I know, dear readers, although you may be few in number, you yet remain a loyal band, so I imagine you have been wondering why I have been virtually “speechless” for the past several weeks. Well, please allow me to explain.

First, there was Hurricane Gustav (And if you read Chet’s account, trust me, it’s all lies); then, there was Hurricane Ike; and as if those two tirades by Mother Nature weren’t enough to prevent me from writing a new blog entry, I have been inundated with student papers to grade.

I imagine only a fellow teacher can relate to the magnitude of that task, but if you are not a teacher, trust me, when one is faced with having to grade a mountain of student papers, one has very little time—or energy or brain cells—left over to devote to writing anything else, including e-mails, much less a blog entry (So if you have sent me an e-mail in the past several weeks but have yet to receive a response, you now know why I have not replied). In fact, being inundated by a mountain of student papers, all of which must be graded, should have been included in Dante’s Inferno, for it’s surely the 10^th Circle of Hell. Granted, I sometimes refer to Wal-Mart as Dante’s 10^th Circle, but even wall-to-wall shoppers, all of whom are yakking on cell phones; screaming kids pitching tantrums for toys and candy they don’t need; and lines of frazzled housewives, with teeming carts, backed up halfway across the store at the only two open cash registers can in no way possibly ever compare to the experience of grading a mountain of student papers. And what makes the experience even more unpleasant is one’s knowing that the next round of papers will be just as dismal, if not more so, and that brings me to my point.

“You mean there’s a point,” you say, rolling your eyes in that irritating way I have come to know so well.

Indeed, there is, and if there had not been, I would never have begun writing this blog in the first place.

“Ah, come on,” you now say. “You’re just killing time ‘cause you don’t really have a point at all.”

I do too have a point, and it’s this, although I will express my point in the form of a question: Why do so many of today’s students possess such pathetic writing skills?

“Well,” you say, “I think it’s because—”

Excuse me, but that was a rhetorical question.

“A what?” you say.

A rhetorical question, which means that you are not supposed to answer it because I am going to answer it myself in the course of my blog, that is, if you will stop interrupting and allow me to do so.

“Ah, come on,” you now whine. “Why would you ask a question if you intended to answer it yourself?”

Because, dear reader, as I just said, it was a rhetorical question, which is a question that someone asks but does not expect the other person to answer because the question is being asked merely to encourage the other person to reflect upon what he or she thinks the answer may be, although the one who is asking the question really does not care what the other person thinks. Moreover, that is what we writers do—we ask rhetorical questions, which our readers are not supposed to answer, because we are going to answer those questions ourselves. Now, to continue with what I was trying to say before you so rudely interrupted.

Granted, there are some students who can express themselves clearly and concisely and, at times, with a certain flair, style, and originality; but, alas, the key word is “some,” for the sad reality is that such students are few and far between. And what I have noticed is how, since I first began teaching, the number of such students has progressively declined with each passing year. In fact, such students are rapidly going the way of the dodo bird, which, in case you didn’t know it, is an extinct flightless fowl that has not been seen in a long, long time since “extinct” means no longer in existence. 

Personally, although I have probably said this in the past, so please excuse me if I am being redundant, I believe there is a direct correlation between the pathetic writing skills of so many of today’s students and their aversion to reading. That’s right, aversion. Students simply do not like to read. After all, I am constantly hearing students complain about having to read not only the textbooks but also anything else that’s required or assigned, even the briefest of articles or stories or, for that matter, poems. And, as research has demonstrated, the best writers are readers. However, again, students detest reading, and the question is why.

Silence.

Well, come on, dear reader, what do you think? Why do students detest reading?

“Wait just a ding-dong minute,” you stammer. “Wasn’t’ that another one of those rhetorical questions?”

No, that was not a rhetorical question, it was a question directed to you, dear reader, one that I would like you to answer since, in this case, I would like to know what you think. Why do so many of today’s students detest reading? Now, please share your opinion. You may post it in the comment box below.