When a Harvard student needs ChatGPT to help with reading a novel, it’s clear that America’s high schools aren’t teaching students how to read.
A new story from The Atlantic shows the decline in literacy by telling the story of a Harvard student having trouble in class. Assistant Director for Humanities and Social Sciences Support Margaret Rennix said this student came to her and told her about using AI to translate Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange into easier language. Rennix told The Atlantic that the student was confused by what the student called “Old English” in the 1962 novel.
Unlike actual Old English texts like Beowulf, which some colleges still assign, A Clockwork Orange is written in English, as well as a fictional Russian-based slang called “Nadsat.” The Nadsat language is not impossible to read, however, as many internet sources contain dictionaries of the words used in the text.
Rennix explained how some students view reading in the modern age: “By asking them to read, professors are arbitrarily withholding information from students by forcing them to get it through this more difficult medium,” she told The Atlantic.