Freshmen

I'm helping out a professor by meeting with his students to discuss their writing. They've been assigned a book review of The Kite Runner and I'm supposed to help them with the topics they've been told to discuss.

After reading about seven papers, I've made a few observations.... I really like copy-editing! I'm actually not supposed to worry about grammar (the Writing Center will help the students with that) but I can't not correct something that's obviously wrong. I'm too OCD! But I actually like it! I'd considered copy-editing before and actually interviewed for and was offered a job that would have led to a career including copy-editing....but the pay was way too low. Even then, I thought I'd be bored to tears doing what I'm currently really enjoying! Wow!

That being said, I'm saddened to report that there will probably be very few coherent books published from this current generation of college students. Literature is dead. The writing is just too awful. Granted, these are freshman, but I came across a girl who had no idea what a pronoun was....or how to use it! It was very tedious inserting "him" and "her" throughout her paper.

This is proof that the American public education system has failed. There is very little hope, from what I see on a day-to-day basis.

Isn't that a cheery thought?