More about America's literacy crisis

A recent search brought this blog article to my attention. It speaks again of the decline of literacy in America, and refers to the same National Endowment to the Arts survey I mentioned in an earlier post. But, not only does Robert Bove comment on the literacy crisis (he is a university professor, so I am sure he witnesses the long-term effects of it), but he also mentions Sandra Priest Rose and Andy Wolf, critics of the New York City school district whole-language push. Indeed, this was the subject of my very first blog posting, and is a topic I (still) feel strongly about.

Is it a coincidence that with the advent of a whole-language learning push, we have a nation of non-readers? Personally, I think not. I see the two as inextricably linked, which is why Bove's article interested me so much.

However, I do take issue with Carol Iannone's assertation that the people most to blame are the "academic barbarians" who are teaching tomorrow's teachers (hey, that's me! I'm a teacher of today and tomorrow!). Deconstruction is not a "worthless theory," and we are not "setting aside instruction. . . for radical leftist propaganda."

Ouch!

Incidentally -- I didn't think that examining race, gender, and class in literature was leftist propaganda. I thought it was more a part of the "Art imitates Life, or does Life imitate Art?" debate. What's the point of examining literature and not looking at it through the lenses of race, gender, and class? Every work of literature was written by someone -- presumably from a particular race/culture, either male or female (or hermaphroditic! Ooh, now that could be interesting. Eugenides's Middlesex now comes to mind), and quite possibly within the construct of a class system. Am I completely admonishing the fact that before we begin deconstructing a work, we must be able to actually READ and understand it?

Heck no!

But as has been previously stated, we need some structures in place EARLY in a child's education in order for them to actually understand what they are reading. Only then can the deconstruction begin. And that is the problem, as I see it.

Many of my students come to me in Grade 11 still unable to figure out that when changing the verb tense of "to write" to "have written," they must double the 't'. Yes, it's an irregular verb. But they can say it properly. They know how to conjugate the verb. They just can't spell it. When I tell them that their version looks like it should be pronounced "right-en," they look at me quizzically. This is just one example (several others abound!).

My point is this: They clearly were never taught the phonetical structures of the English language. So then, is it any wonder that we arrive at a Higher Level IB English (A1) course, ready to deconstruct Kazuo Ishiguro, and they have difficulty?

The demands of an advanced high school literature class or any college-level literature class are rigorous; they require our students to go beyond the physical text and to make inferences, comparisons, and analyses. Our students need to arrive with the "basic" skills already well in place -- that is, the basic working knowledge of the language.

And, as Robert Bove has already said, "The problem is, that is not being done."