2015 12:37 PM)brainiac3397 Wrote:  Lol 50 page? Clearly he has never read the book. You should have just copied the first 50 pages.

i hate forced books because they are inferior or uninteresting. Ive already developed my reading habit, and its usually beyond that of my age group for at least another decade or two.

He claimed to have read it. After not accepting the essay I wrote, I just copied a cheat sheet from HERE.

Anyways, I got a good score from him after that. Just made sure to wait about a month before submitting the 'finished' work.

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07-28-2015 01:36 PM
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schoolsux Offline
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Why Students Don't Read What is Assigned in Class

forced reading is bs. do i like to have to read a book and have to take a test on it? hell fucking no. it makes me speed through a book and not care about what the book was about.

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RE: Why Students Don't Read What is Assigned in Class

(07-28-2015 01:36 PM)thesupremeanarchist Wrote:  
(07-28-2015 12:37 PM)brainiac3397 Wrote:  Lol 50 page? Clearly he has never read the book. You should have just copied the first 50 pages.

i hate forced books because they are inferior or uninteresting. Ive already developed my reading habit, and its usually beyond that of my age group for at least another decade or two.

He claimed to have read it. After not accepting the essay I wrote, I just copied a cheat sheet from HERE.

Anyways, I got a good score from him after that. Just made sure to wait about a month before submitting the 'finished' work.

Is tu padre a teacher or something? or was he just pulling the grades out his rear end?

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(06-14-2013 08:02 AM)Potato Wrote:  watch the fuq out, we've got an "intellectual" over here.

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07-29-2015 08:43 AM
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Dikont5 Offline
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Why Students Don't Read What is Assigned in Class

Making me read three books and writing about the themes aren't going to make me comprehensive in literature,
Making me read Robert Frost's "The road not taken" 3 times won't make me understand, all it will do is teach me to hate poems.

I would learn if I could actually write a review of the book, what I thought about it, and how it could have been written better.

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07-31-2015 05:55 AM
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schoolsux Offline
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Why Students Don't Read What is Assigned in Class

yeah forced reading makes me hate reading

schoolsux's countdown until school ends:

177 days until i get out of freshman year (aka hell)
1280 days until I get out of prison (aka school)

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07-31-2015 11:52 AM
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Smokey Offline
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Why Students Don't Read What is Assigned in Class

The thing I didn't like about forced reading is that we were forced to read as a class; as in, the teacher would read, then pick someone else to read and so on. I don't want to have to slow down or reread for the brain dead children that were my classmates, and I don't want to have to listen to some stuttering tard struggle to pronounce words in fucking grade 8.
The material itself could have been more interesting, and assignments themselves were zzzzzzzzzzz so I just didn't do them and spoiled the story for the whole class instead Smile
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Cianna200 Offline
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RE: Why Students Don't Read What is Assigned in Class

I like reading, but I don't like being forced to do it
08-24-2015 07:53 AM
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schoolsux Offline
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Why Students Don't Read What is Assigned in Class

I used to love reading, now I don't (thanks to being forced to read uninteresting books and annotating books).

schoolsux's countdown until school ends:

177 days until i get out of freshman year (aka hell)
1280 days until I get out of prison (aka school)

(as of november 28, 2016)

also Fu school

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Dikont5 Offline
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Why Students Don't Read What is Assigned in Class

I don't even read actual novels now. I just read visual novels since they please the eye more in my opinion. Try reading them since you can learn more than from books since they aren't forced upon you at least.

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Why Students Don't Read What is Assigned in Class

I read complex books and monographs and publications on foreign policy and strategy and stuff. Takes a bit more focus and concentration, but there's some amazing information in these stuff...

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(06-14-2013 08:02 AM)Potato Wrote:  watch the fuq out, we've got an "intellectual" over here.

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