Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 364 posts

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#171

Post by Telaneo »

SubmarineClub wrote: post #121
squigz wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares? If people enjoy it, let them enjoy it. I've read a few YA novels as an adult that I enjoyed, even though I regularly read more complex stuff. Most people, for most of history, have only ever enjoyed what might be considered "low quality" entertainment - pulp fiction, shitty plays, etc. > real novel that isn't so bounded by tropes or genre limits. Interestingly, even discounting YA and other stuff like that…

>Who cares? I do? Why would I want my kids to be consuming crap when they could be engaging with great works and high art?

They're great works to you, and a slog to them.

They can read Minecraft strategy guides and Yahoo auction fan fics for all I care, since that's a lot better than nothing. I remember not wanting to read what school assigned me and how that killed my desire to read most fiction writing, and would prefer that not happen to more kids.

Art is a matter of taste, and if you go counter to your audience's taste, don't be surprised if they disengage.

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#172

Post by fgh_azer »

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #99
fgh_azer wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is whether reading: - an entire novel worth of short texts, beginning to end - an entire novel worth of short excerpts from longer texts - an entire novel, beginning to end are the same things.

Oh, are you responding to my examples? * Last angel: A web serial, sure it's chunked into chapters/updates, but paper novels have chapters too. * The Wandering inn, same as above, it's at 2 million+ words and counting. People read it. * The Martian: Actually the shortest text of the bunch. Now available as a traditional paper novel.

I am not responding to the examples, and I am not challenging the claim that famous vs not famous author does not matter, or that dead tree vs screen does not matter; I am raising the question whether it's just a quantity issue ("Just so long as they read", "entire novels worth of text").

Is it? I am not sure either way. Do you lose something by only reading chapters of a novel but never the whole story from the beginning to the end, even if you're still reading the same amount?

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#173

Post by onraglanroad »

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #107
corimaith wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The writing quality and complexity of amateur content, even long-form is only around the level of a YA novel, truth be told alot of the stuff I was reading back in junior high in my school library had more depth than this. It's good that you can get people reading, but reading the equivalent of pulp is very different from real novel that isn't so bounded by tropes or genre limits.

How can I forget Harry Potter And The Methods Of Rationality [1]. HPMOR is written by Eliezer Yudkowsky to promote rationalist concepts, and is somewhat influential in startup and AI circles. Directly: Emmet Shear {co-founder of Twitch (YC S07)} is apparently superfan and gets a cameo. So for once I get to post something that's almost on-topic for yc. :-P [1] https://hpmor.com/ [2] https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/21/w…

> How can I forget Harry Potter And The Methods Of Rationality

If you find out, let me know. I wish I could.

I've never read such self absorbed drivel in my life. To be fair, I've not read any Ayn Rand, so I might be judging harshly.

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#174

Post by eudamoniac »

smelendez wrote: post #163
idontwantthis wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Clark County high schools in NV, they do not read a single whole book in English classes even in honors.

Is it an aversion to assigning homework? I remember teachers assigning “read chapters 4-6 by Thursday” and then giving a quiz to make sure people read and remembered the details.

It's an aversion to giving bad grades to the inevitable bulk of students who just won't read it.

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#175

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #92

Plausibly some kids might still be reading entire novels worth of text online on the regular. Think of all the massive fanfic archives (Including original fics) Lots of fanfic authors have fans of their own, and those have got to be coming from somewhere. It doesn't need to be in dead tree format. It doesn't need to be famous authors. Just so long as they read! For long form original see eg: * The last angel https://…

Most online text is shit and doesn't count IMO. Why would you want to waste your time reading the thoughts of average people (including this one)?

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#176

Post by Telaneo »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #155
stevewodil wrote: post #4

I don’t know if this matters much. When I was in school it was rare to actually read a book assignment anyways, and I’m sure with LLMs now it’s less. I’ve started to have a positive association with reading only in the last few years, I wish schools didn’t force books onto children and make them think they hate reading for their whole lives.

I don't understand this. If kids are reading for enjoyment already, is assigning a book in school going to kill their love of reading? Or are we taking about kids who never read until school forced them to? From what I understand, if parents read to kids when they are little, they become readers who enjoy it.

> If kids are reading for enjoyment already, is assigning a book in school going to kill their love of reading?

I nearly did to me, or atleast the continual assignments did. It took a long time for me to pick up a fiction book again. School never assigned me technical writing and encyclopedias, so I continued to enjoy those, thankfully.

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#177

Post by Telaneo »

Ekaros wrote: post #141
BeFlatXIII wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The kids don't hate classroom reading because of the reading; they hate it because of the associated curriculum. “Why were the curtains blue?” is a skill wasted on children. I only gained an appreciation for such meta-reading during a weeks-long TV Tropes bender during a spat of unemployment after getting fired from my first big-boy job.

Makes me wonder is wrong question been asked. Shouldn't it first be why were curtains described in first place?

Probably a better question, atleast for a wide variety of books. Some authors however are very into writing detailed descriptions of places because that's how their brains work and what their readers enjoy, but 95% of those descriptions have nothing to do with anything that happens later in the book, other than hiding the one tiny detail that actually does become relevant.

If 'why are the curtains blue' were consistently explained together with Chekhov's gun, then maybe we wouldn't be here having this discussion.

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#178

Post by Telaneo »

BeFlatXIII wrote: post #126
bgbntty2 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think school ruined fiction books for me. I had to read long boring books about stories that didn't interest me, with useless sentences describing what the scene looked like or what someone had for dinner. Most of the stories and themes were outdated and didn't have enough context to make them understandable. Some books even used outdated words and phrases. Maybe if I wasn't forced to read a book in an outdated lan…

Seems like a skill issue on your end.

Is this the right attitude to have to kids who we want to get into reading?

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#179

Post by [deleted] »

atmavatar wrote: post #79
scoofy wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Society grows great when people plant trees whose shade they will never sit in. The problem is that we aren’t raising all of the kids right. It’s a societal problem in as much as it is a personal problem for folks unwilling and often unable to work with their kids on this stuff. We aren’t a nation of nerds, I doubt we ever were, but nerds really ought to create a support system for each other. I understand why people…

> It’s a societal problem in as much as it is a personal problem for folks unwilling and often unable to work with their kids on this stuff. Even that is multi-dimensional. Another big problem we have in the US is that there are groups of people who don't want their children to learn certain things that most well-educated people take for granted. For example, it's pretty common to this day for some school districts a…

[deleted]

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#180

Post by squigz »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #153
TitaRusell wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jane Austen was considered pulp. So was Charles Dickens. And Conan Doyle. Nobody considered those high literature back in the day!

That cherry picks the best of the best without comparing them with the other 99.9% of their contemporaries who were pulp authors. They and their literary output are forgotten for good reasons.

I don't think GP is cherrypicking anything; rather, illustrating how what is seen as slop one day may be seen as "great works" down the road.
Post reply on HN