I experienced a bit of a problem with attention deficit while reading this post when my wife (we're both retired Boomers) asked me to read a Facebook post on her phone. I deleted my Facebook account years ago, so there was no way for her to forward that post to me for later reading. And Facebook's timeline is apparently designed to make posts disappear with each update. So my only choice without getting into an argument with my wife was to stop reading this post and look at the one on her phone. The interruption required that I back up and re-read a bit to get my mind back into your post. I fear that someone with less ability to concentrate would have just given up.
> It is virtually impossible to develop a detailed and logical argument in spontaneous speech — you would get lost, lose your thread, contradict yourself, and confuse your audience trying to re-phrase ineptly expressed points.
I am reminded of a quote frequency attributed — falsely — to Abraham Lincoln: "Writing is the best way to put my thoughts in order. If I do not write, they remain vague and confused; if I do, they become clear and coherent."
Thank you for a very helpful article. One thing that seems I missing from the puzzle is the topic of teaching phonics. Please see Nicholas Lehmann's article, The Reading Wars, in the Atlantic November 1997. It was all about phonics vs. whole language in California. The losses in teaching phonics got worse under Bush. It may be that lack of being taught phonics may play a large role in why some in the younger generations don't read well.
Didn’t think of that. My late mother was a language arts teacher, focusing on middle school. Growing up I had books, books and more books. Very traditional approach to core skills.
The “Sold a Story” podcast (from a liberal/progressive organization, even!) covered the damage done by abandoning phonics very well. But then, it’s a podcast…. ( and I won’t insert a smiley emoji here)
I'm wondering what can be said for those who, not only come to Bible studies, but actually engage in them. I've been leading Bible studies for many years in Lutheran churches. Attendance is never great, but those that come do so regularly. I've attended conservative Evangelical churches as well. These are places where people bring their Bible with them to church and read the Bible often daily.
The Bible, as anyone who has read it knows, is not an easy book to read. I find this particularly to be the case in the New Testament. Jesus is always challenging the reader, leading to manifold understandings.
So, I'm just wondering about these people and their "literacy" as addressed in this post. Do these people tend to read more than others? Are they better able to understand complex material?
Since Terry is telling stories, now one from me. I attended an all male science high school in NYC in the early 60's, way, way before the Internet. I think I read maybe two books and wrote maybe one essay before graduating. After graduation, I attended Harpur College, now Binghamton University. I was prepared for the science courses. I had taken three years of chemistry in high school. What I was wholly unprepared for was the required year (or was it more?) of classical English literature. We read all the ancient Greeks, Romans, even, as I recall, Dante. And - now here's the hard part - we were expected to write papers for every single one of them. I could hardly keep up with the reading. But I had no idea how to, even what to, write a paper on. I thought it was a puzzle you were suppose to solve.
Well, it wasn't long after this that I dropped out of college. Many years later I returned to college, essentially starting all over again at the age of 26. This time I graduated, but before I started graduate school, I had to take a remedial course in writing because I had failed some entrance writing test when I first entered. It was there, seemingly for the first time in my life, that I began to understand that grammar was more than outlining a sentence (Does anyone remember this?). Believe it or not, but for the first time after 4 years of high school at one the best high schools in the nation, three years of the same at a prestigious university, and now 4 years at a California state college, did I finally begin to come to grasp what was the purpose of "periods," "commas," "semicolons," "sentences," and paragraphs. I had previously considered it random. And all of this I learned in a few short weeks from a remedial writing course at San Francisco State at the age of 30. I wish I could remember the teacher's name.
I don't know what lesson to take away from this. But there must be one there somewhere. Was I simply too consumed by mathematics and science? Or was there a hole in the educational system, one that I fell through?
Today, I write without end. That means I never stop writing. My PhD was 500 pages long, at least three times longer than the average physics PhD. And yet I still have problems composing completed, publishable pieces. The hardest part is to stop writing and begin organizing, culling. Now that I'm "old," I've stopped worrying about this. I know that my tens of thousands of pages will be lost when I'm gone, even while, for me, the important and essential part was the writing, the putting pen (fingers) to thoughts and thinking. It is thinking, a thinking that has no end, no final period, just lots of commas and hyphens.
In most churches there are cells of strong readers. I once asked my priest: Have we ever lost a young person (leaving the faith) who was a strong reader? He could only think of one or two and one of them totally vanished into cyberspace, period.
This is a strong piece.
I experienced a bit of a problem with attention deficit while reading this post when my wife (we're both retired Boomers) asked me to read a Facebook post on her phone. I deleted my Facebook account years ago, so there was no way for her to forward that post to me for later reading. And Facebook's timeline is apparently designed to make posts disappear with each update. So my only choice without getting into an argument with my wife was to stop reading this post and look at the one on her phone. The interruption required that I back up and re-read a bit to get my mind back into your post. I fear that someone with less ability to concentrate would have just given up.
> It is virtually impossible to develop a detailed and logical argument in spontaneous speech — you would get lost, lose your thread, contradict yourself, and confuse your audience trying to re-phrase ineptly expressed points.
I am reminded of a quote frequency attributed — falsely — to Abraham Lincoln: "Writing is the best way to put my thoughts in order. If I do not write, they remain vague and confused; if I do, they become clear and coherent."
Thank you for a very helpful article. One thing that seems I missing from the puzzle is the topic of teaching phonics. Please see Nicholas Lehmann's article, The Reading Wars, in the Atlantic November 1997. It was all about phonics vs. whole language in California. The losses in teaching phonics got worse under Bush. It may be that lack of being taught phonics may play a large role in why some in the younger generations don't read well.
Didn’t think of that. My late mother was a language arts teacher, focusing on middle school. Growing up I had books, books and more books. Very traditional approach to core skills.
The “Sold a Story” podcast (from a liberal/progressive organization, even!) covered the damage done by abandoning phonics very well. But then, it’s a podcast…. ( and I won’t insert a smiley emoji here)
I'm wondering what can be said for those who, not only come to Bible studies, but actually engage in them. I've been leading Bible studies for many years in Lutheran churches. Attendance is never great, but those that come do so regularly. I've attended conservative Evangelical churches as well. These are places where people bring their Bible with them to church and read the Bible often daily.
The Bible, as anyone who has read it knows, is not an easy book to read. I find this particularly to be the case in the New Testament. Jesus is always challenging the reader, leading to manifold understandings.
So, I'm just wondering about these people and their "literacy" as addressed in this post. Do these people tend to read more than others? Are they better able to understand complex material?
Since Terry is telling stories, now one from me. I attended an all male science high school in NYC in the early 60's, way, way before the Internet. I think I read maybe two books and wrote maybe one essay before graduating. After graduation, I attended Harpur College, now Binghamton University. I was prepared for the science courses. I had taken three years of chemistry in high school. What I was wholly unprepared for was the required year (or was it more?) of classical English literature. We read all the ancient Greeks, Romans, even, as I recall, Dante. And - now here's the hard part - we were expected to write papers for every single one of them. I could hardly keep up with the reading. But I had no idea how to, even what to, write a paper on. I thought it was a puzzle you were suppose to solve.
Well, it wasn't long after this that I dropped out of college. Many years later I returned to college, essentially starting all over again at the age of 26. This time I graduated, but before I started graduate school, I had to take a remedial course in writing because I had failed some entrance writing test when I first entered. It was there, seemingly for the first time in my life, that I began to understand that grammar was more than outlining a sentence (Does anyone remember this?). Believe it or not, but for the first time after 4 years of high school at one the best high schools in the nation, three years of the same at a prestigious university, and now 4 years at a California state college, did I finally begin to come to grasp what was the purpose of "periods," "commas," "semicolons," "sentences," and paragraphs. I had previously considered it random. And all of this I learned in a few short weeks from a remedial writing course at San Francisco State at the age of 30. I wish I could remember the teacher's name.
I don't know what lesson to take away from this. But there must be one there somewhere. Was I simply too consumed by mathematics and science? Or was there a hole in the educational system, one that I fell through?
Today, I write without end. That means I never stop writing. My PhD was 500 pages long, at least three times longer than the average physics PhD. And yet I still have problems composing completed, publishable pieces. The hardest part is to stop writing and begin organizing, culling. Now that I'm "old," I've stopped worrying about this. I know that my tens of thousands of pages will be lost when I'm gone, even while, for me, the important and essential part was the writing, the putting pen (fingers) to thoughts and thinking. It is thinking, a thinking that has no end, no final period, just lots of commas and hyphens.
In most churches there are cells of strong readers. I once asked my priest: Have we ever lost a young person (leaving the faith) who was a strong reader? He could only think of one or two and one of them totally vanished into cyberspace, period.
One day they will discover that the dumbest generation created MAGA, and the rest they will say, is history.
This drama started before Trump. Yes, his weave speeches are what they are. But this president is a TV STAR
Jacques Ellul, Humiliation of The Word, explained it all in 1978 and I was glad to have stumbled upon it when I did.
Knowing that idolatry was taking over the world and preventing it were two different skills sets, alas. And so I apologize over my inadequacies. Sigh.
I guess in the end, the whole story just needs to be told and played out on the great stage of existence