#Effective Study Groups

[explainlearning]

How to Start a Study Group: A Step-by-Step Guide

Study groups are a powerful tool for enhancing your learning experience and achieving academic success. By collaborating with peers, you can gain deeper insights, improve your understanding, and develop essential skills like communication and teamwork.

Why Join a Study Group?

Enhanced Understanding: Discussing complex topics with others can solidify your knowledge and identify areas where you may need further clarification.

Improved Communication and Collaboration: Working in groups helps you develop essential communication and collaboration skills.

Increased Motivation: Studying with peers can keep you motivated and accountable.

Reduced Stress: Sharing the workload and anxieties can make learning less stressful.

How to Form a Study Group

Find Your Tribe: Look for classmates who share your learning goals and are committed to regular participation.

Set Clear Goals: Define the purpose of your study group and the specific outcomes you want to achieve.

Choose a Meeting Time and Place: Select a convenient time and location that works for all members.

Establish Ground Rules: Create a set of guidelines for behavior, participation, and communication.

Leverage Technology: Use online platforms like Explain Learning to facilitate communication and collaboration, especially for virtual study groups.

Effective Study Group Strategies

Active Participation: Encourage everyone to contribute to discussions and activities.

Effective Communication: Practice clear and concise communication to avoid misunderstandings.

Time Management: Use time management techniques to ensure efficient use of study time.

Diverse Learning Approaches: Incorporate a variety of learning activities to cater to different learning styles.

Regular Review: Schedule regular review sessions to reinforce learning and identify areas for improvement.

Positive Attitude: Create a positive and supportive learning environment.

How Explain Learning Can Help Your Study Group

Explain Learning is an e-learning platform designed to enhance your study group experience. Here's how:

Collaborative Tools: Use shared documents, whiteboards, and online meeting rooms to work together effectively.

Interactive Content: Access a vast library of interactive exercises, quizzes, and videos to engage your group.

Communication Features: Stay connected with your group through chat, video conferencing, and forums.

Personalized Learning Paths: Create customized learning plans tailored to your individual needs.

Tips for a Successful Study Group

Choose a Good Location: Find a quiet, well-lit place with minimal distractions.

Set a Schedule: Create a regular schedule for your study sessions and stick to it.

Take Breaks: Short breaks can help improve focus and productivity.

Celebrate Successes: Acknowledge and celebrate your group's achievements.

Be Flexible: Be willing to adjust your plans as needed.

By following these tips and leveraging the power of Explain Learning, you can create a thriving study group that fosters learning, collaboration, and success. Remember, a successful study group is a collaborative effort that requires dedication, communication, and a positive attitude. Know more https://explainlearning.com/blog/start-study-group/

[the-real-list-of-ominous-threats]

I’m going to make your p-value 40

[snowstories]

Also it's been a while since I got on this soapbox so: periodic reminder that if you are writing torture you should research torture. Torture is pervasive and institutionalized in just about every nation on the planet; it is not some kind of ultra-rare once-in-a-blue moon occurrance, but a fact of life and a common source of trauma and disability. Torture survivors read your stories. Care about them. Research the realities and aftereffects of torture, as well as common forms of torture apologism.

[nowandthane]

look what came in the mail from the bestest most amazing friend @menacingmetal 😭😭😭🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹 was in genuine tears when i was opening this package and just squealing with every new thing that i saw <3 truly have no idea what words there are to express just how overwhelmed with gratitude i am omg i love you so so much thank you thank you thank you 🥹🥹🥹

[menacingmetal]

shepurd shepurd shepurd

sarani and audrey belong to @nowandthane & @xoshepard :3

[victorluvsalice]

Valicer Multiamory Month, Day Twenty-Eight: Magic (Valicer In The Dark AU)

The end of Multiamory March (as made by @polyamships) creeps ever closer, and today's prompt is a simple but fun one: "magic!" I have a number of AUs where magical things happen, so filling this one? Not a problem. :p Now, one might have expected that I'd do something for the All The Fairy Tales AU for this one, or perhaps the Medieval Fantasy AU, or maybe even the Valicer Forgotten Vows AU --

But when it came time to figure out something for this prompt, the first thing that actually came to mind was my beloved Valicer In The Dark AU. Which does indeed have magic in it -- just, uh, magic you don't want to mess with too much. Which led to me thinking about what the trio would have learned about magic, growing up in Duskwall -- and what Alice and Smiler might think about Victor getting into it once he embraces being a Whisper. And so the story below was born! I hope you enjoy. :)

--

Magic was dangerous.

That was a fact of life one learned early on, living in Duskwall. Magic, and anything related to it, was dangerous. The old tongue of sorcery was the domain of demons now, who used it to torment all who opposed them – from freezing them in storms of ice, to drowning them in massive waves, to burning them with whips of fire. And rituals? Well, you never knew what mysterious, otherworldly force would consent to lend you a bit of its power – or for what purpose. The city was full of stories featuring those who had dabbled in what they didn’t understand, and ended up paying a terrible price. Who had discovered that the power they so eagerly sought was also their inevitable downfall. Magic was dangerous, and thus best avoided.

Alice and Smiler had known that too – they’d grown up hearing all the stories, all the warnings, after all. And for the most part, they’d followed said warnings – Alice had confined her interest in the fantastical to her imagination, where magic could run wild without hurting anyone, while Smiler had channeled their desire to accomplish incredible things into alchemy, which often ran up against the side of magic, but never quite crossed over. Even after Alice suffered the death of her family and ten years in Rutledge Asylum, and Smiler finally ran away from home and was cheerfully swallowed up by the Advocates, neither of them were tempted much by the mystical.

And then they met Victor. Who – after some initial reluctance – wholeheartedly embraced life as a Whisper. Who poured through ancient volumes of spellcraft and sorcery, studying distressingly complex diagrams and practicing words no human tongue should be able to form. Who asked his ghostly mentor what rituals he knew, and how best to perform them. Who eventually came up with his own spells, designed to translate any language or ward them against spectral attacks or even drag them all temporarily into the ghost field. All the sort of terrifying, dangerous activities that any sensible person would want to avoid.

But – well. One could accuse Alice and Smiler of being a lot of things, but “sensible” was not usually one of them. And things Victor did – first, they were genuinely incredible feats of arcane power. Second, he always tried to be as safe as possible, and only use them for the whole crew’s benefit. And third – whenever he spoke a word that brought lightning arcing down from the sky, or drew a symbol that lit up a ghostly map of the city, Alice and Smiler would see the joy on his face –

And think, how could they deny the man they loved such pleasure?

[stagefoureddiediaz]

Something something about Buck and learning and or teaching.

Something something about Buck teaching when he really needed to be learning.

I just keep thinking about how the show has increasingly - especially last season - put Buck into the role of 'teacher' - including his coma dream. (i'm using teacher for the lack of a better term!) and how in the aftermath of the coma dream - he's been trying to teach but it hasn't worked - instead he's been learning.

I've been musing on the fact that even back in season 1 Buck has been in a teacher role -

Abby learning to chose herself and go for her happiness,

Bobby learning to let people in and Buck being a major part of that because of their developing father-son type relationship

'teaching' Eddie that he could rely on other people for help

Maddie learning at Bucks hand that she didn't need to keep running, that she could lean on him for support and build a new life for herself

Ravi being tutored by Buck in the fire house

even Lucy being given advice by Buck - teaching her through his own experiences in dumb luck

Buck making himself into a teacher in his coma dream and the idea that all these people he has helped teach teaching him that he has a place with them and that he is important

and so many more examples through the seasons that I won't list or I'd be here forever!

Because there has been a lot of emphasis on teaching and learning since Buck woke up from his coma - he learnt he was good at maths, but then wasn't allowed to help Chris with his maths homework because it would be cheating.

used his maths skills to win at Poker - but got taught lessons even in victory - rather than teaching others lessons (whatever they might have been)

Natalia being interested in him because he could teach her about death and things going south pretty quickly when it became evident that Buck needed to learn how to live again rather than be stuck in death

And now we've had several mentions by Tommy of him teaching Buck things - teaching him to fly, teaching him Mauy Thai, all the way to him being his bi awakening is teaching him about a part of himself he didn't know. Things are turned on their head - Buck is the student not the master now

Even with Eddie this season, we've seen him teaching Buck things - rather than Eddie learning from him - Eddie handing over this really important thing going on with Chris - Eddie knowing that Buck would be a better option - that Chris would open up to him more - is teaching Buck about his importance in the Diaz family - re-enforcing that he is part of their life. Its also Eddie who has had the good advice for Buck this time rather than the other way round.

Something something about 'you like to be the guy with the answers' to Buck becoming the guy with the (maths) answers - only for it to fade away and now he's having to learn

Something something about the tie to Buck and death and the resurrection and how Christ was the teacher up to and immediately after his death and resurrection when he left others on earth to spread his teachings and he ascended to learn at the right hand of god

Something something about how that is the key to happiness and that is what Buck has figured out and that is why his journey to figuring that out has had him wearing the bright blue - because in Christianity - that shade of blue is the colour of the kingdom of heaven (because it is the colour of the sky!) so putting Buck in it at all these key markers of his journey is showing him as being on the road to ascension.

This post is a mess - I don't even know what it is any more! I started with one idea about teaching and Tommy and then more kept coming and we ended up here!!!!

[potatoattorney]

HEY TURNS OUT THIS IS CALLED ACTIVE LISTENING AND YOURE SUPPOSED TO SAY THINGS LIKE “that sounds interesting” AND “tell me more / I’d like to hear more about that” (<- depends on whether you’re in person or not because “tell me more” kinda sounds like a demand over text) AND “I see” AND “wow that’s so cool” AND NOBODY EVER TOLD ME WHAT THE THINGS YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO SAY ARE. THEY JUST SAID YOU NEED TO DO ACTIVE LISTENING. BY AGREEING WITH STUFF TO SHOW THAT YOU’RE LISTENING.

[borealopelta]

i'm gonna kill my thesis supervisor the rest of the department of applied geology and then myself

[dideki]

why do i have to find an occupation is it not enough for me to indulge in my interests and maybe tell people about them if i feel like it

[explainlearning]

Class Group Solutions: How Explain Learning Addresses Common Group Learning Problems

Forming a class group can be a game-changer for students, offering a platform for collaboration, support, and enhanced learning. However, many students face common challenges when trying to make their student learning groups effective. This is where Explain Learning comes in. Our online learning platform is designed to address these issues and foster a thriving class group environment.

Common Challenges in Class Groups

Before diving into solutions, let's explore the common hurdles students face when forming effective study groups:

Lack of Organization: Without a clear structure, group study sessions can become chaotic and unproductive.

Ineffective Communication: Misunderstandings and miscommunication can hinder group dynamics and progress.

Unequal Workload: An uneven distribution of tasks can lead to resentment and demotivation among group members.

Time Management Issues: Balancing individual study time with group commitments can be challenging.

Limited Access to Resources: Students may struggle to find relevant materials and resources for group study.

Explain Learning: Your Solution for Class Group Success

Explain Learning is designed to overcome these challenges and provide a robust platform for online class groups. Here's how:

Centralized Organization: Our platform offers tools for creating group projects, assigning tasks, and setting deadlines. This ensures everyone is on the same page and contributes equally.

Effective Communication: Explain Learning provides features like group chat, discussion forums, and shared documents, enabling seamless communication among group members.

Resource Sharing: Students can share notes, study materials, and links within the platform, ensuring everyone has access to essential resources.

Time Management Tools: Our platform includes features like calendars and reminders to help groups stay organized and manage their time efficiently.

Collaborative Learning Tools: Explain Learning offers interactive tools like whiteboards and shared documents for real-time collaboration, making group study sessions more engaging and productive.

Additional Benefits of Using Explain Learning for Class Groups

Beyond addressing common challenges, Explain Learning offers several advantages for class groups:

Accessibility: Our platform is accessible from anywhere with an internet connection, making it convenient for students with busy schedules.

Flexibility: Explain Learning accommodates different learning styles by offering a variety of tools and resources.

Progress Tracking: Students can track their individual and group progress, identifying areas for improvement and celebrating achievements.

Cost-Effective: Our platform provides a cost-effective solution for group study, eliminating the need for physical meeting spaces and expensive resources.

Tips for Maximizing the Benefits of Class Groups

To make the most of your class group experience, consider the following tips:

Set Clear Goals: Define the purpose of your group and establish clear objectives for each study session.

Regular Communication: Maintain open and honest communication within the group to address any issues promptly.

Diverse Perspectives: Encourage everyone to share their ideas and perspectives to foster a rich learning environment.

Accountability: Hold each other accountable for completing tasks and attending group meetings.

Balance Social and Academic Time: While socializing is important, ensure that the majority of your group time is dedicated to academic pursuits.

By combining the power of class groups with the innovative features of Explain Learning, you can create a dynamic and effective learning environment that enhances your academic success. Remember, a successful class group is built on collaboration, communication, and a shared commitment to learning.

Know more https://explainlearning.com/blog/class-group-solutions-explain-learning/

[stillfruit]

i love not knowing if i'll ever be healthy again i love all of the time i've used to move my body become nothing i love spending my adulthood wasting away year after year for various reasons baby!

[wallyclarkmemorial]

wally playing football for his mom. wally hyped for homecoming every year because it means he gets to see his parents again. the deep-set worry that settles in his chest the year his dad stops coming – worry, wonder, a question he likely doesn’t get an answer to and doesn’t hang around his mom long enough to overhear either way.

wally running routes during practice, running on the sideline during the games and yelling at the refs for flags and other calls he doesn’t agree with.

wally letting go of football. wally coming to terms with the fact that he can live his afterlife for himself, that football doesn’t have to be his entire identity ( but what does that mean for who he is? ). the weightlessness in his otherwise weightless step when he goes to the homecoming dance after that. the lingering idea that he’ll probably still go to the game next year but just so he can sit next to his mom until she stops coming too.

[sassypotatoe1]

Amazing work everyone we can pack up and go home nothing will ever beat this post. Anyway for anyone who is curious about how to eradicate invasive plants like this colloseum without using herbicides that will kill all plant life, it's not a short process. It may be tempting to just poison the fuck out of everything and then treat the soil to prepare it to plant natives, but it's better for everything in the local ecology to take the long route.

What you wanna do is something that takes two steps and multiple seasons. You want to 1, remove all the invasive plants you can. Rip em up by the roots, then till the ground well and 2, sow a bunch of native flora densely. You want to choke out the invasive plants. You'll notice in the next growth season (usually spring or early autumn) that the invasives came back. That's gonna happen, they're invasive because they're persistent as fuck, and you dumped a fuck ton of their seeds in the ground when you weeded the previous season. Do not panic, do not give up.

Learn exactly what seedlings of the invasives you're dealing with looks like, because you want to weed them as they come up before they can flower and drop seeds. Some seeds can remain dormant in the soil for years, so you will be doing this every growth season for at least 3 years, depending on what you're dealing with. All the while keep sowing native flora densely to choke them out, it'll make sure less of the invasive seeds sprout and over time the unsprouted seeds will rot.

There are some management strategies employed by municipal services aimed at quickly dealing with invasive plants. These include controlled bush fires in the winter and the dreaded herbicides. I personally haven't seen them use any other method. The problem with both of these is that it's only a temporary fix, and they both have larger devastating effects on the local ecology.

Herbicides take out all plant life in one go, and even fuck with microorganisms and mycelial networks which are both incredibly important for healthy soil. They end up killing all the wormies and good bacteria and fungus that make sure soil is nutrient dense and well balanced, and they eliminate food sources for critters for that entire season as all the plants die, and they can even make the critters themselves sick. The nuisance effects are there too if you're the kind of person who cares about it, because if all the plants in the field behind your house die rodents will seek shelter and food in your house instead.

Fires are also bad, as they have much of the same effect as herbicides. Food source and shelter elimination with added rodent chasing powers, as they will all run into the houses to get away from the fire at once instead of a few at a time as plants die. Microorganisms in the topsoil die from the heat and moisture evaporation caused by the fires. And worst of all, it's not even as effective, as fires leave behind intact seeds that will just sprout again next growing season.

If you want to effectively deal with an invasive infestation, you have to take the long route. It's better for everyone and everything involved. If something is really invasive in your area, don't plant it ever. "but I put it in a pot" it will spread. "But it's an indoor only plant" it will spread. "but I'll be careful" it. Will. Spread. Birds and rodents spread seeds, seeds can get caught on your clothes, there's a million different ways invasive plants can spread, so if it's an unmanageable ecological disaster in your area just don't contribute to the problem.

this redditor has the fucking battle royale of invasive plants (in the US) happening in their yard jesus christ. sentences of hate and destruction

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

i appreciated this study: "They Can't Read Very Well: A Study of the Reading Comprehension Skills Of English Majors At Two Midwestern Universities"

[ETA: if you are somehow finding your way here pls note some - not exhaustive!!!! - follow up notes in this reblog. sorry again i mixed up megalodons and megalosaurs]

essentially, a pair of professors set out to test their intuitive sense that students at the college level were struggling with complex text. they recruited 85 students, a mix of english majors and english education majors - so, theoretically, people focusing on literature, and people preparing to teach adolescents how to read literature - and had them read-while-summarizing the first seven paragraphs of dickens's bleak house (or as much as they made it through in the 20 minute session). they provided dictionaries and also said students could use their phones to look up whatever they wanted, including any unfamiliar words or references. they found that the majority of the students - 58%, or 49 out of the 85 students - functionally could not understand dickens at all, and only 5% - a mere 4 out of the 85 students - proved themselves proficient readers (leaving the remaining 38%, or 32 students, as what the study authors deemed "competent" students, most of whom could understand about half the literal meaning - pretty low bar for competence - although a few of whom, they note, did much better than the rest in this group if not quite well enough to be considered proficient).

what i really appreciated about this study was its qualitative descriptions of the challenges and reading behaviors of what the authors call "problematic readers" (that bottom 58%), which resonated strongly with my own experiences of students who struggle with reading. here's their blunt big picture overview of these 49 students:

The majority of these subjects could understand very little of Bleak House and did not have effective reading tactics. All had so much trouble comprehending concrete detail in consecutive clauses and phrases that they could not link the meaning of one sentence to the next. Although it was clear that these subjects did try to use various tactics while they read the passage, they were not able to use those tactics successfully. For example, 43 percent of the problematic readers tried to look up words they did not understand, but only five percent were able to look up the meaning of a word and place it back correctly into a sentence. The subjects frequently looked up a word they did not know, realized that they did not understand the sentence the word had come from, and skipped translating the sentence altogether.

the idea that they had so much trouble with every small piece of a text that they could not connect ideas on a sentence by sentence basis is very familiar to me from teaching and tutoring, as was the habit of thought seen in the example of the student who gloms on to the word "whiskers" in a sea of confusion and guesses incorrectly that a cat is present - struggling readers, in my experience, seem to use familiar nouns as stepping stones in a flood of overwhelm, hopping as best they can from one seemingly familiar image to the next. so was this observation, building off the example of a student who misses the fact that dickens is being figurative when he imagines a megalodon stalking the streets of london:

She first guesses that the dinosaur is just “bones” and then is stuck stating that the bones are “waddling, um, all up the hill” because she can see that Dickens has the dinosaur moving. Because she cannot logically tie the ideas together, she just leaves her interpretation as is and goes on to the next sentence. Like this subject, most of the problematic readers were not concerned if their literal translations of Bleak House were not coherent, so obvious logical errors never seemed to affect them. In fact, none of the readers in this category ever questioned their own interpretations of figures of speech, no matter how irrational the results. Worse, their inability to understand figurative language was constant, even though most of the subjects had spent at least two years in literature classes that discussed figures of speech. Some could correctly identify a figure of speech, and even explain its use in a sentence, but correct responses were inconsistent and haphazard. None of the problematic readers showed any evidence that they could read recursively or fix previous errors in comprehension. They would stick to their reading tactics even if they were unhappy with the results.

i have seen this repeatedly, too - actually i was particularly taken with how similar this is to the behavior of struggling readers at much younger ages - and would summarize the hypothesis i have forged over time as: struggling readers do not expect what they read to make sense. my hypothesis for why this is the case is that their reading deficits were not attended to or remediated adequately early enough, and so, in their formative years - the early to mid elementary grades - they spent a lot of time "reading" things that did not make sense to them - in fact they spent much more time doing this than they ever did reading things that did make sense to them - and so they did not internalize a meaningful subjective sense of what it feels like to actually read things.

like, i've said this before, but the year i taught third grade i had multiple students who told me they loved reading and then when i asked them about a book they were reading revealed that they had absolutely no idea what was going on - on a really basic literal level like "didn't know who said which lines of dialogue" and "couldn't identify which things or characters given pronouns referred to" - and were as best as i could tell sort of constructing their own story along the way using these little bits of things they thought they understood. that's what "reading" was, in their heads. and they were, in the curriculum/model that we used at the private school where i taught, receiving basically no support to clarify that that was not what reading was, nor any instruction that would actually help them with what they needed to do to improve (understand sentences) - and i realized over the course of that year that the master's program that had certified me in teaching elementary school had provided me with very little understanding of how to help these kids (with perhaps the sole exception of the class i took on communications disorders, not because these kids had communications disorders but because that was the only class where we ever talked, even briefly, about things like sentence structures that students may need instruction in and practice with to comprehend independently). when it comes to the literal, basic understanding of a text, the model of reading pedagogy i was taught has about 6 million little "tools" that all boil down to telling kids who functionally can't read to try harder to read. this is not productive, in my experience and opinion, for kids whose maximum effort persistently yields confusion. but things are so dysfunctional all the way up and down the ladder that you can be a senior in college majoring in english without anyone but a pair of professors with a strong work ethic noticing that you can't actually read.

couple other notes:

obviously it's a small study but i'm not sure i see a reason to believe these are particularly outlierish results (ACT scores - an imperfect metric but not a meritless one IMO for reading specifically, where the task mostly really is to read a set of texts written for the educated layperson and answer factual questions about them - were a little bit above the national average)

the study was published last year, but the research was conducted january to april 2015. so there's no pandemic influence, no AI issue - these are millennials who now would span roughly ages 28-32 (i guess it's possible one of the four first-year students was one of the very first members of gen z lol). if you're in your late 20s or early 30s, we are talking about people your age, and whatever the culprit is here, it was happening when you were in school.

i think some people might want to blame this on NCLB but i find this unconvincing for a variety of reasons. first of all, NCLB did not pass because everyone in 2001 agreed that education was super hunky-dory; in fact, the sold a story podcast outlines how an explicit goal of NCLB was to train teachers in systematic phonics instruction, because that was not the norm when NCLB was passed, and an unfortunate outcome was that phonics became politicized in ed world. second, anyone who understands anything about reading should need about ten minutes max to spend some time on standardized test prep and recognize that if your goal is truly to maximize scores... then the vast majority of your instructional time should be spent on improving actual reading skills because you actually can't meaningfully game these tests by "practicing main idea questions" (timothy shanahan addresses this briefly near the top of this post). so i find it very difficult to believe that any school that pivoted to multiple choice drill time in an attempt to boost reading scores was teaching reading effectively pre-NCLB, because no set of competent literacy professionals would think that would work even for the goal of raising test scores. third, NCLB mandated yearly testing in grades 3-8 but only one test year in high school; kansas set its reading and math test year in high school as tenth grade. so theoretically these kids all had two years of sweet sweet freedom from NCLB in which their teachers could have done whatever the fuck they wanted to teach these kids to actually read. the fact that they didn't suggests perhaps there were other problems afoot. fourth, and maybe most saliently for this particular study, the sample text was the first seven paragraphs of a novel - in other words, the exact kind of short incomplete text that NCLB allegedly demanded excessive time spent on. i'm not really sure what universe it makes sense in that students who can't read the first seven paragraphs of a novel would have become much better reader if everything else had been the same but they had been making completely wack associations based on nonsense guesses for all 300 pages instead. (if you read the study it's really clear that for problematic readers, things go off the rails immediately, in a way that a good program targeted at teaching mastery of text of 500 words or less would have done something about.)

all but 3 of the students reported A's and B's in their english classes and, again, 69% of them are juniors and seniors, so like... i mean idk kudos to these professors for being like "hold up can these kids actually read?" but clearly something is wack at the college level too [in 2015] if you can make your way through nearly an entire english major without being able to read the first seven paragraphs of a dickens novel. (once again i really do encourage you to look at the qualitative samples in the study, lest you think i am being uncharitable by summarizing understandable misunderstandings or areas of confusion that may resolve themselves with further exposure to the text as "can't read.") not to mention the fact that most students could not what they had learned in previous or current english classes and when asked to name british and american authors and/or works of the nineteenth century, roughly half the sample at each college could name at most one.

the authors of the study are struck by the fact that students who cannot parse the first 3 sentences of bleak house feel very confident about their ability to read the entire novel, and discover that this seeming disconnect is resolved by the fact that these students seem to conceptualize "reading" as "skimming and then reading sparknotes." i think it's really tempting to Kids These Days this phenomenon (although again these are people who in some cases have now been in the workforce for a decade) and categorize it as laziness or a lack of effort, but i think that there is, as i described above, a real and sincere confusion over what "reading" is in which this makes a certain logical sense because it's not like they have some store of actual reading experiences to compare it to. i also think it's pretty obvious looking at just how wildly severed from actual textual comprehension their readings are that these are not - or at least not entirely - students who could just work harder and master the entirety of bleak house all on their own. like i don't think you get from "charles dickens is describing a bunch of dinosaur bones actually walking the streets of london" to comfortably reading nineteenth century literature by just trying harder. i really just don't (and i say that acknowledging i personally have had students who like... were good readers if i was forcing them to work at it constantly... but i have also had students, including ones getting ready to enter college, who were clearly giving me everything they had and what they had was at the present moment insufficient). i think that speaks to a missing skillset that they don't know are missing, because they don't have any other experience of "reading" to compare it to.

just wanna highlight again that although they don't give the breakdown some of these students are not just english majors but english education majors a.k.a. the high school english teachers of tomorrow. some of them may be teaching high school english right now, in case anyone wishes to consider whether "maybe some high school english teachers can't read the first seven paragraphs of bleak house?" should be kept in mind when we discuss present-day educational ills.

[thirtheenprimes]

Have I ever shared my study on USAmerican generations and the cyclictic nature of generations?

Obv it's only a general thing, as "generations" refers to social cohorts dictated by birth time and conditions. The boundaries between them are blurry as actual familial generations are scaffolded and can look like just about anything. This is just a generalization for the group of people who went through major world/national events together at (generally) the same ages and thus had a shared cultural experience that is distinct form someone who wad either too old or too young to experience those events the same way.

Generations do NOT refer to "us v them" divide between ages. All mentioned generations here have more in common with each other than people of the same generation but of vastly different economic backgrounds. My statements are for the general populous, maybe the middle class for that time period, or potentially even lower class depending on the wealth distribution of the time.

Starting off, I want to say I am not including all details, just short and sweet blurbs of my research on generations; the information pertinent to the point I'm trying to make. That point being: history repeats itself. Every 4 generations, there is a trend.

The trend is as follows:

(BOOM) Economic boom/taking charge of the country and keeping g hold of it.

(SKIP) For whatever reason, this generation takes a step down and glides by under the radar, leaving the BOOM generation in charge for longer.

(CRASH) The height of the BOOM generation wares off and this generation experiences the economic/cultural fallout. They recover and build resilience.

(BUILD) Post-CRASH world where the struggle is normalized since youth and they put in elbow grease to make something better than what they were given.

Starting from the oldest generation I have written down:

(BOOM) Missionary (born circa ~1860-~1882). Post Civil War, produced Women's suffrage and trade unions. Produced The New Deal and Social Security. They were born in a booming economic tim and were very active politically and socially.

(SKIP) Lost Generation (born circa ~1883-~1900). They fought in WW1, and are frequently described as "confused" and "unsure". They didn't take over the country in their time so the Missionary Generation stayed in power longer than normal, but they did produce a lot of art about "disillusionment" and "loss of the American Dream" (ex: Great Gatsby, written in 1925 by F. Scott Fitzgerald who was born in 1896)

(CRASH) Greatest Generation/GI Generation (born circa ~1901-~1927). Grew up in the Great Depression and fought in WW2. Lots of struggle, but they fought tooth and nail for success later and was highly respected by the following generations. All about resiliency and fighting for something better.

(BUILD) Silent Generation (born circa ~1927-~1943). Born in the Great Depression and knew nothing but hardship from the beginning, but were relatively well off later in life. Were a big part of the Civil Rights movement and were also called the "Lucky Few" because they were the first generation to be smaller than the previous one.

(BOOM) Baby Boomers (born circa ~1943-1965). Only "officia" generation with a set start and end date, but I still put them in "circa" because there are some babies born from soldiers returning home from WW2 early. The (mostly) GI Generation ame home from the war and wanted to celebrate by having babies, so they did. A lot. These kids grew up to be the "Flower Children" and inherited a country that was doing pretty well for itself. For the most part, they still run the country. They are holding onto power longer than normal (like the other BOOM generation did) and had a booming economic run.

(SKIP) Gen X (born circa ~1965-~1984). Often overlooked, previous generation more or less pat them on the head and said "don't worry about it" so they didn't. Also known as the "Latchkey" generation as a common shared experience for them was coming home from school to an empty house with a key.

(CRASH) Millennials/Gen Y (born circa ~1984-~2000). We're told they could be/do anything they wanted when they grew up, grew up to realize that was a lie and is bitter about it. Experiencing the recession/crash out of the Boomer generation's high. Lots of struggle, fought their way through the 2008 recession, has become more resilient because of all that.

*a lot of people say Millenials end and Z begins in 1995, but there is not a consensus on this and I believe all generational boundaries are vague and just depend on the circumstances of your personal birth. I put 2000 here because that aligns better with my personal experiences in the experience of major cultural events and pop culture.

(BUILD) Gen Z (born circa ~2000-~2010). Born into recession after recession, has never known a booming economic time, nihilistic and in the midst of declining birth rates (again). They seemed very promising in pushing social change for a while there and they've definitely played a big role in a sort of modern day "civil rights movement", which we are currently living in right now. Jury's still out on what this generation will be most remembered for, but activism is still of notable importance to them maybe because of the socio-economic environment they grew up in.

(BOOM)(?) Gen Alpha (born circa ~2010-~now?). These kids are all in school, we'll see what happens. If the trend follows, maybe by the time these kids are ready to inherit the world, the Boomers will finally be ready to hand it over and we'll be seeing another comfortable period in this country. Hopefully. Please let shit get better before Gen Alpha get up there and we're ready to find a new name for the next round of infants.

Because I don't know how to shut up, it's worth noting that each new generation is not the previous generation's children, typically, but not always. My personal family tree doesn't fit that every-other-generation standard but most of my friends' do.

I am on the cusp of Millennial and Z, born in 1996, and my mother is technically a Boomer at the very end of it while my grandmother (definitely a boomer) was born at the very beginning of it. This is because my grandmother's father came home from the war early due to medical reasons so she was born pretty early by Boomer standards, and then she had my Mom pretty young. So none of this is exact, families are all different and messy.

I see two strong chains there:

Missionary>Greatest>Boomers>Millennials>Alpha is a pretty distinct chain of command. All loud and powerful generations who have a lot to say. I guess The Audacity is taught parent to child here.

Lost>Silent>X>Z is a pretty distinct chain of "We're tired of this shit and dealing with the other generational chain's bullshit".

Ik not sure if the "every 4 years" pattern or the "two generational chains" pattern are stronger, but there is definitely a trend with both.

Most of this information I didn't save the sources for as I put it together about 8 years ago (when Alpha were babies and Z seemed more promising and less conservative-trending). I shared my notes with my grandmother (who has a singular, Midwestern experience and can't be held as a singular voice for All of history, but whom I still trust as a voice for Some of history, as I don't personally know anyone from any generations previous to Boomers but she remembers her parents and grandparents and some of their stories about their parents and grandparents, and who has lived through a lot of the major cultural experiences I used to categorize the generations.