Thoughtful Thursday #1!

Topic: Reading out loud in class / poor pronunciation

I realize that kind of sounds like a weird topic to be discussing but I was thinking about it a lot today in my Women's Lit class. Actually, I think about it a lot when I am in that class. As a 4000 level course (the highest level of undergraduate courses at my college) it, by default, requires experience with analyzing old pieces of text in depth. Something that if you are taking this class you should have under your belt by now. The only people in the class are all English Lit majors -that's because no one else takes higher level English classes. Most students who need to fill their lit requirement to graduate take one of the 2000 level survey classes which are much easier to follow and are usually pretty light on the workload. The point is, if you're in this class you should know your stuff.

But every time the professor has people read out loud to the class, most of said people seem to encounter countless problems in the few short paragraphs they've been assigned. A lot of the texts we read are written in outdated language, however, at this level, as an English major, you should be able to read it. The professor should not have to tell you what a word says every 10 seconds and be endlessly correcting your punctuation. It's embarrassing to the person reading and frustrating to those of us who are being forced to listen to them. I just don't understand how you can get to this level in college and still not be able to read and pronounce things properly. Sometimes it's not even the odd language that throws people off, sometimes it's simply things that have more than two syllables. That's ridiculous! I just don't get how that happens. I, honestly, do not have this problem and I'm not sure why so many others do. I realize speaking in front of people can be nerve racking, but reading out loud, sitting at your desk to a small group of people? Where's the problem?

And don't take this as me thinking I am more intelligent than my peers, because I don't necessarily think that's true. It's just painful to listen to them read anything. I personally would be really embarrassed if I was having trouble reading in front of people and would work on it so that I didn't stutter and stumble over everything. Apparently others do not think the same way? 

I suppose I don't understand because I feel like that to be an English Lit major you have to have a real love for literature, because the degree at the end of your college time probably isn't going to get you very far. People don't pay you to analyze poetry. You have to really love digging into a text. With that in mind, I would assume that if you're that type of person, majoring in literature, you would have the capability to pronounce words properly. 

I suppose this is just me ranting. Sorry my first Thoughtful Thursday wasn't more uplifting, but I wanted to update and this is what is currently rattling around in my brain.

Lady Unlaced