NH: From my perspective as a non-academic, that doesn't sound too bad.
They are literate, many of them are reading either for fun or some other
goal, and much of that reading leads well into sf (King,
Crichton...Eyre?). Me, I'd be tempted to be sneaky; slip 'em something
that uses many of the same tropes as the writing to which they are
accustomed, but which starts to be more sf, and to introduce issues to
which you want to expose them.
-nalo
On Mon, 21 Apr 1997, lissa bloomer wrote:
> >NH: Do you know what they do read?
>
> hi nalo et al,
> in my questionnaire/contract i ask my students (freshpersons) what they
> read... usually in a class of 25, 5 have never read a novel all the way
> through, 15 of them (all young men) read Stephen King, Tom Clancy, and
> Michael Crichton... and the young women (the 7-10 -- women are a minority
> still here, though not by much) usually report texts that they read as
> assignments (Hamlet, Macbeth, Jane Eyre, 1984, Scarlet Letter.... canon
> stuff). of 25, about 5 seem to be avid readers. by the end of the semester,
> i think i have changed that -- perhaps my proudest aspect of teaching.
>
> if i'm lucky, i'll get one student who has read sci-fi. and it's usually a
> young male who reads Heinlein. (one of whom introduced me to the works of
> Giger -- the artist for the movie "Alien")(perhaps the only visual artist
> who could be labelled science fiction feminist???)(anyone know of
> others???)
>
> i wish wish wish i had more students who came to the class as avid
> readers-- and sci-fi readers. it's one of my goals to change this.
>
> -lissa bloomer
>
>
>
>
>
>
> if you're wearing pants, thank my great great great grandmother.
>
> elisabeth bloomer
> instructor, english
> virginia tech
> ebloomer@vt.edu
> 540.231.2445
>
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