Literacy Matters

Y'know, every so often I get annoyed by the "we don't have a problem with declining literacy" brigade. Fact is that literacy - at least on the college level at IU - is way below where it should be. I'm not talking about misplaced commas, here, but about a substantial portion of students not knowing sentence structure or the meanings of words. Worse, no matter how clear a sentence is, some of them just can't follow its meaning once it gets beyond a single phrase. (I was watching _Good Night and Good Luck_ last night and wondering how many Americans today would be able to follow the debate style of the 1950s.)

I've heard this blamed on the education system, on the rise of non-literate technologies, and on students in general. I don't know what the cause is. But reading and being able to interpret sentences accurately is not just an academic exercise. Witness the problems people have with Prescription Bottles".