One Clear Dot

There was recently a concert review on the St. Petersburg Times website for Chris Brown, Soulja Boy and Bow Wow. The author received a letter from a 7th grade class at John Hopkins Middle School in St. Petersburg, complaining that there were so many words in the article that the students did not recognize, it took them two 80-minute class periods to look them all up in the dictionary.

Are you kidding me? Here, I will list the words these kids did not know. Keep in mind that a typical 7th grader is about 13 years old. These are not babies.

• fodder
• fanatics
• sate
• jones
• snippets
• cohesion
• currency
• bevy
• critiquing
• rickety
• grit
• mudslide
• swagger
• emblematic
• bust
• lanky
• tutorial
• raunchy
• throngs
• ubiquitous
• strains
• venue
• unison
• foster
• conjured
• engaging
• banter
• dubbed
• loose-limbed

“So anyway, what’s with all the big words, dude?” asked the kids in the letter.

Big words?

I commend the class’s teacher, Mr. Mabe, for using the review as an opportunity to work on vocabulary, but I am astounded that these kids included some of the words that are on their list. Are they so entrenched in the vocabulary of Instant Messaging and online chat that they do not recognize words like unison and currency?

Are our schools failing us? Or, is it the parents? Is pop culture infecting the minds of our youth? I’m dumbfounded.

Posted on January 18th, 2008 by onecleardot
Filed under: Life in the U.S.