SAT Scores Down in 2006
The SAT results recorded the sharpest drop in scores in 31 years. Not coincidentally, it was also the first year students had to write as part of the test.
It's obvious to anyone from the older generations that the language, as written, has been deteriorating for a long period of time over the last two generations. Read your inbox emails at work and you'll find plenty of evidence of that.
With all the emphasis on communication by picture and image it was bound to happen. Younger people will not learn good grammar from MTV or other youth-oriented network. Bad english has actually been used as a symbol of youthful rebellion. That would be OK if those who used it for that purpose actually knew good grammar. There is no evidence that they do.
Nor will they learn it from listening to cable TV news. The young people writing that stuff and reading it are the same people whose emails you have to decipher.
The lack of reading is also a contributor to poor writing and poor speaking. If you don't believe that, watch George Bush talk without a script. Dr. Samuel Johnson once told his biographer, James Boswell, that it is impossible to write well if one doesn't read extensively. How can you understand how to write if you haven't read people who do it well?
The next time you're on an airplane, notice how many people are using cellphones rather than reading. Once the cellphones must be turned off, these people generally don't know what to do with themselves for the rest of the trip.
They certainly don't pull out a book or even read a magazine. Once the airplane hits the tarmac at its destination, out come all the cellphones. How can you expect someone who lives by text messaging, our modern form of hieroglyphics, to possibly write an intelligent in-depth communication?
Writing scores are poor? Of course, because reading skills and interest in reading is poor. It's more fun to play with a gadget than have to actually read words. Someday the SAT will be revised to be a timed test to see how well a student can manipulate images, photo-shop, and pick an appropriate ringtone.
You can't stop progress.
It's obvious to anyone from the older generations that the language, as written, has been deteriorating for a long period of time over the last two generations. Read your inbox emails at work and you'll find plenty of evidence of that.
With all the emphasis on communication by picture and image it was bound to happen. Younger people will not learn good grammar from MTV or other youth-oriented network. Bad english has actually been used as a symbol of youthful rebellion. That would be OK if those who used it for that purpose actually knew good grammar. There is no evidence that they do.
Nor will they learn it from listening to cable TV news. The young people writing that stuff and reading it are the same people whose emails you have to decipher.
The lack of reading is also a contributor to poor writing and poor speaking. If you don't believe that, watch George Bush talk without a script. Dr. Samuel Johnson once told his biographer, James Boswell, that it is impossible to write well if one doesn't read extensively. How can you understand how to write if you haven't read people who do it well?
The next time you're on an airplane, notice how many people are using cellphones rather than reading. Once the cellphones must be turned off, these people generally don't know what to do with themselves for the rest of the trip.
They certainly don't pull out a book or even read a magazine. Once the airplane hits the tarmac at its destination, out come all the cellphones. How can you expect someone who lives by text messaging, our modern form of hieroglyphics, to possibly write an intelligent in-depth communication?
Writing scores are poor? Of course, because reading skills and interest in reading is poor. It's more fun to play with a gadget than have to actually read words. Someday the SAT will be revised to be a timed test to see how well a student can manipulate images, photo-shop, and pick an appropriate ringtone.
You can't stop progress.
posted by Marshall Darts at
4:30 PM
1 Comments:
Yes, I agree that writing skills have deteriorated. I also wonder about them actually changing, though. I definitely don't want to stand up for poor grammar or against the written word. But obviously, we don't write or speak the same way we did 100 years ago, and why is that? Maybe (eventually) a different measurement will be used to judge English skills. Why grade a child's English skills against old standards when that is not the way that they, nor anyone around them, writes or speaks in real life? Is that even fair? My mother and my grandfather would have me committed for this comment - one was an English teacher and the other a journalist, and would protest and be disappointed in me at my idea. It only seems realistic, though...
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Unknown, at 9/04/2006 7:32 PM
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