Academic Literacy

• More and more students are entering college with an overall lack of desire to advance their abilities in the area of English Language Arts

• Students seem less capable to perform at a higher level of thinking and analyzing than previous generations

• Professors want and need to see that their students care and that they are able to work at their expectations, which have been developed over many years in educating.

I agree with the ideas in the excerpt due to the things I have observed over my years in high school. I feel that the students in our generation do whatever they can to get into the best colleges. The lack of desire and possibly effort could be attributed to this. The excerpt says "students today seem unwilling to engage in the hard work of thinking, analyzing, unless it is directed to their most immediate interests." Colleges are so difficult to get into nowadays that kids will do close to anything to get into the best ones there are, whether that be cutting a few corners or just getting the work done. The competition of college has made students lose sight of the purpose of what we do in high school English, which is to prepare us for college. We do not go to high school to just breeze through every class in order to start learning in college; people see it as more of a step to college rather than a ramp as high school slowly but surely brings you up to that level of understanding.

"Wanderer above the Sea of Fog"

Looking at this painting, I can see that it represents me as well as where I am in life. Currently, I am beginning my senior year in high school, the final year in a string of thirteen in which I was sure of where I was headed. My path was laid out before me a long time ago as I was aware of what intermediate and high schools I was destined to attend. Now I find myself at the end of this path, represented by the edge of the cliff that the man is perched upon. The man seems to be unsure of his future or where he will be headed next, as most of my classmates and I are unsure. Most of us do not know what colleges we will be going to next year, but come next spring, the sea of fog will clear and each of our individual paths will be right in front of us. We will be ready when this time finally comes.

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