Thread by @aldenejones on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Yes, college students have lost their ability to read. I have taught lit for 24 years; the threshold started to decline in the late aughts and nosedived during Covid. A thread with observations + how I get my students to read ALL (or at least most) of the reading I assign: 🧵
For lit classes, I require PAPER TEXTS. I email students ahead of the semester and explain this so they are not horrified on day 1. They can opt out and use e-texts if they come to me with a reason (disability etc)--but they have to provide a reason. (I never say no) For creative writing classes that require shorter readings, I stand at the Xerox machine and copy every. single. thing we will read & distribute a packet at the beginning of the semester. They appreciate this very much. They never have to chase down an assignment and it's free. I emphasize writing in texts. I teach/review how to annotate a text. Pens or pencils are also required. We start every text by reading aloud in class. The seal is broken, the book is easier to get back into next time. We discuss what the book is telling us about how to enter it. Every time reading is due I give a reading check. 5-10 questions, no analysis - just to make sure they've read to the end. They swap quizzes with a classmate and we go over the quiz and they grade each other. Conscientious students love the easy A. Slackers can't hide. Being mad at students for not being more into reading helps no one. They have been trained by their devices to seek quick pleasure hits, not the slow pleasures of reading. I am a writer who grew up in the analog age, and I can't give a book the same attention I once did. 🥺 Colleges made it so much worse during Covid by lifting the consequences of not showing up/not doing the work. My institution has yet to bring back attendance policies and students are used to calling the shots now. Once students asked me for permission to miss a class; now they tell me they are going to miss a class, or even an exam, and then sign their emails "Thanks for understanding." This is where we are now. I also give exams - with blue books! I provide them. (remember when students had to buy their own?!) Students need WAY more help preparing for exams than they used to, and they crave very exact "rubrics," so we do a whole practice exam the week before, slowly and together. When I first taught my Literature of Photography class in 2009 I taught 9 books. One of them was Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. They read this monster. No pushback. It is unfathomable to imagine teaching a book like that in a 100-level class today. In that class I also taught Nathaniel Hawthorne's House of the Seven Gables. It is a weird but gratifying book that teaches so much about the early days of photography, and it's thematically pertinent to so many things this gen cares about. But they can't do it anymore. So I pick my texts with the objective of challenging them where they are. I still assign Barthes and Sontag, and they enjoy them - but they are short texts. I have reduced the # of pages, but still teach an array of texts, more stories/essays/poems, fewer novels/long books. For some reason some educators expect students will lose it if you ask them to read on paper. This is not true. My students thank me every semester. They know they've lost something in the digital age. They WANT reading to be easier, more pleasurable. On a final note, if you are an academic who thinks written texts are racist, and therefore expecting students to read them is in the spirit of white supremacy, you are part of the problem. The suggestion that we should have lower expectations of the reading abilities of college students who are POC, poor, caregivers, etc. actually sounds pretty racist to me.
Wow this is wild! I wish I had something to hawk right now haha. But really, the response to this crisis in learning is heartening, and it is very meaningful to me that the one and only viral tweet of my Twitter life is on the subject of teaching methods. I love what I do. I do want to clarify that I was speaking mainly about undergrads in a 100/200-level lit class who are not necessarily lit majors. I also teach upper level undergrads and MFA students, and while the specifics of their reading histories are all over, they read/love reading A LOT. If you have school-aged children and think paper texts are important or that cell phone and other devices should be kept out of classrooms, I urge you to send a quick email to let the school know. This is a book I wrote which articulates the methods I use to teach creative NF, as well as being a close reading of Cheryl Strayed's WILD, if of interest. Ironically my publisher recently folded and I'm not sure if you can still get it in print!"
Jonah Hill had incredibly awkward reaction when asked about his surname - "One thing we should all probably avoid doing is asking Jonah Hill about his real surname. The Academy Award nominee, 38, has graced our screens in some of the most culturally defining comedies - and a few dramas - for almost two decades, but few people know his real name. In case you didn't know already, ‘Jonah Hill’ is essentially a stage name and while his first name really is 'Jonah', his legal surname is not 'Hill'. This isn't unusual in Hollywood, but an interview with Hill for the Guardian in 2014 took an awkward turn when journalist Hadley Freeman asked the 22 Jump Street actor about an interesting detail regarding his name on his IMDb page. On the internet movie database, Hill is listed by his full birth name - Jonah Hill Feldstein - and Freeman wanted to fact check, which led to a question about why he decided to drop his surname. "This is when everything goes weird and his palpable self-control breaks down," Freeman said in her write-up. "For a full 15 seconds Hill is silent aside from his breathing: it's so heavy, I think at first he's having an asthma attack." The actor and producer eventually responded, but the situation only became more awkward. Freeman wrote: "'Can we just not?' he whispers. "'Just … don't," he hisses'." Unfortunately we don't find out why the Superbad star feels his real surname is such a sticky subject... Hill intends to officially remove 'Feldstein' as his surname... Interestingly, Hill's family work in showbiz and still use the Feldstein name including his dad, Richard Feldstein, who is a tour accountant for Guns N' Roses. He has a younger sister, actress Beanie (real name Elizabeth) Feldstein, who is best known for her acclaimed roles in the comedy-drama films Lady Bird (2017) and Booksmart (2019). Last year she portrayed former White House intern Monica Lewinsky in Ryan Murphy's Impeachment: American Crime Story series. She also starred in the Broadway revival of Funny Girl as Fanny Brice between April and July this year. Hill's late older brother Jordan Feldstein was a music manager for Maroon 5 and Robin Thicke up until his sudden death at age 40 from a DVT/pulmonary embolism in 2017."
Uché Perkins 🇺🇸 on X - "In all honesty, ppl need to stop asking the question why the US was not able to nation build in Afghanistan or Iraq. You will probably not like the answer. Especially when you compare them to nations like Japan, Germany, South Korea or even Panama. American success stories."
Carl's Jr. brings back bikini model ads - ""A commercial with a hot girl talking about hangovers and burgers! It feels like the 90s again! The world is healing!!!" said one user... In 2017, Carl's Jr. announced that they would no longer feature scantily clad models in its advertisements, instead focusing on food quality and an all-American image"
From 2025
Jason Locasale on X - "The academic life sciences have normalized calling grown men and women well into their 30s and 40s “trainees.” That language infantilizes highly skilled professionals and sustains a hierarchy where those at the bottom are paid very little. The solution isn’t simply to pay “trainees” more. The problem is that training lasts far too long. Living on a graduate stipend in your early to mid-20s is workable. You have roommates. You carpool. You don’t eat out much. When science is your passion, you don’t need much else. If you’re still being called a trainee in your 40s, with children, a mortgage, and the need to save for retirement, the model collapses. The fix is earlier career paths, earlier independence, and shorter training pipelines. We shouldn’t keep people in permanent apprenticeship. We should let them become professionals while they still have a chance to build a real life."
Jason Locasale on X - "The root issue is that the life sciences train far too many PhDs. At many major medical schools and academic medical centers, the number of PhDs produced now rivals the number of MDs - despite vastly different societal needs and labor-market demand. For many students, the PhD has become a substitute for medical school: a perceived trade-school pathway into biotech or pharma when grades or portfolios weren’t competitive for medicine. The result is a surplus of credentialed labor. Industry responds by continually raising the bar - now requiring PhDs plus multiple postdoctoral years - while academia absorbs the excess as cheap, grant-funded labor. Meanwhile, we face a shortage of physicians. The PhD should remain a rare qualification for exceptional scientific talent, not a default holding pattern or a source of subsidized labor tied to NIH grants. The necessary correction is uncomfortable but obvious: train far fewer PhDs, expand MD training, shorten research career pipelines, and give students much earlier, more honest feedback about fit. I knew at 12 I wasn’t going to be a professional athlete - science needs the same realism. Supporting real trades - including medicine and biotech - while restoring the PhD to its proper role would improve outcomes for students, science, and patients alike."
Museum volunteer accidentally destroys art after mistaking it for a dirty mirror - "A volunteer at a Taiwanese museum accidentally destroyed a contemporary art piece after mistaking it for a dirty mirror. According to Taiwan News, the incident happened on November 3 at the Keelung Museum of Art during the “We Are Me” exhibition. While patrolling the gallery, a volunteer tried to clean what appeared to be a dusty mirror on display, but it turned out to be part of an installation by artist Chen Sung-chih titled Inverted Syntax 16. Museum staff stepped in immediately, but the piece could not be fully restored. The Keelung City Culture and Tourism Bureau later issued an apology, confirming they had contacted Chen and the museum team to discuss next steps and were consulting with insurers about possible compensation... Similar accidents have happened before. In 2016, cleaners at an Italian gallery threw away parts of a modern art installation they thought were rubbish, and in 2021, a Russian security guard drew eyes on a famous avant-garde painting during his first shift. An attorney noted that insurance coverage might prove complicated, since wiping away dust does not necessarily qualify as physical property damage. While this incident was an honest mistake, the same can’t be said for the Australian teenager who allegedly damaged an $88,000 USD sculpture by gluing googly eyes to it."
Thieves steal ancient Pharaoh’s bracelet in Cairo museum heist, sell it for just $4K - "An ancient Egyptian bracelet once belonging to Pharaoh Amenemope has been stolen from Cairo’s Egyptian Museum and melted down, authorities revealed. The gold bracelet, dating back 3,000 years, was taken on September 9 from the museum’s restoration lab while officials prepared artifacts for an exhibition in Italy. The piece, a simple gold band adorned with a lapis lazuli bead, was part of the collection of Amenemope, a pharaoh of Egypt’s 21st Dynasty who ruled from Tanis in the Nile Delta. Tourism and Antiquities Minister Sherif Fathy said the lab where it was stolen lacked security cameras, leaving the priceless item vulnerable"
Luckily it wasn't in the British Museum, for that would be truly intolerable
Colorado woman arrested after giving Tinder date oral sex, tying him up, and then ordering food - "A 22-year-old woman has been arrested in Colorado after allegedly giving a Tinder date oral sex, then tying him up with duct tape, stabbing him and throttling him. Lauren Marie Dooley, 22, was arrested on September 28 after officers responded to an apartment in the 2500 block of East Cache La Poudre Street in Colorado Springs."
Dr. Leslyn Lewis on X - "The Budget Implementation Act gives ministers the power to exempt specific persons, companies, or projects from being bound by all Acts of Parliament, with the exception of the Criminal Code. This change would make them literally above the law. What concerns me is that this is not new. Since Carney became Prime Minister, this has been happening sector by sector. I have flagged this before in all these bills: Bill C-2 centralizes discretion in border control, information-sharing, and enforcement, reducing the role of courts through administrative decision-making. Bill C-5 consolidates federal override authority in economic and infrastructure matters, limiting external adjudication once projects are designated. Bill C-8 allows ministers to direct telecom providers to suspend services or disable equipment by order, without a clearly defined appeal process. Bill C-9 redefines hate, exposing pastors and faith leaders to potential legal action for preaching traditional beliefs, with decisions driven by ministers. Bill C-10 reorganizes modern treaty implementation by shifting oversight and administration away from courts and to the government’s ministers. Each bill focuses power within a specific sector. Bill C-15 does something even broader. It generalizes this model across government. Now is the time for Canadians to start asking questions."
Meme - "My cat always wakes me at 4am. Today i woke him first."
Meme - Yearbook photo: "I haven't lost my virginity because I never lose."
Meme - "CHICKS LIKE THESE HAVE THE BEST SMELLING WEED. VAGINAS, NOT SO MUCH *hippie girls*"
Meme - "And they say romance is dead...pfft
The look your wife gives you before she tongue loosens your girlfriends asshole for your pleasure: *Misty Anderson and Raven Riley*"
The push to have Canadians hear a 'slavery' acknowledgement at events - "These are the results of a recent Liaison Strategies poll which simply asked Canadians basic facts about the 2025 budget. One immediate takeaway is that the people most satisfied with the budget are also the ones who know the least about it. The budget’s $78.3 billion deficit is the highest ever posted outside the COVID-19 pandemic. And according to the above, 52 per cent of Liberal voters could not even say whether it was larger than last year’s deficit."
How often a man should masturbate a month to help prevent prostate cancer - "With 'No Nut November' fast approaching, here's how many times men should masturbate per month to help prevent prostate cancer, according to a 2016 study... Prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer deaths in men, behind only lung cancer, the American Cancer Society reports. One study found that ejaculating once every day can reduce your risk, while a separate piece of research stated that having 21 orgasms a month reduces the risk of developing prostate cancer by a staggering 20 percent... While there has been discussion surrounding No Nut November doing more harm than good, one study found that one month of sexual abstinence doesn't have too much of an impact. In a study published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine earlier this year, experts monitored the psychological and sexual well-being impacts of the annual challenge. The findings stated: "This pioneering study provides the first scientific evidence evaluating the psychological and sexual well-being impacts of the 'No Nut November' phenomenon, finding that the month-long period of abstinence from ejaculation has no cost or benefit to participants’ sexual well-being.""
@sunderwight on Tumblr - "Stop volunteering to be the village sacrifice we all know you're not a virgin. The dragon probably wouldn't even be into you. Untie yourself from that altar right now. Look. I didn't want to say anything because it's kind of a touchy subject, but the dragon doesn't actually take these "brides" back to its lair full of riches and add them to a harem. Okay? It's a big fucking lizard with a brain the size of an orange, it just roasts and eats them. That's why we always pick the most useless airhead to sacrifice come harvest season. Now come on, get those chains off. Where did you even get these? Oh you made them? See that's the kind of craftsmanship the village needs you for. We'll have a big orgy after the ritual and if you want a bunch of us will dress up as dragons and take turns having a go at you. It'll be nice, you'll see."
My wife was left alone for 3 weeks and I wish she’d just cheated instead. Am I Under Reacting? : r/stories - "My wife was left alone for 3 weeks and I wish she’d just cheated instead. Three weeks ago, I left for a work trip to Germany. My wife didn’t want to come. “I’ll hang back, water the plants, binge some Netflix,” she said. She’s 39. I thought, “Okay, she’s a grown adult. She’ll be fine.” She was not fine. Day 2, she tries to make sourdough from scratch using a YouTube video and what she thought was yeast but turned out to be Epsom salt. The result: a rock-hard bread grenade that cracked our marble counter. She named it “Crumbzilla” and displayed it like a trophy. Then, she decided to go “all raw vegan” for some reason and ordered 19 pounds of produce from a sketchy organic site. Half of it arrived moldy. The other half, she juiced. Exclusively. For a week. Just juice. No solids. She got so dizzy she mistook the laundry hamper for the fridge and put all our frozen meals in it. They’ve since liquefied. To survive, she pivoted to eating Pop-Tarts and spoonfuls of peanut butter. Her justification: “Balance.” Meanwhile, she stopped wearing actual clothes. Just bathrobes. The same one, every day. By week two it was 70% robe, 30% soup stains. The dog refused to cuddle her. Last night, I land, exhausted, and I’m greeted by a living room that smells like fermented ginger and regret. She runs to hug me—robe flapping open, holding a jar of pickles in one hand and a half-knitted scarf in the other. Apparently, she took up knitting to “relax her stomach.” This morning, I wake up to her whispering “I think I’m a kombucha now” and burping in her sleep. The dog has moved his bed into the bathroom and won’t make eye contact with either of us. I grabbed my keys and said I was going out for coffee. The dog followed. He needed air. I needed therapy. So here I am at a café with a silent, traumatized schnauzer, drinking espresso like it’s holy water. The barista asked if I wanted oat milk. I said no, because my trauma already comes in liquid form. Hope your morning’s less... fermented."
Emil Kirkegaard on X - "It's known that circa all mental issues correlate positively, and thus one can speak of a general index or factor of psychopathology (called p). Fewer people know that the same is approimately true of physical diseases too. They too correlate positively, so one can get a general physical health factor. And these two factors from the two domains are also a bit correlated. Many people have been talking about the links between mental issues and auto-immune disorders for decades, but is this just part of the general pattern and not special? Curiously, two papers recently saw the light of day. Nearly identical titles. Only overlap is Samuele Cortese."
F. A. Hayek Quotes on X - "Hayek: “The man who has learned a little science lacks the humility the real scientist gladly acquires.” “The typical intellectual believes everything must be explainable, but a scientist knows that a great many things are not. A good scientist is essentially a humble person.”"
Colin Wright on X - "I can relate to this a lot. Studying science can give you an inflated sense that doing science will regularly yield clear-cut answers. But once you actually start doing science, you quickly realize that definitive answers are the exception, even with rigorous experimental design. Nature’s vast complexity means that the questions you ask and test usually result in only partial answers, and more often in a proliferation of new questions you didn’t even know to ask until you ran the experiment. In one sense, this is a good thing. It means you’ll never run out of questions to pursue or experiments to run as a scientist. But it also means that cathartic “eureka!” moments are rare, and not every scientist experiences them. Most scientists quickly learn to sit comfortably with never quite knowing the full answer. Science journalists, on the other hand, have usually never done actual science, and so they lack the humility that real scientists acquire, as Hayek observed. I think this helps explain much of what we see on the left. Leftists often fancy themselves scientifically savvy, which can lead them to accept the simple narratives relayed by science journalists and activist scientists. One such narrative that comes to mind is the idea that people have an innate “gender identity,” often framed as a kind of “brain sex.” The studies cited to support this belief do not demonstrate what is claimed, and their proponents lack the humility to appreciate the enormous evidentiary burden required to establish anything even remotely close to what they assert."
The people who "love science" (like the IFLScience/I Fucking Love Science crowd) don't understand it very well. Scientismists are usually not scientists
Bob Kostic on X - "My new girlfriend says that our first sexual experience should feel like a fairytale. I'm looking for 7 midgets to join us this Saturday. No weirdos please"
Meme - "people in 1999 using the Internet as an escape from reality
people in 2026 using reality as an escape from the Internet"
Meme - "Once you go black, so does your face.
*Woman with black boyfriend*
*Injured woman with bruised face*"
Seafood and meat at Toronto Asian grocery stores vs Typical grocery chains like No Frills, Loblaws etc : r/FoodToronto - "Speaking as someone whose family owns several Asian grocery stores, I can tell you the meat is only so cheap because they don't have a middle man and the wages are cheap. For example, they buy several entire cows and break it down every day as opposed to a lot of places like Loblaws where the processing usually doesn't take place on-site. The guy who gives you your meat at a Chinese grocer is likely the same guy who processed it. Costco and Independent butchers work the same way, but Asians work for lower wages--usually they're newer immigrants who are family or family friends. All my family's grocery stores are staffed by cousins and their friends from back home. This is not uncommon for any immigrant business owner honestly."
Seafood and meat at Toronto Asian grocery stores vs Typical grocery chains like No Frills, Loblaws etc : r/FoodToronto - "When I buy chicken from Asian stores, I find it has one less day before it goes bad when compared to my local No Frills/Food Basics. (Still plenty of time) I also find broken bones, especially in drumsticks, at a much more frequent rate. When I buy ground beef, it's not as lean as the chains. When I buy steaks, they are significantly better value, but if you're looking for a very specific cut, you may not get it "
Kangmin Lee | 이강민 on X - "This video of a heated argument between a Korean couple & a Muslim woman is going viral on IG. The woman with a hijab parked her car in the middle of the lot, blocking others from getting out. When confronted, she plays the victim & lashes out. Oh the joys of multiculturalism."
‘Stop sending butt plugs to Bahrain’: Toronto sex store receives letters from U.S. Department of War : r/offbeat - "Dear Tiny Dick Pete, Fuck off. Sincerely, Canada."
Hating the US means blaming them for Bahraini law
Majority of Torontonians think city is headed in the wrong direction - "Six in 10 Torontonians say the city is headed in the wrong direction, with a similar majority placing the blame squarely at the feet of Mayor Olivia Chow, according to results of a new poll. A survey conducted by Canada Pulse Insights on behalf of CityNews finds 64 per cent of Torontonians asked believe the city is on the wrong track, with 68 per cent saying the mayor and city council are out of touch with what residents want. Affordability and the cost of living are the most important issues facing the city, according to 49 per cent of respondents. Home ownership (34 per cent), gridlock (29 per cent), crime (29 per cent) and homelessness (21 per cent) round out the top five concerns. Mayor Olivia Chow bears the brunt of the blame for the city’s woes, with 51 per cent saying she is doing a bad job and 65 per cent calling for new leadership at City Hall."
