College Students not Reading at Level

College Students not Reading at Level

Ganim, Sara. "Some college athletes play like adults, read like fifth graders" CNN. CNN. 8 Jan, 2014. Web. 27 Jan, 2014. <http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/07/us/ncaa-athletes-reading-scores/index.html?hpt=hp_t1>

This post was about a large group of people in college not really being ready for the work of a college class. The students partaking in this were part of the sports teams and were allowed to be given tutoring and have to sometimes at most turn in one paper for classes at most. 60% of these students between the years of 2004 and 2012 were reading on an eighth to fourth grade reading level. About 8-10% were reading on a level third grade or below.

What is truly shocking about this post by Sara Ganim is that some of the classes were said to be fake classes. Classes just to make the students look as if they were doing well. They were even given fake Grade Point Averages, this is really sad. I think that this should end very soon because if they aren’t learning what they should now in college they won't have anything to show for what they had as child while they could still play sports, but now that they are old and cannot play they can only say that they can read as well as an eighth grader and write a paper half as good as one. I wouldn’t want that to be the only thing I could say I had to show for myself after I went to college for four years at the very least.

The impact the quotes and the percentages had on the article were that it showed how large of a problem the reading and writing was. It really catches the eye when you and symbols like the percent sign and the numbers.

Affluenza Defense

Grey, Madison. "Affluenza Defense: Judge Rules Rick Kid's Rich Kid-ness Makes Him Not Liable for Deadly Drunk Driving Accident". NewsFeed.Time. Time News 12 Dec 2013. Web. 6 Jan 2013. <http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/12/12/the-affluenza-defense-judge-rules-rich-kids-rich-kid-ness-makes-him-not-liable-for-deadly-drunk-driving-accident/>

genericitis. "affluenza." Photograph."  Flicker.  Yahoo, 3-28-10. Media. 1-12-14.  <http://www.flickr.com/photos/genericitis/4469485260/>

Ethan Couch was convicted of vehicular manslaughter due to drunk driving in Keller, Texas. This wealthy child is thought to have a rare condition that is believe to have him have a poor understanding of what consequences he could face after committing a terrible act. This illness he suffers from is know as “affluenza” according to Couch’s lawyers. This term means that because of their wealthy status, his family could afford to keep him out of trouble and he would have suffer for nothing and do as he pleased. This is the defense that kept Ethan out of a twenty year sentence. He was given probation instead.

This relates to us and what we are thought because we learn from a very young age that if you do something wrong you get punished. What happened to this sixteen year old boy was the opposite. Just because this boy’s family is rich and mine’s not means he can kill four people? It goes against what we learn everyday.

This event struck me as odd, I dont think that he should not have to suffer the pain that everyone that lose their loved ones does. He should have to serve the jail time just as I would have, his money should not make him invulnerable because of his “affluenza”.  I think this affects me because its changing everything that I was thought when I was little.

What was the author's point of view and how does it impact the overall effect of the text?

The author had the same opinion as me, the child should have been forced to pay the time. She shows this by showing a quote from after the sentencing. Saying his money is what helped him out of ht bind he was in, "if [he] had been any other youth, I fell like the circumstances would have been different (Grey Madison).