Website Content: Maintainig Viewership Through Design
Abstract
The world is changing to become more focused on online information. As such, websites, particularly those that market written and photo-based content to viewers, must carefully analyze how they manage information to maintain viewership on their websites. The average person will not spend long on a website unless they find something interesting, so it is important to employ techniques that will grab attention immediately; however, the longer a user spends on a website, the more likely he/she is to stay, so good content is a must as well. This is especially true as Internet usage becomes increasingly more popular on mobile devices, and websites must conform to mobile-friendly standards in order to maintain a consistent viewer rate, as mobile viewers are even quicker to leave a website once opening it. The interesting thing, then, is that the content is less important than the design and presentation of that content.
Website Content: Maintaining Viewership Through Design
The Internet is a constantly changing environment, making it hard to pin down what, exactly, happens to be the best strategy to market on it. Studies have been conducted on eye patterns, header information, clickbait, and a variety of other techniques to get a glimpse into human interaction on the web—a medium that is much harder to track than any other due to the distinct lack of face-to-face transactions as revenue is made—but little progress has been made because the Internet, and the devices we use to access it, changes so quickly. Unlike static media such as books, magazines, newspapers, and even television, movies, and music, the Internet is a fluid information source, and the strategies that influence its usage change more in a few years than the strategies employed for books have in the last century. But, even in an environment where information absorption changes so often, and the most viewed types of content are forever in flux, there remains some consistency as to what draws the eye. It is, therefore, imperative to focus on taking advantage of those consistencies through webpage design to draw the reader to the content, as the content will not work in and of itself.
First Impressions
First impressions are the most important for a website. According to a data analyst webpage, Chartbeat, as referred to by Farhad Manjoo (2013), about 40 percent of webpage viewers click off the page immediately after opening it. But, a lot of viewers won’t even get to the webpage if the real first impression is not made. That first impression occurs in the search results.
Two surveys by Mediative, reported by Kellogg (2015) in 2005 and 2014 indicated the ten-year change on how people view the search results page on Google.com. In 2005, viewers followed a pattern termed “The Golden Triangle.” This shape is how a viewer’s eye interpreted information on the page. The eye started in the top left corner, went straight down through the first few results—not scrolling the page—and then went back up and across to delve further into the information on the top two links. But by 2014, the Golden Triangle era had ended, leaving in its wake a more linear approach to viewing the search results page. Viewers focused on mostly the left-hand side of the page and also viewed more results on the first page. This all occurred in less time, though, with average time spent on the results page dropping from 15 seconds in 2005 to about eight in 2014. Figure 1 indicates the heatmaps from the surveys. According to Petrescu (2014) survey findings indicated that the first link of a search result saw a 72 percent click-through rate (clicks on a link). This shift represented a change, both in the viewers, and in the Internet itself. As it has become more popular, certain sites are known to be more reputable, so just knowing the name of the website does more for the site than anything (Search Engine Ranking Factors, 2015). On the Internet, being popular is akin to having the best information.
Figure 1: The Mediative heatmap indicates how viewers’ eyes track on the search results page.
This data confers the necessity of the first impression of a website: Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is essentially the steps taken to ensure that a website appears at the top of the list for search results, not including paid placement. The factor that most affects that search result is keywords: words located in the search that are also embedded somewhere in the website’s code that lead the search engine to point the searcher to that website. The more words a site has in common with a search, the more likely it is to appear at the top (Liu, White, & Dumais, 2010). That’s not all, though. Some other factors include click-through rate—websites with more visitors appear higher—user ratings, links on the webpage, length of content, readability, etc. (Search Engine Ranking Factors, 2015). Another factor in SEO, particularly on Google, is mobile friendliness. In 2015, Google shuffled its results page to reflect the changing of Internet browsing to smartphones by moving websites that are mobile-friendly to the top of the results page (Winkler, 2015). The size of a screen affects how a webpage can be viewed, and as more people view information on smaller screens, it is important to have a website that is compatible with the consumer’s method of consumption. According to Condliffe (2018), 23 percent of people accessing the Internet did so from a mobile device in 2010. In 2018, that number jumped to 84 percent. It is just as important as SEO, then, to have a website that changes design based on the size of the screen on which it is viewed.
The Website
The first impression of the website itself is also important. According to Liu et al. in 2010, the time users spend on a website is denoted by a negative aging Weibull Distribution. The Weibull Distribution is usually used for mechanical components to determine how long it would take them to fail. In this case, the variable was reconfigured to be how long it takes for someone to leave a website once it is opened. The fact that it ages negatively refers to the disparity between good and bad sites. Users leave bad sites immediately, but the rate at which users leave slows and steadies considerably as time goes on. The survey found that the highest percent chance a viewer has of leaving occurs almost as soon as the webpage is opened, meaning that the viewer immediately found something they didn’t like, whether that be a clunky home page, an odd color scheme, a weird logo, a clickbait headline, or even the loading time. All of these can factor into a viewer leaving a webpage. But, the longer a viewer is on the page, the less likely they are to leave. In essence, the website has about ten seconds to get the viewer’s attention. If it has failed to do that, the viewer has left. Fortunately, after those first ten seconds, the viewer is more likely to stay than leave, so long as your information is relevant, formatted to be easy to read, and relatively short. Figure 2 below is a graph that displays the particular distribution for the survey.
The hard part, then, is determining what to do in order to grab a viewer’s attention immediately. The unfortunate answer is that there is no clear-cut way to get the job done. But there are a few things that do help.
Figure 2: The Weibull Distribution from the webpage survey. As time increases, viewership becomes steadier, so the first ten seconds are the most important.
The first thing to know is how viewers track information on a webpage. The eye moves in a set path depending on the content, usually one of two different designs: the Gutenberg diagram, seen in Figure 3 below, or the aforementioned Golden Triangle. While the Gutenberg diagram is more geared towards photos, videos, and artwork, and the Golden Triangle is generally more often observed with text, the important thing is that both diagrams start at the top left corner.
Figure 3: The Gutenberg diagram depicts the movement of the eye as it views a webpage.
Once you know how information is consumed, plans can be made to best take advantage of the nature of the viewer’s mind by playing to the subconscious pattern. First, make sure the information is placed in the correct spot. Start with the most important thing in the top left corner so that it is the first thing a viewer will see. Next, take advantage of things that naturally draw the eye, such as a large logo, a header, or a navigation bar. These are the things that people spend the most time staring at when they open up a webpage, at about six seconds of view time per each item. (Dahal, 2011). It is also a good idea to have a place for action to be at the terminal area (Anthony, 2018). The last thing a viewer will see is more likely to leave an imprint, as viewers spend nearly as long at the bottom of a webpage as they do on the logo, header, and navigation bar.
Once the critical 10-second threshold for viewership has been passed, the problem becomes getting the information across that must be purveyed. The crux of the matter is that the words on the site don’t really do as much to cover it as one would think. While word count does play a factor in how long a user will stay on a site—the more words and information there are, the longer a reader will spend on the site—it is hardly conclusive that the word amount is actually an important factor. Weinreich, Obendorf, Herder, & Mayer, (2008) found that the number of links as compared to dwell time on a webpage moves in nearly identical fashion to the word count variable, as seen in Figure 4.
Figure 4: The number of links and number of words move in a similar pattern in reference to dwell time on a site.
That inconclusiveness becomes doubly apparent when paired with the finding that, at an average reading speed of 250 words per minute, most viewers can read only 25 percent of the total words on a page with an 800-word article if they spent no time at all doing anything but reading (Nielsen, 2008). This is a clear indication that readers are skimming information rather than actually reading it. To avoid having readers skim through and miss important details, the presentation of that information must be conducive to the Internet reader, who wants quick chunks of information and not long paragraphs. Weinreich et al. (2008) said, “the ‘scannability’ of information and hyperlinks as well as their intelligibility seem to be essential for the usability of web pages” (p. 20).
On a word-based website, the presentation of the words is most important; information is useless if the viewer will not read through a huge chunk of text to find it, and they won’t. Breaking up the information into clearly designed sections with informative headers will help navigate a reader through the information. Shorter chunks are better, too. While there is no conclusive evidence that the Internet has lowered human attention span, it is clear that people do not navigate the Internet like a novel: no one sits down for hours scrolling through one webpage. Most viewers don’t even get more than 60 percent into one, according to Manjoo (2013). Defining information becomes like eating a pie. Give one person the entire thing and he/she will never be convinced they can eat it; cut it into small slices and place them on the table one at a time, and he/she will never know they made it through a whole pie by the time he/she has finished it. Just in case, though, putting the important information first is good, both to ensure that a viewer will get to it in case he/she gets full too early, and because it has a good chance of acting like a great first line in a book and hooking the reader for the entire piece.
Limitations
The biggest limitation for this is certainly the jumbled mess that is the Internet. While information on this subject is boundless, the organization of it is miserable and entirely too focused on certain niche websites, such as libraries. In addition, because the Internet changes so quickly, information from even five years ago can be incredibly outdated, and depending on the variables used in research, even information that should be the same can come out completely different. A lot of this information also has issues with dedicated viewership, which can’t be accounted for throughout such a wide topic. To really analyze this data properly, it has to be done on a page-by-page basis, which is mostly impossible. Another limitation is the fickle reality that is the human brain. Considering the enormous variety of factors that influence the most minute of decisions, it is nearly impossible to accurately portray any statistic for this topic. Really, the most difficult thing is that website design is much more like an art than a science. While there are certain things that the masses find more appealing, and there are groups of people who like some designs over others, it is mostly subjective, and each viewer will be different.
Future Studies
In the future, it would be good to be able to more deeply analyze this information on a site-by-site basis to gather more accurate data. Statistics are difficult to categorize, but it might be easier if a more pointed survey was done. If I had more time, I would have designed a usability survey focusing on two websites with the exact same information but with different design tactics employed to have a clearer view of what the deciding factors in webpage viewer maintenance actually are. Some things to focus on would have been photo placement, video embeds, links and advertisements, the logo, and graphic design. Each would be changed one at a time so that they could be categorized independently of each other. If I really had the time, I would even consider doing this for all types of websites, such as video platforms, blogs, news, and miscellaneous to help further categorize the findings and make them more efficient.
Conclusion
The artistic nature of website design makes it difficult to efficiently categorize every “best” practice, but because the human brain works in patterns, there are certain steps that can be taken to efficiently achieve the goals of a good site with the information available. One of those few steps is to design something that is user friendly. A design that is both easy on the eyes and the brain will be the most beneficial to a viewer who wants to find the information he/she is looking for without bleeding eyes and a headache. While the content is the end goal of the viewer, that information will never be found unless it is made relatively easy, so a clear design will be the most helpful in ensuring a website makes it to the top.
References
Anthony (2018, April 09). Why Users Click Right Call to Actions More Than Left Ones.
Condliffe, J. (2018, January 23). The average American spends 24 hours a week online.
Dahal, S. (2011). Eyes don't lie: Understanding users' first impressions on website design using eye tracking. Missouri University of Science and Technology.
Kellogg, K. (2015, October 21). Google SERP Eye-tracking: 2005 vs. 2014.
Liu, C., White, R. W., & Dumais, S. (2010). Understanding web browsing behaviors through Weibull analysis of dwell time. SIGIR '10 Proceeding of the 33rd International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval, 379-386. doi:10.1145/1835449.1835513
Manjoo, F. (2013, June 06). You won't finish this article.
Nielsen, J. (2008, May 6). How little do users read?
Petrescu, P. (2014, October 02). Google organic click-rhrough rates in 2014.
Search engine ranking factors 2015. (n.d.). Retrieved February 17, 2018.
Weinreich, H., Obendorf, H., Herder, E., & Mayer, M. (2008). Not quite the average: an empirical study of web use. ACM Transactions on the Web, 2(1). doi:10.1145/1326561.1326566
Winkler, R. (2015, April 21). Google gives boost to mobile-friendly sites. Wall Street Journal.
Up In the Air - Integrity
You grunt. Your eyelids are laden and sluggish, so you decide not to open them yet. Your mind is inhibited with the drowsiness of the night’s sleep from which you just awoke. The room is bright, the blinds in the window behind your head doing a miserable job of blocking out the late morning sun. You reach up and grab the phone lying on top of the wooden frame of the bed, unplug it, and bring it down to your face. Forcing your eyes open, you blink at the blurry numbers on the screen for a few moments until they shift into focus enough to be readable: 11:23.
It’s late, but not late enough to force you out of bed; then, your stomach rumbles and you feel the depleted pit of acid shake in anger at its lack of material to melt. That’s enough: swinging the covers back, your legs swing out over empty space, and you leap the foot between your bed and rug to avoid incurring the shock of stepping on the cold tile floor. You sit down in the chair by your desk to slide on some socks and then trod to the bathroom. You notice the light that usually spreads under the door from your suitemate’s room is off. That’s odd, you think. Alex is almost always up before me.
You hear another growl emanating from your midsection and quickly change into clothes suitable for being in public before grabbing your wallet, keys, and phone and setting out from your room and into the hall lined with doors. You lock your door and travel down the hallway. It is completely empty and silent in the hallway save the slight sound of the friction between your shoes and the carpet and the rustling of your pants. You pass Kaitlyn and Karly’s room; there is no sound from within, but they sleep late on weekends. On your left is Zachary’s room. You stop for a moment, straining to hear the tell-tale sign of a YouTube video playing to indicate that he had not yet gone to bed, but hear nothing.
You frown at the lack of noise. You snap a few times right next to your ear—just to make sure you’re not going crazy—the sound sharp and loud, and then farther away, until your arm is fully outstretched. Should anyone happen upon you, they would undoubtedly brand you as odd for the scene you are making. The sound of the snap as your hand extends into space is less crisp, but still there. Oh, good. I’m not going deaf, I suppose, you think. I guess people are still asleep, for the most part. I can’t fault them for that; it is a Sunday, after all.
You shake your head to snap your thoughts away from the now less heavy silence and proceed out the door. You take a moment to glare at the sun with squinted eyes as it immediately assaults the sensitive organs, as usual, the moment you step from the safe haven that is the indoors. A bird trills in the tree to your left, and you turn, catching a glimpse of a red-chested bird with brown feathers. A robin. You listen as it calls out again and is answered by another in the tree across the small courtyard situated between two dorm buildings. At least the birds are making noises this morning.
There is no one in the courtyard, but then there is no need for anyone to be. Not only is campus supposed to be mostly empty due to the extended weekend for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but the dorm in which you reside is the farthest out in this direction, so no one would need to travel by it. You shield your eyes with your left hand and turn to the right, striding off towards the cafeteria.
The space in between you and the building is void of people. There should be people traveling to and fro for food, recreation, whatever, but there is no one. You look for the usual group of three guys passing a soccer ball between each other in the grass field in front of the dining hall, but they are not there, either. No one is out throwing frisbee; there are no dogs being walked by their owners. Perhaps the weather is too uncomfortable for people to be outside, though it doesn’t feel that bad out today. You unlock your phone and open the weather app. It’s a crisp 40 degrees with a light wind from the northwest. Well, I guess it is still possible that no one wanted to be out.
You are now even with the side of the building. You glance through the large open window to your left; there is a Starbucks in there, but, there is no one inside. You stop by the doors and stare in through the panes of glass. The hours are written on them, but they’re too faded to read. Then, you notice that the lights are off. I guess it’s closed for the break. I’m sure people are in an uproar over that. Saying that, though, I don’t think Starbucks has ever closed for a weekend break. You shrug. You don’t drink Starbucks often, anyway, so you can’t bring yourself to care overly much.
Your stomach makes another ungodly noise, and you shake your head at forgetting your only real goal of the day. You turn back towards the doors of the cafeteria and approach. You tap the handicap button, and the leftmost doors swing open, allowing you to walk inside with minimal effort. I guess I see why people do this so often; it’s a great way to be lazy, though it’s not like it’s that much effort to open the door like usual.
You step through into the warmth of the building and look down to find your zipper and unzip your jacket. When you look back up, you notice the downstairs room is empty. The Subway right across from the entrance has no workers. Homestyle Cooking is equally as deserted, and the ever-present line at Moe’s is nowhere to be seen. Is the downstairs closed, too? What on Earth is happening on campus today?
You move onward to the stairs and climb up them to the buffet style cafeteria. Your footsteps echo as you go up the stairs; you strain to hear the voices of people gossiping about classwork or relationships, but, disturbingly, there are no human voices coming from out of sight above you. There isn’t even the sound of the television that usually sits across from the register to swipe in.
You make it to the top of the stairs and glance around, your hand already reaching into your pocket and pulling out your wallet. In a practiced motion, you flip one side open, and your card slides out. You go to catch it, but stop mid-movement. It clatters to the floor as your mind finally catches up to what your eyes are seeing. The room is empty. You stand, frozen, eyes stuck on the grill which usually cooks burgers. It is turned off and the lights above are dark.
You hear a growl. Your empty hand slaps against your stomach as you snap out of shock. Oh, shut up. You know I’m trying here! It rumbles again. Why is the building unlocked if everything inside is closed? Well, maybe it’s not all closed.
You snatch your card off the floor and bound back down the steps and turn to the only area of the building you haven’t been in: the campus grocery store. You press your face against the door, cupping your hands around your eyes to see in. The lights are on, but you can’t see anyone. You shrug. You can’t really see anything important from the door, anyway. The register is to my left, and the staff are probably behind it.
You push against the door, almost expecting it not to open, but it does. You step inside and immediately glance to where you know the register to be. There is no one behind it. You quickly maneuver through the three aisles, looking desperately for some staff member who can ring up some food so you can eat. The store is empty. Well, people or not, I’m not going to steal food. There’s no excuse for that, and the building probably has cameras anyway. Your stomach rumbles. I do need to eat, though.
You grab a box of Pop-Tarts and a small plastic bottle of chocolate milk. You start to turn back to the register, but quickly snap back around and grab a soda, as well. At the register, you scan the items and swipe your card through the card reader. Everything registers smoothly and you put your items in a bag before going back to your dorm. You still don’t see anyone, but your mind is too settled on food to really notice.
Once you are back in your room, you rip open the box and tear through two packages of Pop-Tarts, then drain the bottle of milk. Your stomach now full, you decide to work on some math homework due in the morning. Professor Schnyder would not accept “everyone on campus disappeared” as a viable excuse for not doing my homework. You reach into a drawer, pull out a calculator and press the “on” button. The screen remains blank. Oh, come on! Don’t tell me the stupid thing is dead! With the way my day is going, there’s no way I can buy batteries for this. I guess I’ll see if Alex has some.
You step out into the hallway and to Alex’s door. You knock a few times, and wait, but there is no answer. You knock again, just to make sure. Still no answer. I guess I’ll try Kaitlyn and Karly’s room. You stride to their door and rap it with your knuckles a few times. You wait a moment, but there is no answer. Come on! Someone in this hall has to be in their room! You go for one last stop at Zachary’s room. Still no answer. You start to walk away, nearly shaking in frustration. Halfway back to your room, you remember a few weeks back when Zach’s room was broken into. He had left it unlocked while he was off campus for some gaming tournament. Maybe he left it unlocked again?
You turn around and come back to his door. You slowly reach out and grasp the handle. You push a little. It gives slightly. You push harder and the door swings open. The inside is a mess. There is trash piled up in a corner: bags of chips, soda cans, plates of mostly eaten food. On the desk are three monitors, dark, turned off. You slide a few things around on the desk, looking for batteries on the off-chance that his miserable organizational skills would allow for them to be on the desk.
You grit your teeth slightly after a few moments of nothing, and then reach for the drawers of the desk. You grab the notch on top and begin to pull it out, but stop. What am I thinking? I am breaking and entering and trying to liberate batteries from Zach. What would he think if he came back and found me in here? You let go of the drawer and step back. Still, I need batteries for my calculator. I’m sure he’d understand. You open the drawer and rummage through its contents. There are many interesting things within, but no batteries. You look through the other two drawers, but find them discouragingly empty of batteries, too.
You exit Zach’s room shaking your head. Well, maybe I can check Alex’s room, too…I don’t know if the door is ever unlocked, but it wouldn’t hurt to try. Having made up your mind, you walk back down the hall and attempt to open Alex’s door. It swings open just as easily as Zach’s. You step inside. It’s mostly clean, relatively well organized. On the table, you spot a remote. Well, if I can’t find batteries throughout the room, I can always borrow the batteries from the remote. I’m sure Alex won’t mind. I’ll give them back as soon as I’m done with my math homework, anyway.
You scavenge through the room, but come up empty-handed again, so you empty the remote of its batteries and exit the room. There are only two, and you need four, so you again decide to enter someone’s empty room. This time, Kaitlyn and Karly’s room. Without hesitation, you reach out and push the door open. You quickly walk in and gut the room in your search for two more Triple-A batteries. As only one drawer remains unsearched, you again feel hopeless at the ridiculous situation of the day. I swear the world is out to get me. This is just insane.
You open the last drawer and find not batteries inside, but something remarkably more valuable. Stuffed into the drawer are 10 bundles of cash. They’re thick enough that they barely fit, and all hundred-dollar-bills, too. Where…no, how on Earth did they get all this money? There’s no way they could get this money through ordinary means. I mean, we’re college students for Christ’s sake!
You stare at it in awe. Your mind drifts to your family at home; your younger brother and sister wearing hand-me-down clothes from their older siblings. Your parents’ older vehicles…your own car which you bought after three years of working thirty hours a week on top of high school. You think of your house; there are three bedrooms. You share one with your twin; your younger brother and sister share one. Your parents get the last. They’re somewhat cramped, but comfortable enough. Your life is hard, but not so hard as to be unbearable. But, you think, oh what my family could do with this money. We could afford so much more; we could go from surviving to living!
No! I must not steal. We can survive as we’ve been doing for as long as I can remember. I graduate this year; once I get a job, I can help mom and dad put Jacob and Alyssa through college. It’s not right to steal. You step back from the drawer and walk towards the door. Your hand reaches out to push the door open, but you are held back by a stray thought. I could only take, say, half. There’s a lot there. Kaitlyn and Karly certainly won’t miss it, and even if they did, they would have no way of knowing it was me.
You turn around and approach the drawer again. You kneel next to it and reach out. You run a finger along a bill. The material is smooth. Your fingers splay out and you wrap them around a wad as thick as you can hold in your hand. You pull and separate the bunch from the rest, then quickly shove the drawer shut to avoid more temptation. This is all I will take. Now, I should go back to my room and hide it.
You stride across the room with purpose; your hand reaches out to grab the handle and twist it open, but it begins to move of its own accord. You stand and stare, frozen in shock. It seems my luck is just meant to curse me, you think. The door opens and smacks against your shoulder. A voice calls out from the other side. “Who’s in there?”
You step back, still staring at the space that used to house the handle. The door swings fully open and a police officer steps into the room. He takes one glance at you holding a wad of cash in your hand. “Where’d you get that?” You try to open your mouth, but your lips seem glued together. You can’t say anything, so you just shake your head and point back at the drawer. The officer steps into the room and curly blonde hair becomes visible from behind him.
Jovial eyes and a smirking face pierce into your eyes and soul from between the dual curtains of hair framing a face. A hand reaches out and pries yours open, slipping the bundle of money from your clammy fingers. Karly drops the money on the floor. “I never thought someone would try to steal fake money, and I especially never thought you would be the hall thief.”
Your eyes narrow, your face a mask of confusion. You try to ask what she’s talking about, but your lips still refuse to part. Her smirk widens, if that’s possible. “Oh, don’t act innocent. We caught you rummaging through three different rooms and stealing from two.” Karly points directly above her and you see a camera mounted on top of the door frame. “It’s a pity. I thought it was Alex who was stealing stuff throughout the hallway, but I suppose my suspicions were only because of your rooming next door.”
The police officer approaches you from behind and you hear the sound of metal clinking. “You’re under arrest for two counts of larceny and three counts of breaking and entering.” You feel the cold metal of the handcuffs snap around your wrists and the world goes dark.
You grunt. Your eyelids are laden and sluggish, so you decide not to open them yet. Then, you hear a robotic voice. “Simulation complete.” Your eyes snap open and you sit up. As you do, a man’s voice calls out, “Thank you for your time. You’ll find your test results on the table in the next room. Please take the papers and exit through the marked door.”
You swing your legs off the table and follow the instructions, finding a single sheet of paper with your name on it, a few short sentences thanking you for taking part in the testing, and a percentage next to a bolded phrase. But what catches your attention is the large text at the bottom that only reads, Humanity’s moral compass is superseded only by that of its dubious nature.
カルチャーショック (Culture Shock)
Pack your bags, grab a ride to the airport, make your way through customs, and sit down for a long sixteen-hour flight to the other side of the world. Arriving at your destination, take in the advertisements and people around you. All the people don’t look the same as you, and you can barely read the signs. Why? Because you are a college exchange student who has just arrived in a different country, on another continent, with a different language, all the way down to the alphabet. If you can imagine that, then you’re well on your way to understanding the shock that Japanese exchange students experience in their first few days in the United States.
This year at Western Carolina University, we have ten exchange students from all over Japan. These students have made that long sixteen-hour flight to spend a semester or two learning in Western’s relaxing and peaceful atmosphere free from the daily distractions present in the rushed life of Japan.
At first, it may not seem like such a huge change, coming from Japan to America, but in fact, there are very few similarities. From speaking with Kanako Hata, and Moe Tamaki, I gathered that the only resounding constant between America and Japan is the technology. Both countries rely greatly on different devices to drive the daily lifestyle and use them in the same way. But really, that’s where the differences begin. The differences between societies create what is called “culture shock,” which basically means a disorienting feeling stemming from being suddenly subjected to an unfamiliar culture, way of life, or set of beliefs.
In Japan, being modest and humble are high orders of society. Greetings require a courteous response, and extra attachments to statements and phrases are meant to show respect to people who are higher rank than you, or people you don’t know. Adding “gozaimasu” (go-za-e-mas) to the end of “thank you,” or “good morning,” makes the phrases polite. You also don’t allow conversations to end without expressing interest in the subject, as it is seen as impolite. Instead you add “I see,” or “is that so,” to show that you understood what the other person was saying, or that you want to hear more. Going from Japan to America can be such a rude awakening because of this.
Here, conversations are cut short, many greetings are a simple nod of the head, and no one regards others as their betters in most day to day interactions, throwing politeness and humility out the window more often than not.
Food is also very different. in the words of Kanako Hata: “American food contains a lot of fat, and there is a lot.” A Japanese diet consists mostly of fish and rice, supplemented by fruits and vegetables in very small portions that are usually not finished. An American diet is mostly red meat, grains, and dairy in largely over-sized portions. This leads the Japanese to often be much healthier than most, especially Americans. There is even a saying I have found: “A Japanese woman grows neither old nor fat.” This stems from the fact that the food they eat is properly balanced and portioned leading to longer, better lives.
The differences even extend into school life. Kanako Hata’s commute to school is almost two hours long by train in Japan every day, while every American is within driving distance of the school they attend (around thirty minutes), or living on campus if they’re too far away. The classrooms even work differently.
In Japan, class time consists of sitting quietly in your seat, taking notes while the teacher lectures. The difference in America, which both Kanako and Moe agreed on, is that students are encouraged to speak up in class with their thoughts and opinions.
So why visit somewhere so different, and how do you adjust to the shock that comes with being immersed in a new culture? That varies for each person. For Kanako, keeping small habits that she did in Japan while here, such as the traditional Japanese saying “itadakimasu,” (e-ta-da-kimas) before eating, and “gochisoosama,” after eating (go-chi-so-sah-ma) which both mean “thank you for the meal,” makes the adjustment a little easier. Moe, however, has more easily adjusted to American culture, and in attempting to adopt it, says that she is trying to express her opinion more often: “when I first came here, I didn’t miss Japanese food because I really like pizza and hamburgers.” It also helps that both are really attempting to understand how Americans do things in the classroom so they can use that to their advantage when they return to Japan to teach English to Elementary and Junior High Japanese students.
Both Kanako and Moe have enjoyed their time at Western, learning more about life here each day. Both said they would recommend America to their friends looking to study abroad, as “people are very kind to [them].” Kanako even recommends it because the quiet countryside provides a relaxing area to study with little to no distractions, something that is vastly different from her average day in Japan which consists of waking up at 5 AM for classes, and working two jobs.
It’s always a bit of a shock to experience a new thing, especially a new lifestyle. It’s one thing to move from one state to the next, or across a country, but to spend five months of your life in a new continent, being constantly bombarded by vastly differing social norms is difficult. Perhaps the secret is to slow down, and adjust at your own pace, like Kanako. Conversely, maybe it’s to get out, make new friends, and experience new things such as football, like Moe. But, I think when it comes down to it, all you need is an amazing experience to overcome even the strongest of culture shocks
Falling Literacy Rates: Why They Are Falling and How They Can Be Raised
Abstract
Students consistently move throughout the education system of the United States at a basic level in fields not directly associated with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). Consequently, reading skills have fallen off the wayside by over-testing and failure to address the lack of motivation in students to read following the third grade. This has created a constant flow of students reaching the end of their secondary education unable to read proficiently; therefore, many students reach college or another form of post-secondary education without the ability to comprehend the texts necessary to get through their classes. Even then, they struggle through but reach the end of their college careers only to not comprehend laws and official government documents because they were never prepared. According to this failure of the education system, I have analyzed the problem and provided a solution which may very well help drastically reduce the number students who cannot read proficiently at Western Carolina University, and should the model be as successful as predicted, it will hopefully spread to other universities, and eventually down to the third-grade level where it needs to be placed.
Introduction
“Nay, do not think I flatter;
For what advancement may I hope from thee
That no revenue hast but thy good spirits,
To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flatter'd?
No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee
Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?
Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice
And could of men distinguish, her election
Hath seal'd thee for herself; for thou hast been
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing,
A man that fortune's buffets and rewards
Hast ta'en with equal thanks: and blest are those
Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled,
That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger
To sound what stop she please. Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee” (Shakespeare, 1599-1602).
Congratulations are in order for an accurate interpretation of that passage from Act III, Scene 2 of Shakespeare’s “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.” This play by Shakespeare is commonly recognized as 12th grade level reading; therefore, the ability to understand that after the first read-through places the reader at least at a 12th grade level—most likely higher (Leveled Reading Systems, Explained, 2017). That is better than approximately 63% of seniors in high school (NAEP Report Cards, retrieved March 24, 2017). Those who read at a 12th grade level would actually only be able to comprehend about 75% of the information in a 12th grade level text according to the Lexile scale (MetaMetrics, 2017). It's a worthy accomplishment to be able to comprehend that passage before 12th grade, but being a college student who can’t understand it presents a problem. Any reader beyond high school that can’t understand the passage isn’t ready for reading in college, and perhaps isn’t ready in other subjects either. Why? Because according to Sandra Stotsky, an education specialist at the University of Arkansas, our standards for “college and career ready” are actually equivalent to about the standards of high school readiness—9th or 10th grade work (Hope, 2015).
Current Situation
The issue currently is that not enough students are prepared to succeed in college or afterwards, perhaps because they fail to read effectively. According to Dr. Kelly Tracy, Assistant Professor of Literacy Education at Western Carolina University, children lose the want to read sometime around third grade, and from there on, their abilities falter (Dr. Kelly Tracy, Personal Communication, April 11, 2017). It’s common knowledge that not practicing something means you don’t improve at it, and for reading that becomes doubly important. When children don't learn how to read well, and instead fake it to get by, they hurt themselves in reading, writing, math, and science. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress’ 2015 report card, only 37% of high school seniors read at or above proficient; their own grade level. Statistically speaking, that number hasn’t changed much over the years, but the fact that it’s so low is an issue in the first place. As shown in figure 1, student reading abilities have not improved, and instead maintain a downward trend overall.
Figure 1: The percentage of 12th grade students who read at or above proficient. Proficient is defined as reading at or above a 12th grade level. Adapted from “Nation’s Report Card National Achievement Level Results,” by U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, and National Assessment of Educational Progress, 2015. (https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/naepdata/report.aspx?p=3-RED-2-20153-RRPCM-B001151-NT-MN_MN,RP_RP-Y_J-0-0-5). In the Public Domain.
The Problem
The Effects of Standardized Testing
Most of the problem stems from too much standardized testing, which was mainly introduced as a penalty method towards schools on a national level by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 (Dr. Kelly Tracy, Personal Communication, April 11, 2017). Following the passing and implementation of this act, schools had to push for federal support by upping scores on standardized tests. Naturally, this can solve many problems, but it also created many. For one, standardized testing forces teachers into a corner. They must teach to the test or they risk losing funding for their school and eventually their job. This causes a loss of connection between students and teachers, which is imperative for teachers to do their job properly and encourage learning, especially in elementary education, grades K-5. Possible failures in teaching due to this disconnect include:
· Failure of the teacher to ascertain each student’s learning style
· Failure to find a student’s motivation for learning and schooling
· Failure to individually work past students’ problems to create understanding
· Failure to comprehend and deal with the emotional and mental strains of growing up
Most importantly, in this situation, is that it will cause a loss of motivation in the children to read. Because standardized tests require a specific course material to be taught, teachers, and consequently, students fail to vary from this material in any creative manner, especially in the subject of reading. By teaching to the reading tests in third grade, students become demotivated from reading because they don’t enjoy the material they are forced to read. As part of psychological development, it hasn’t yet occurred to a child at that age that there are different kinds of reading. Their brains have not developed to that extent by the age of eight; therefore, they picture a part as a whole, and no longer wish to participate in the activity. This time in a child’s life is commonly referred to as the “preoperational stage.” This stage is where imagination and memory begin to develop, allowing a child to develop better thinking skills. It does not, however, yet allow them to use logic operationally. They still think based mostly on intuition, so extremely complex concepts are difficult to grasp (Piaget Stages of Development, 2005-2017). So, really, the problem which is caused by all of this is that students don’t read, usually because they never find what type of reading they most like to do (Dr. Kelly Tracy, Personal Communication, April 11, 2017). And, because students don’t read, they don’t learn how to read better. Since they don't learn how to read better from reading, they never improve, and then when they are tested, their scores remain below average. The disconnect between students and teachers is clearly illustrated by test results by location within the United States. A larger student to teacher ratio causes lower scores in reading proficiency, as shown in figure 2. Students who attend school in city locations have lower test scores than students who attend school in the suburbs and rural areas more often than not since 2009.
Figure 2: 12th grade students at or above proficient based on location of school in three years. Adapted from "NAEP Data Explorer," by U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, and National Assessment of Educational Progress, 2015. (https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/naepdata/report.aspx?p=3-RED-2-20153-RRPCM-B001151-NT-MN_MN,RP_RP-Y_J-0-0-5). In the Public Domain.
As stated before, an inability to read effectively does not only have consequences when it comes to reading tests. Reading effects every subject, and even life after schooling. It is, perhaps, the most important subject to be adept in, and failing is not an option if one wishes to live an informed life. People who read below proficient—not defined by the exact numbers of the NAEP—will find themselves struggling to interpret and compare documents of differing viewpoints. In other words, they may not be able to determine differences in two editorials. Those who read proficiently can synthesize and infer about multiple documents at one time, which is necessary for understanding laws and changes in laws, as well as many well-written government documents (Baer, Baldi, & Cook, 2006). It is also only logical that if one cannot understand a question asked, he/she cannot possibly answer the question correctly, which means that reading is integral to mathematical and scientific word problems. In a study involving those of similar backgrounds and ages, it was suggested that reading, alone, had a significant effect on math skills as well as reading and vocabulary advancements (Sullivan, 2013). The web of reading stretches over all aspects of life, and it is important to at least be competent enough in the subject to comprehend necessary information both through school and life after.
Solutions
Solutions to this problem are many, but viable solutions are few and convoluted. Most solutions require implementation at the third-grade level, or even before, which is unrealistic for college students, as foregoing a basic knowledge of reading makes it much more difficult to acquire an advanced knowledge late. It is possible to implement a solution at the college level; it only becomes more difficult to make sure the solutions stick after the students are brought up to a good standard. Note that it is imperative that a test be implemented to determine student reading levels before entering college for any of these solutions to work. Scores in reading comprehension will most likely need to be accessed via the ACT or SAT as most tests to determine reading comprehension and reading grade level must be administered in person.
Below are two solutions which may be possible to implement at Western Carolina University.
Solution 1: A remedial course which covers techniques meant to help increase reading comprehension
This solution would take place as a one credit hour course directed within the English department. The class would be comprised of students who did not reach a benchmark score on the ACT—22 (College Readiness Benchmarks, 2017)—or the SAT—480 (Benchmarks, 2016). In this class, students would read material and be asked to provide a three-page paper detailing themes and how they were presented in the material. During classes, the instructor will go over common methods to deduce main ideas and supporting details in material. Reading material will become progressively more difficult throughout the semester. The final exam will be a class-wide reading literacy exam. Students who pass will proceed from the class, but students who do not will be offered a chance to take one more remedial course after the benefits of reading effectively are explained to them thoroughly. There are a few advantages to this technique. The most prevalent is that an instructor will be either refreshing students on ways to deduce ideas from material or will be giving entirely new instruction regarding it. Techniques which are not usually provided in primary and secondary education will be given to make each student a better reader. The cons of this are that there will be little to no motivation for students in the class, and it requires following the same standardized testing process that caused much of the problem in the first place.
Solution 2: Provide competition to motivate low-achieving students and methods with which to ascertain each student’s preferred genre of reading
Dr. Kelly Tracy emphasized the necessity for finding a genre of reading which each student likes, as this technique is more likely than any other to get a student hooked on reading (Dr. Kelly Tracy, Personal Communication, April 11, 2017). As shown in figure 3, reading more is likely to boost scores in reading proficiency tests. In 2013, the National Assessment of Educational Progress polled students who took the assessment for reading proficiency, asking how much they had read in the past year, either for pleasure, or for school. The results indicate that reading in almost any form is likely to boost proficiency test scores.
Figure 3: 12th grade students' scores on the NAEP Reading Proficiency Test based on the number of pages read in the last year. Maximum score on this assessment is 500. Adapted from "NAEP Data Explorer," by U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, and National Assessment of Educational Progress, 2013. (https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/naepdata/report.aspx?p=3-RED-2-20153-RRPCM-B001151-NT-MN_MN,RP_RP-Y_J-0-0-5). In the Public Domain.
In fact, according to a study involving 17,000 people born in the same week in England, Wales, and Scotland, it was suggested that reading is one of the most influential tasks in terms of test scores in reading comprehension, among other tests. Of the 17,000 participants in this study, 6,000 who had similar test scores at ages five and 10 were given the same test at the age of 16. After comparing them by demographics, researchers found that those who read often from the age of ten and on achieved higher test results than those who did not read or read less (Sullivan, 2013). So, getting students hooked on reading is a priority, and if each student is given time to discover their own interests in reading, they will be encouraged to continue reading after the course.
In order to encourage competition, students with better reading scores will be mixed into the class to act as mentors and discussion guides for the students with lower reading scores. If a student has questions, they can turn to someone else who is in the course, who will be continuously pushing the lower-achieving student to strive for success. Tests of some form must also be added in order to accurately assess improvement; however, instead of creating or buying tests, this should be done through a presentation. Mainly, each student will read a book every two weeks and present in class the summary of the book, reasons for which they liked the book, and two themes within, as well as how they identified the themes. Each presentation would need to be no more than five to 10 minutes in order to accurately assess improvement. Such a course would be best implemented through the tutoring center, where students can be more easily involved with their mentors, who would be hired as “tutors.”
The benefits of this idea are many. Firstly, it creates a sense of joy in reading that can only be established when someone finds a subject they truly enjoy reading about (fantasy, romance, mystery, biographies). It also creates a thriving community that can continuously progress throughout college life. It runs on competition, which can create a very fast-paced and enjoyable learning environment that doesn’t feel like learning.
The disadvantages of this are that it is time consuming, and it is difficult to ensure that competition will succeed as a motivator. While Americans generally thrive in a competitive environment due to our capitalistic, individualistic society, not everyone works the same way, so such competition might not work for all students. It is time consuming because part of the problem of not reading often is that students become slow, stumbling readers, so having to read a new book every two weeks and prepare a presentation on top of other classes may be difficult.
Recommendation
While both solutions may work, prior information indicates that the first method is merely a reproduction of efforts introduced by Common Core, which has so far failed to boost student achievement levels in reading since its beginning in 2009 (Development Process, 2017).
Solution 2: Provide competition to motivate low-achieving students and methods with which to ascertain each student’s preferred genre of reading
My recommendation is to implement solution 2 at Western Carolina University. The reasons for this lie mostly in its tried and true state of student benefit and access, in that every time a student finds things they enjoy to read, they will continue to read until they no longer have material that they enjoy. Not only is that verifiable nearly 100% of the time, it is suggested through many studies that pleasurable reading is the most impactful form of reading there is. Constantly, students read for school; they delve deep into large textbooks and boring biographies and spend most of their moments outside of school doing this to better themselves in school, yet there seems to be no significant improvement in their ability to read. This solution will fix that problem by giving them motivation in the form of entertainment, and student support. This is imperative in the mission to successfully reach students who need to improve. Being supported by their peers will only reinforce the want to achieve something better for themselves. And, while the competitive aspect may require extra student involvement and the time required may be heavy at first, by the end, each student will have found something enjoyable, and the two weeks of pain and effort it used to take to read a book will become one week of enjoyment and pleasure that will extend past college. The second solution has a farther and deeper reaching impact than any other probable solution.
Conclusion
The education system in the United States is amazing at preparing the future of science and math, but not so great at preparing the future creators of worlds beyond many imaginations. It neglects what is probably the most important subject to focus on careers that can advance our way of life, but not our minds. Reading is important, a necessity, in the world, yet we are failing at it. My hope is that through this we can begin a reading revolution at Western Carolina University that will spread throughout the education system in the United States of America to better prepare our students for their lives in post-secondary education and beyond.
References
Baer, J. D., Baldi, S., Cook, A. L. (2006). The National Survey of America’s College Students: The Literacy of America’s College Students. Retrieved from www.air.org
Benchmarks. (2016, December 08). Retrieved April 16, 2017, from https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/about/scores/benchmarks
College Readiness Benchmarks. (2017). Retrieved April 16, 2017, from https://www.act.org/content/act/en/education-and-career-planning/college-and-career-readiness-standards/benchmarks.html
Development Process. (2017). Retrieved April 16, 2017, from http://www.corestandards.org/about-the-standards/development-process/
Hope, M. (2015, January 03). Expert: most US college freshmen read at 7th grade level. Retrieved from http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2015/01/03/expert-most-us-college-freshmen-read-at-7th-grade-level/
Leveled Reading Systems, Explained. (2017). Retrieved March 24, 2017, from https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/leveled-reading-systems-explained/
Shakespeare, W., “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.” (1599-1602). Retrieved from http://shakespeare.mit.edu/hamlet/full.html
MetaMetrics (2017). Lexile Measures. Retrieved April 16, 2017, from https://lexile.com/about-lexile/lexile-overview/lexile-measures-details/
NAEP Report Cards - Home. (n.d.). Retrieved March 24, 2017, from https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/
Piaget Stages of Development. (2005-2017). Retrieved April 16, 2017, from http://www.webmd.com/children/piaget-stages-of-development#1
Sullivan, D. A. (2013, September 16). Reading for fun improves children's brains, study confirms. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2013/sep/16/reading-improves-childrens-brains
The River
“I n-need to d-come by and t-talk. Are you f-f-free, Jordan?”
“Yeah. I got off work an hour ago. Come over whenever you’re ready.”
“Thanks.” The other end of the line went dead, and Jordan looked at his phone before locking it and setting it down on the bed.
At that moment, his mom walked in the room. “Is Savannah okay, honey?”
He stared hard at the floor.
“You were on the phone for forty minutes. That’s a long conversation for her.”
“It took me thirty minutes to get her to stop crying long enough to tell me what she needed.” At this, he glanced up to see his mother jerk her hand up to cover her mouth. “I know. She’ll be over any minute, so can you make some PB&J’s?”
Jordan’s mother quickly left the room, headed for the kitchen. Savannah’s comfort food was PB&J, and coincidentally, the only outward sign of her being upset is when she’s eating PB&J’s, except now. For as long as Jordan could remember knowing Savannah, which has been since they were three, she never showed being upset. Even as a little kid, she would act like nothing ever bothered her. So, now, at the age of seventeen, for her to be crying, and not just crying, but wracking sobbing, was evidence of something clearly extremely disconcerting.
A few minutes later, the door swung open and Savannah walked in. Her cheeks and nose were red, and she sniffled three times before she got the door shut, and four more before she made it to Jordan’s room, just down the hallway from the entrance.
She pushed the door to Jordan’s room fully open, walked in, and closed it behind her before lunging towards Jordan and grabbing him in a tight hug and full on crying again. Jordan froze for a moment before reaching around and rubbing her back in slow circles. They stood, wrapped up in the hug for many minutes before a knock reverberated from the door through the room.
Jordan pulled back a little and said, “Mom made some PB&J’s. You want some?”
Savannah let go of him and reached up, wiping her eyes with her sleeves and mumbled a choked off “yes.”
He walked across the room and opened the door. His mom handed him a tray of sandwiches, then backed out and closed it again, leaving the two alone to talk it out. They sat in silence for a time, until Savannah finished all three sandwiches and then they climbed on to Jordan’s bed and lay down side by side, arms behind their heads, elbows brushing against each other, and so began a tradition that they had kept for the last eight years. Savannah said, “I don’t know what to do, Jordan.”
“About what, Savannah?”
“These problems I’m having.”
“What are these problems?”
“Cody. Cody’s my problem, and the cause of my other problems.”
“Why?”
“Because Cody is an idiot and a coward and I can’t believe I dated him.”
“What did he do?”
“He stealthed me.”
“What is that?”
“When we were having sex, he took off the condom without telling me.”
“And what happened because of that?”
At this point, the tradition broke. When they came up with this tradition, it was to make it easy to get things off their chests. It took the hard task of telling troubling stories and made it a simple question and answer prompt, and there was no judgment involved, so it was easy to feel safer than even two absolute best friends could feel in each other’s company.
Savannah rolled on top of Jordan and buried her face in his chest, sobbing again. “I’m pregnant, Jordan. I’m pregnant and I don’t know what to do!”
The thoughts running through Jordan’s brain were strong enough that his body almost became too confused to respond to Savannah, but his knee jerk reaction took over, and he wrapped his arms around her. Then, his face began contorting through the many emotions running through his head. First was confusion, morphing his pleasant features into a strange array. Next was fear for what Savannah would do, but that was quickly overridden with anger at her for doing something so dumb as having sex with the stupid jock she decided to date. His features morphed into a grotesque image as he turned that hate on to the useless jerk, Cody, who put his best friend, and the only girl he had ever loved into this situation.
After several minutes of this train of thought, Savannah’s crying finally began to stop, and Jordan began to reign in his emotions so he could put on the mask of the loyal friend Savannah had always seen him as.
“Well, I have an idea of what to do, or more, I know a place where we can go.” He slid out from under her. “Come on, get up. Put your shoes on and follow me.” He pulled her up so she was sitting on the edge of the bed, grabbed her shoes where they had been haphazardly thrown in the floor, and slid them on her feet, then pulled her up. He took her by the hand and led her out the door, down the hall, outside, and around the back of the house.
“Where are we going, Jordan?” She sniffed out.
He pointed at the hill in front of them. “Down.”
Jordan guided them down the hill by a path that was nearly overgrown by grass and small plants, under hanging tree branches, and around giant rocks. As they walked, Savannah began to walk more and be pulled along less. When they had made it halfway down, a subtle roar began to fill their ears, growing louder moment by moment.
Jordan led her around one last bend in the path, and it finally came into view. “The river,” Savannah gasped.
“Do you remember when we used to come down here all the time? That path was so worn out that we thought nothing was ever going to grow on it.”
“The pool. It’s still here?”
“I came down every few weeks and kept it built up, in case you decided you ever wanted to come back.”
The pool in question was just a circle of rocks all stacked up on the side of the river, creating a pool of much slower water about two feet deep. They had built it when they were 12, and came down almost every evening for four years to sit in the pool, let the cool water wash past them, and talk.
As if in a trance, she walked towards the pool and stepped in the water. It was still somewhat warm from the hot summer day, and she sank into it sighing. Jordan joined her, and she said, “I know I shouldn’t have done it, but I wanted to so bad. I wanted to experience it. What do I do?”
“Pray. That’s what we always came down to the river for.”
“But, I’ve messed up. Bad. What do I say?”
“Say what you feel. God knows what you’re thinking and feeling anyway. Just talk to him like you do me.”
So, Savannah bowed her head and prayed. She poured out her heart in that pool, and later, when the sun had fully set and the moon had started to slide up over the trees, she stopped and rose from the water. She glanced down at Jordan who had sat there the whole time, silently praying for her.
He stood up, too. “You may not know what to do now, but God always has a plan for you. And I’ll always be here for you, too.
Savannah nodded. “I missed this. I never should’ve stopped coming, but let’s do it again tomorrow.”
They stepped back and stared at the river, standing beside each other. Jordan reached over and grabbed Savannah’s hand, holding it comfortingly as they stood, dripping, and staring over the moonlit water.
The next day, Savannah and Jordan returned to the pool, and the next day, and the following week, and the next month. Finally, at five months into her pregnancy, Savannah’s mother no longer felt it safe for her to continue making the arduous trek to the river, and so Jordan began visiting her instead.
“Savannah, you in there?” Jordan knocked on her bedroom door again. “Your mom said you need to come eat.”
“No! I don’t want to eat! Leave me alone!”
“You need to eat! You have to stay healthy, and you haven’t touched anything since your doctor’s appointment yesterday morning.”
“I don’t care!”
“Fine.” Jordan walked away from the door and into Savannah’s kitchen. He grabbed a plate, loaded it with food, and made his way back to her door before pushing it open, and freezing in the doorway at the sight of the mess in the room. It looked like a child’s temper tantrum if the child had been hopped up on sugar. Clothes, books, and various accessories were strewn everywhere. Her bed was on its side, and her chair had been flipped over, with her laying on the floor, curled into a ball, and not moving.
“Holy… Savannah, what happened?”
She looked up at me, eyes bloodshot and puffy. The second time I had ever seen that look. “She’s gone. Jordan. She’s gone.”
“What do you mean, ‘she’s gone?’”
“I mean my baby. The doctor, he… It’s a miscarriage. She died before she was ever born.”
Jordan didn’t know what to think. He knew what he should be thinking: sadness, sorrow, mourning, for Savannah’s loss of her unborn child, but he couldn’t help but feel a mix of other emotions: vindication, lucky, and while happiness most certainly wasn’t the right word, it was as close as he could get to describing the feeling that bounced around his head because Savannah had been freed from the trouble that would have changed everything about her life. However, he reacted on none of these. Instead, he said, “I’m sorry, Savannah.”
Then, he flipped the bed back down and picked her up, laid her on it, and slipped the covers over her shoulders. He lay down beside her and asked, “What did you pray for, that first day at the river?”
“What?”
“What did you pray for?”
“I asked God to forgive me, and to take care of me, to set me back on the path he wanted me to go.”
“What did you think would happen?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t want the baby. I hoped it would be taken away.”
“What changed?”
“I got attached. She was growing, and I could feel her alive and moving inside me. Is God punishing me for having sex? For running away?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Then why did this happen?”
“I don’t really know, Savannah. Maybe because God didn’t want you to have a baby yet. I can’t tell you for sure, but I know he does everything for a reason.”
“How do you know that?”
“That’s what the Bible says. The same way you know it. I’m not going to pretend to know any more than that, but you know that I’m always here if you need me.”
Culinary students get a taste of competition cooking
For the spring semester of 2020, Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute introduced the Competition Fundamentals major elective course to the Culinary Arts program on the Caldwell Campus in Hudson. The five students enrolled in the class, Zoee Falder, Misty Lail, Erica Setzer, Emily Miller and Soledad Rodriguez, prepare meals featuring different main course ingredients, such as lobster, pork loin and tofu.
At the beginning of the semester, Culinary Arts Program Director Keith Andreasen decides and informs students of the main food items for each class session. Each week, the students prepare a meal and are graded by a panel of judges based on a shared list of standards. The group of judges changes from week to week and is comprised of college employees and community members.
During a recent class, students prepared racks of lamb. Dishes varied from herb- and panko-crusted lamb cooked in a skillet and finished in an oven to a Moroccan-spiced lamb. Two students used the Sous Vide method, which circulates water at a desired temperature, keeping the meat at that temperature for up to eight hours. Each student creates accompanying side dishes or sauces to complement their entree.
“They all had such a unique take on their food,” said guest judge Pat Pritchard, who works in the college TRIO program and looks forward to volunteering as a judge. “Oh, I don’t have lunch after this. The program has made some wonderful chefs.”
Competitors arrange small tasting plates at their individual workstations. After a short explanation of each dish, judges take turns tasting each student’s creation. The judges provide feedback for each student on a score sheet, which uses multiple categories including ingredients, appearance, presentation and, of course, flavor. Students are encouraged to use feedback from the prior week to improve their future dishes.
“Overall, from last week to this week, the dishes improved by a factor of 10,” Guest judge and local pastor Jeff Burkhimer said while comparing the lamb entrees to the previous week, which featured lobster. “They used multiple cooking techniques and created great flavor.”
An exciting experience for students is the challenge of working with new foods.
“So far, it’s been pretty fun experiencing stuff we haven’t worked with before,” said Erica Setzer, of Hickory. “I enjoyed when we had lobster last week with sweet corn waffles and spicy maple syrup. I’m looking forward to working with pork loin.”
The course offers a unique experience to students in the Culinary Arts program, one that challenges their cooking skills as well as their creativity.
Morganton student Emily Miller said, “I’ve never been in any competition classes before, but I wanted to try something different. I thought it would be like (the TV show) Chopped, but I like it a little bit more because you get to plan, look at different videos and techniques.”
Culinary Arts student Zoee Falder of Newton, who works at Carabba’s in Hickory, is taking the class because it is new and she enjoys getting to work with items she’s never tried before.
“I’m looking forward to tofu,” she said. “I’m planning to make it into a dessert.”
Andreasen said the course will be offered each spring. For more information on CCC&TI’s Culinary Arts program, call Andreasen at 828-726-2478.
The Rhetoric of News: Is Persuasion Too Much?
The Rhetoric of News: Is Persuasion Too Much?
Nathaniel Evans
Western Carolina University
Abstract
Of all the many things that are causing uproar among the American people, the reporting of news is certainly one of the most controversial topics. No matter which side of the political, ideological, or identity spectrum a person resides on, they have problems with the way the news is presented. The central identity that must be questioned in all of this is journalism: what are the goals of a journalist? What are the goals of the people to whom the information will be presented? What are the goals of the company the journalist works for? All these things weigh heavily on society, in particular when related to the political and warlike climate of today’s America, and the world at large. Which of the above questions should weigh heaviest on the journalist who is responsible for writing the way information will be disseminated to the American public? In essence, we must ask: how much rhetoric in the field of journalism is too much? What should the goal of a journalist be? In this presentation, I seek to provide an answer to this question: Is persuasion in journalism too much? In this, other categories of journalism will be challenged, such as whether journalists should be tied to certain political parties or identity movements. The writing style can also be challenged, as it, in part, has allowed leeway to the writer for opinionated articles. And, finally, how the American people have shaped this journalistic identity, and how it can be changed.
Introduction
Did you know that 45% of statistics are made up on the spot? No? That’s because they’re not, even though that one was. The underlying meaning for that statement is simple: it’s hard to know when people are telling you the truth. What becomes harder still is determining whether the truth is statistically true; were research findings, surveys, and figures qualified, quantified, and compiled properly? You could always do your own research to discover if someone is credible enough to deliver the truth accurately; the Internet is out there and waiting for you to peruse the millions of pages filled with countless words of information, but that also comes with a problem. Even though the Internet has become much better at regulating its mass of users and who can post, and it is usually easy to find somewhat credible information, it doesn’t hold the same rules as traditional information sources. But, what happens when traditional information sources, those people have trusted for years to disseminate accurate information, fall prey to the lure of easy, quick, and persuasive Internet information that may not be entirely accurate? That is a reality that is all too real in today’s media climate, which is why we must evaluate the role of journalism to determine its identity. Journalists should adhere to the ideals which their audience expects from them: they should tell the truth, and nothing above and beyond that. Though the definition of truth is sometimes confusing, I will define that later.
Current Situation
What faces journalism today is an avalanche of skepticism as America works its way into a frenzy of the misleading ways of major social media. Take, for example, this headline from The Washington Post, which reads: “U.S.-led coalition accidentally bombs Syrian allies, killing 18” (Gibbons-Neff, & Ryan, 2017). While a horrible headline, and notably factually accurate, it is entirely misleading; it seeks to portray the U.S. Military as inadequate, ineffective, and quite simply, daft because they bombed their allies, but that’s not what happened. What did happen was that our allies, The Syrian Democratic Force, mistakenly gave their own coordinates to the U.S. Military to target for a bombing run. Then, a separate unit noticed the first from afar and reported the group as Islamic State fighters. The military, trusting this information, bombed the target given to them (Gibbons-Neff, & Ryan, 2017). Of course, the average reader won’t even realize this. According to a study by the Media Insight Project as a part of the American Press Institute, 60% of people who read the news do not read past the headline (How Americans get their news, 2014). So, then the obvious assumption is that at least 40% of news readers will know that we didn’t just accidentally bomb our allies out of our own incompetence, right? Wrong! According to data analyst for webpage viewing, Chartbeat, 38% of webpage viewers don’t even engage with the page they click on. That means that, out of a group of 100 people who read the headline above, 40 will open the article, and of that 40, only 25 will do so much as move the mouse on the page without closing the tab. What’s worse is that of those 25 who remain, 10%, around three people, will not scroll down. Figure 1 below shows what the article from The Washington Post looks like if a viewer does not scroll down.
Figure 1: The Washington Post's article as viewed without scrolling down on a MacBook Air, 2013 edition in Google Chrome.
The numbers get slightly better on from there. Of the 22 people remaining in our scenario, 60% will make it to the halfway mark (Manjoo, 2013). In this particular article, that is 13 readers who make it 14 paragraphs in, just enough to get the proper information about the misreporting of coordinates to the U.S. Military, which is located in paragraph 10.
It might be that this could be called negligible, were it not for the fact that 69% of Americans get their news via the Internet (How Americans get their news, 2014). The distribution of users who report receiving news from different sources can be located in Figure 2. So, what are the results of these actions? Americans don’t trust news sources. According to the May 2017 Harvard-Harris Poll, published by Harvard’s Center for American Political Studies, 65% of voters believe mainstream media publishes “Fake News.” That number is higher per certain political parties, but in general, journalism is no longer seen as trustworthy.
Figure 2: American Press Institute found that a majority of the population receives news from the Internet.
Part of the problem stems from the political divide; as news becomes more heavily opinionated, it becomes more difficult to distinguish fact from opinion: News has become too interpretive, and it’s mostly unwanted. A study by the PEW Research Center before election day in 2016 found that 59% of Americans want straight fact from the news with no interpretation of the information whatsoever. But does that mean that rhetoric should be totally dissolved from the field of journalism?
What is Journalism?
Not necessarily. To understand this properly, we have to go back to the broadest sense of what journalism is and narrow it back down, defining each branch as it comes along. Journalism starts as a form of communication, which is taking information and moving it between people to create understanding. Journalists are technical communicators. They take facts and deliver them in a written form to an audience so that the facts can be understood. But, as technical communicators, their role becomes doubly complicated because the English language is not a scientific language. The language comes with denotations and connotations that change over time and vary by region, tone, sentence structure, and context. In other words, it is impossible to present wholesale facts unless you use only numbers, which eliminates the need for journalists entirely. No, instead they must be rhetorical. They must seek to persuade, but they must not persuade their audience of the implications of data. Instead, they must impress upon their audience the importance of the information they are writing about. Russell Rutter (2012) wrote on the necessity of rhetoric in the writing field: “writing must be conceptualized as an activity that by its selection and organization of information and its assessment of audience creates its own version of reality and then strives to win the consensus of its readers that this version is valid" (28). A writer’s, and thus a journalist’s job is to convince their audience that the information they are writing about is important enough to be viewed as impactful and that it is true enough to be reality. The importance here is that the truth cannot be sacrificed for this. The father of modern broadcast journalism as we know it, Edward Murrow, said “To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful.” It’s important to be truthful first, so that we can persuade people that our words are important. Once we have the facts down, we can almost start writing about them.
Audience and its Importance
After the facts have been gathered, it is important to focus on how to convey them to an audience, and so, a journalist must know what the audience wants. Kirk Amant (2012) wrote about the importance of credibility in international communication, but his ideal applies everywhere: “effective international communication involves developing materials members of other cultures will consider credible, or worth using. Creating such credibility is often a matter of rhetoric, or knowing how to present information in a way that different cultural audiences will consider credible” (474). To apply this to journalism, a journalist must know what his/her audience wants in order to be credible.
The Truth
So, to adhere to Edward Murrow’s belief of journalism, a journalist must be truthful, but what is the truth? The average dictionary gives something along the lines of “that which is in accordance with fact or reality.” But, often truth does not seem objective, especially when someone brings up “subjective truth.” But are there inherent truths that must be accepted by all, no matter what the self believes to be true?
There are two general camps to this argument that has been around for as long as writing. Adherents to the “consensus” school argue that humans create all existing truth through rhetoric; the truth that they know is built upon the persuasion and agreement of many. To those in the “consensus” school, a wall does not exist because it is there physically, but you “know” it exists because you can assume the existence of an objective entity such as a “wall.” The “objectivist” school, however, argues with common sense that because walls exist and constrain daily interactions, language has developed a word to describe this existence and thus rhetoric is affected by it (Railsback, 1983, pp. 352-353). I think it is clear that the latter is the case, specifically because of how languages evolve over time.
In this example, I will use Japanese. The Japanese people were a very private society, and thus were unaware of many new things that their language was incapable of describing. In fact, they have an entire alphabet dedicated to understanding words that come from different languages: Katakana. In large part, this shows that the “consensus” school of thought is inaccurate because of things like pizza. Pizza existed before the Japanese saw it; the earliest recordings of pizza have dated back to circa 70 B.C., whereas pizza as we know it was recorded as early as 1889. The first place in Japan to be certified to sell pizza was in 1997 (Pizza the way they make it in Naples – more or less, retrieved November 13, 2017). Certainly, pizza existed before then, but until it was introduced to Japan, there was no word for it in Japanese. Now there is. They did not know it existed because they had a word for it. They could see it existed before, and then they created a word for it in Katakana: ピザ.
Therefore, truth can be defined as something visible which affects the way of life and constrains it or expands upon it, which leaves rhetoric and language to be defined as ways to convince an audience of the truth. To hearken back to Edward Murrow, journalists must take the objective truth and explain it through language accurately enough to be credible, so that the information conveyed becomes believable.
Conclusion
So, no, persuasion in journalism and rhetoric in news is not too much; it is exactly what is necessary for information to be conveyed in a fulfilling manner to the audience, if it is done correctly. Journalists must adhere to the audience, though the audience itself has somewhat contributed to the plight that faces American news today. Sally Lehrman (2017) expressed that journalism is an engine of Democracy, that is, it was created by Democracy for the sole purpose of being a news source that wasn’t the government, and by and large, she had the right idea. Journalism is supposedly separate from the government so that it does not fall prey to the likes of “subjective truth;” thus, Americans have perpetuated the idea for the longest time that the media always tells the objective truth, even though such things have somewhat faded away now that principle-free enterprises undermine the role of accurate journalism.
Journalism, then, must enhance itself as the distributor of objective, true reality to its audience so that journalists can again become truthful, credible, and believable. They should tell the truth, and nothing more, which is precisely why rhetoric is necessary in news, because it is required to tell the truth.
Nature's Control
Clouds rolled in the reddening sky, the white-and-red-tinged edges on the horizon shading gradually darker into the grays and blacks of the cumulonimbus directly above. The darkest, in the center, seemed to be more a void than black; a gap in between it and its neighbor allowed Nick a glimpse at the atmospheric heights it reached for. At the top, a flash lit the air. First yellow, then red, then blue, a highly unusual color pattern for any sort of atmospheric light, excluding auroras.
A voice beside Nick startled him into looking down. “Is there aliens up there?”
“No, Joshua, there are no aliens.” Nick jerked his head upwards sharply back to the hole in the clouds, but it had closed in the time he had taken to look down. He grunted. “Why don’t you go back inside. We don’t need to leave for school for another hour.”
“Mama’s yellin’ at dad again. I didn’t want her to yell at me, so I came out here.”
Nick’s lips contorted into a grimace and he threw an arm around his little brother’s shoulder, pulling him a little closer. “What did dad do to draw her ire this time?”
“He got in the shower before her. She said she needed to go to work earlier today or somethin’ like that. I didn’t stay to listen. So, what’s them lights if they ain’t aliens?”
“Lightning. Rare lightning. Look.” Nick pointed at another gap in the clouds that had just opened, revealing a yellow flash that veined its way through the towering structure of water and dust. “The yellow is just regular cloud-to-cloud lightning. There’s nothing special about that, but what comes after is pretty cool.” A column of dim red light, almost invisible, shot up miles above the cloud. After that, a jet of brighter blue light shot up even higher. “That is sprite lightning. It’s one of the rarest forms, especially the blue jets. They form in the ionosphere, hundreds of miles above the top of any storm cloud due to an irregular charging and discharge of positive and negatively charged particles in the storm cloud.”
“What’s an ion sphere?”
“Not ion sphere. Ionosphere. It’s a layer in the atmosphere of charged particles. It causes stuff like the Aurora Borealis, or the Northern Lights.”
“Oh, that’s cool. Why’s it so rare?”
“The conditions for it to form are very particular. Basically, sprite lightning occurs when the process to make regular lightning screws up, and since nature rarely screws up, we rarely get to see it, but when we do, it’s definitely something to remember. In addition, sprites are very dim, and thus, very hard to see. We’re lucky that it’s still mostly dark outside, or we wouldn’t be able to catch a glimpse of anything more than the barest hint of blue jets, especially considering the redness of the sunrise.” He muttered the next part barely loud enough for himself to hear. “Though, these are a lot of strange occurrences to be had all in the same morning.”
“Don’t dad always say something about red in the mornings being bad?”
“It’s an old sailor’s saying: Red in the morning, sailors take warning; red in the night, sailor’s delight. Basically, the conditions that create a red morning are conducive to incoming thunderstorms that can be very dangerous, like the one we’re about to experience.”
A thick drop of water punctuated Nick’s final word, splashing on the tip of Joshua’s nose, who promptly giggled like the fifth grader he was.
“It’s gonna rain again. That means no recess!”
“Well, at least that means Zach won’t have the chance to pick on you today. Come on, get in the car. I’ll go tell mom and dad we’re going to school and we can get breakfast on the way.” Joshua flashed a wide grin at him before taking off for Nick’s car. Nick smiled briefly back before dropping his features into a dead glare with his lips downturned, eyes deadened by his half-closed eyelids and taking a deep breath. Then, he stepped back into the house.
Before the door could shut behind him, he was beset upon by his mother. “What were you doing outside?”
“Cloud watching.”
“Don’t you do enough of that useless stuff on T.V. in the afternoons?”
“No. I like to learn about the weather, and there is no such thing as doing too much of something you enjoy, mom.”
“There is when you don’t get your chores done. How many times have I told you to wash the dishes this week?”
“At least once a day.”
“Then why haven’t you done it?”
Nick’s face shifted from the deadened expression. The corners of his lips upturned and his eyes flashed slightly in the dim light of the living room. “I have. You seem to forget, for some reason, that every night when we eat dinner more dishes are dirtied. I have washed dishes every day this week and will continue to do so every day of every week I spend in this house.”
“That’s no excuse for me seeing dirty dishes in the sink. Go wash them. Now!”
“I can’t. I’m just grabbing my bag before taking Joshua to school.”
“School isn’t for another forty-five minutes. You have time.”
“I have a meeting with Mr. Garrick before class today. I’ll do them when I get home,” he said, simultaneously reaching down and grabbing his backpack from the top of the stairs leading down to his basement bedroom. Two years ago, he had moved into the basement when his mother threw out the bunk beds he and his brother had shared before confining Joshua, who was afraid of the dark, to the abyss for keeping her up vomiting with a stomach bug one night.
“Fine, but you’d better not have that stupid weather channel nonsense on when I get home.”
Nick just brushed past her into the bedroom she shared with his father and his baby sister. The crib was pushed into his dad’s corner of the room. He leaned in over the walls of the crib and picked up the awakening toddler, just over a year old. “Hey, little Emily,” he cooed. “Did you sleep well?”
The brown-haired little girl lifted her meaty hands to her face and rubbed at her eyes, nodding her head. “Good.”
“Good.” He set her back down in the crib. “Behave for dad, today, okay?”
“’Kay.”
The door to the adjoining bathroom flung open, bathing the mostly dark room in fluorescent light around the six-foot figure filling the door frame. “Hey dad. Just letting you know Joshua and I are going to school. I’m buying him breakfast. Text me if you need anything and I’ll get it on my way home.”
Nick’s dad crossed the distance between them and hugged him. “Alright bud. Y’all be safe, especially with this weather. Red in the morning and all.”
Nick hugged him back. “I know. I’ll drive carefully. Don’t let mother boss you around too much before she leaves, and don’t forget to take care of Emily before your Skype interview.”
They separated and Nick’s dad only grinned. “Hey, this ain’t my first rodeo, you know. I did raise you and your little brother, and I’ve searched for jobs before. I got this.”
“I know, dad, but I worry still.”
“You’re only 17. You’re too young to be worrying about me. Now get on to school and grab some money out of my wallet for breakfast. Save yours for gas.”
“It’s alright. I worked an extra eight hours last week. I have a little to spare.”
“Not a chance. He’s my kid, not yours. I’ll take care of him.”
“Look here, old man, if I want to treat my little brother to Bojangles, I’ll treat him to Bojangles, especially after he attentively listened to my lecture on lightning earlier. He deserves it.”
“You sure are intent on making your old man feel useless, aren’t you?”
“Nonsense. I just want to be helpful, and this is how I can help.” He walked towards the bedroom door but turned before opening it. “Love you, dad. See you this afternoon.”
“Love you, too, bud. Now get going; I’m sure Josh is hungry.” Nick reached for the handle, but the door swung open before he got there, smacking into his hand and nose before being stopped by his foot. He reached up to swipe at his now runny nose and could see the skin of his hand already turning a little darker with the first stages of a bruise. It came away with a shimmering red liquid covering it.
“Get out of the way!” He backed up slightly from the door as his mother slammed into it from the other side and she stumbled in, barely able to straighten out from her momentum. She glanced briefly down at the floor, then glared into Nick’s face, taking in the blood dripping off his lip and adding to the already present puddle below and said, “Don’t forget to wash the dishes when you get home, and clean up that mess you made on the floor!”
Nick grunted and walked past her for a box of tissues next to the door. He swiped them off the table, acknowledging his dad’s comment about cleaning up the floor for him by shouldering the door open and kicking it shut behind him. He rolled his eyes and got in his car, starting the manual piece of junk that was all he could afford after a year of working at the local grocery store. The rattle of the engine briefly disguised the deluge of rain that had just tumbled from the sky, but the sound was too much to cover up completely, especially with the massive burst of wind that howled as it dropped straight down from the sky, nearly pushing the rust-bucket car into the ground.
Joshua, who had been trying to avoid looking at his older brother’s bloody nose yelped and asked, “What was that?”
Nick answered, “A microburst,” but it came out a little muffled and stuffy from the drying blood in his nose.
“A what?”
“A microburst. A lot of water and wind all coming straight down at one time. It seems we were on the edge of it.”
“How do you know that?”
“If we were in the middle of one in this piece of crap, we’d be dead, probably. Luckily, they’re not very big, and they don’t last long. It probably hit the house, but it isn’t quite enough to damage it.” That wasn’t strictly true, but Josh didn’t need to know the utter disrepair their house could be in. Microbursts were one-in-a-million weather occurrences, so it wasn’t anything he needed to worry over. Tornadoes, maybe, but those were nearly as rare in the mountains where they lived.
Nick shifted the car into gear and slipped out of the driveway and onto the road, maintaining a velocity just under the speed limit to avoid any extra danger of hydroplaning. He flicked his windshield wipers on to the highest speed to see through the downpour now being unleashed from the void-like cloud above.
After grabbing breakfast, Nick dropped his brother off at the elementary school just down the road from the high school. As Joshua grabbed his bag and exited the car, a loud, rolling crash rent the air. Joshua jumped and smacked his head on the door frame. “Ow,” he cried, rubbing his head.
Nick frowned. “Joshua, run into school, and don’t leave the building until I come get you. Stay away from the windows, okay?”
“Is the storm that bad?”
“Maybe. That lightning was close, from the sound of the thunder created by its shockwave of displaced air. Better safe than sorry.”
Sensing the tinge of fear almost hidden in his voice, Joshua nodded his head and said, “Be careful, bro.”
Nick tried to smile reassuringly. “I will, now run along.” He watched until his brother’s backpack disappeared in between the double doors of the school’s entrance and then set out for his own school, reaching into his bag for some fries. When his fingers couldn’t feel any, he braved a glance down into the bag; it lasted no longer than a few seconds. He spotted some and grasped his prize just as another shockwave of sound blasted the area. His head jerked upright in shock, and a flash of lightning illuminated the area like the midday sun. In that brief instant, he spotted a large, smoking tree stretched out across the road. He slammed on the brakes, initiating a stop, but almost immediately began sliding. He cursed himself for forgetting his Driver’s Ed lessons and started pumping the brakes, trying to force his wheels to gain traction on the slick surface. When he stopped, his front bumper was mere feet from the tree.
Even from that distance the tree was barely visible through the streams of water that darkened his windshield. The thick clouds above blocked out all the light now that the outer edge of the storm had stretched beyond the horizon and the sun had risen to a place above them, and the headlights on his car were nearly useless anyway. Nick took a moment to thank Mother Nature for the storm being directly above him. Had it not, the thunder and lightning combo would not have struck in nearly as quick succession, and he would surely be a smoking, impaled corpse on one of the many sharp limbs of the tree.
Ever so slowly, with shaking hands, Nick turned the car around and traveled back before cutting down a side road detour. Just before he entered the school building, he took one last glance at the clouds in the distance. At the very edge, a low, long cloud filled the sky underneath the storm, barely visible against the darkness of the clouds surrounding it, almost like camouflage. Had it been on the eastern edge of the storm, he never would have seen it; however, its presence on the western edge meant it was highlighted by the greenery of the Appalachian mountain range in the distance. It was a sign of, perhaps, the greatest danger a storm on land ever posed to people: a tornado. The timing of events after a wall cloud formation are sporadic at best. Tornadoes can form anywhere between one minute after the formation of a wall cloud to an hour or more.
Knowing this, Nick promptly pulled out his phone and texted his dad: Dad, take Emily into the basement now! Make sure you have something sturdy to hold over you and her and grab the radio. Don’t go upstairs until you get an all-clear from the weather station. We’re under a tornado warning.
A few minutes later, his dad texted back: I took care of it. But, how did you know we were under a tornado warning? The radio only just announced it for the first time after you texted me.
I saw the wall cloud. Stay safe. Love you.
We will. Love you, too.
Satisfied he had done everything possible at the moment, Nick glanced at the time and read 8:05. He groaned. Of course, that stupid downed tree made him late for class. He shoved the door open and made his way to calculus, greeted only by the sounds of his shoes echoing in the empty hallway. Another roar of thunder sounded, rattling the doors in their frames. As he passed the remedial classrooms, he noticed a figure stomping down the hall and into the remedial algebra classroom. He locked eyes with the figure, staring directly into the beady black eyes of his personal version of Joshua’s Zach. Jacob had a habit of picking on the cloud-watching nerd every chance he could get. It was one he had built up since recess in elementary school, but now could only pursue in the mornings before classes started. Fortune smiled upon Nick once more that day; since he was late, Jacob was unable to pull anything, which meant he only had the two bruises from his mother to sport all day, now.
Classes passed as usual, with the storm intensifying as the day continued. Just after noon, though, in the middle of lunch, the lights in the cafeteria flashed above Nick. He assumed they had done the same in the rest of the building and was justified when they shut off for good and the administration announced that everyone would be going home early.
Nick raced for his car, eager to check on his family. As he sprinted through the parking lot, he passed by Jacob who didn’t even spare him a glance in the downpour, as he was too annoyed at the rain soaking his brand-new jacket and shoes. Nick slipped into his car and slammed the door shut before dialing the number for the elementary school. After confirming they were letting out, too, he made his way back through the side roads to avoid the downed tree and picked Joshua up, heading directly home from there.
He tapped feverishly on the steering wheel as he drove, hoping that his luck would hold, and his dad and sister would be perfectly fine in a completely safe house when he arrived. Joshua was uncharacteristically silent the whole way, picking up on his older brother’s tension.
When he arrived home, he dropped his stuff in his room and jerked open the door to his dad’s room. Seeing no one, he assumed he was still in the basement, and subsequently dragged Joshua down the stairs. Another rolling thunder punctuated the door slamming shut behind them and masked their steps coming down the stairs. As they reached the bottom, Nick heard the high-pitched squeal of Emily’s laughter accompanied by the booming bass of his dad’s. He rounded the corner of the stairwell to see them lying on his bed, with his dad holding Emily above his head and swooping her around in the air like a plane.
When he saw them, he sat up, pulling Emily into his chest. “What’re you two doing home so early?”
“Power went out at school, so they sent us home. I take it the tornado warning is still in effect?”
“Yep. I just finished my interview a little while ago, and Emily wanted to play, so we’ve been doing that for a while.”
“How’d the interview go?”
“You’ll never believe this, but it seems that luck is turning for me today. I forgot to turn the radio off during the interview, and they heard the tornado warning report. I was about to apologize to ‘em when all of a sudden they stopped the interview and just said, ‘you’re hired.’ I stuttered a bit, and all I could think to ask was ‘why?’ They told me that I had some kind of dedication doing an interview in the middle of a tornado warning and that was what they was looking for, so they hired me immediately.”
Nick’s eyes widened so much they looked like they were about to fall out of their sockets. “Really? That’s almost unbelievable! Congratulations, dad!”
“Yep. Only problem now is I’ve gotta break the news to your mother that we need to move. The job’s only two hours down the road, but it’s too far for me to drive to work every day, and she can take her job from home, so we’ll have to switch up everything.”
Nick grimaced. “Well, we can break the news to her when it’s not so stormy outside so we can get out when she starts yelling.”
“Sounds like a plan to me.” They grinned at each other and all three passed the time playing.
**
By about mid-evening, the storm had ended, bringing with it the reddest sunset Nick had ever laid eyes on. He was sitting on the porch watching the clouds dissipate in the distance when his dad opened the front door. He had his phone in his hand, and his face was as pale as the barely visible ghost moon rising above the horizon. “Nick, get your sister and get her in the car. We need to go.”
Nick shot up from the chair, a question springing from his lips, but before he could make a sound his dad just held a finger over his lips and shook his head. “You’ll see when we get there.”
Nick hurried inside and grabbed Emily, securing her tightly in the car. He hopped in the passenger seat as his dad pressed into the car and cranked it before backing out and heading the opposite direction of the school. Nick’s eyebrows furrowed momentarily before realization hit him like lightning. They were headed to where his mom worked.
Nick glanced at his dad, who caught the action and only shook his head again. They remained silent for the entire 30-minute drive. When they arrived at the Verizon store where his mother worked as tech support, Nick knew immediately why his dad wouldn’t say anything. The store, and everything around it, was nothing but rubble. Nick leaped out of the car as it came to a stop out of pure instinct and dashed toward the rubble of the store.
His father was right behind him, followed shortly by Joshua. He froze as a voice sounded from behind. “Are you Mr. Silas Drake?”
Nick turned with his father, feeling a tear slide, unbidden, down his face at the news that was about to come.
His dad answered, “I am.”
The EMT nodded and stared him in the eyes. “I’m sorry. We’ve called the mortuary to retrieve your wife so that funeral arrangements can be set up. I hate to say this, but it’ll probably be a closed casket.”
For a long moment, Nick and his father stood side by side and stared at the man, who began to shift uncomfortably. Tears began to flow more freely now, gushing from Nick’s eyes. He reached up and rubbed at them, frustrated at his own emotions. ‘I shouldn’t be crying right now,’ he thought. ‘She bullied, bruised, and demeaned Joshua and me. She controlled dad all the time; she made it so hard to be a family. Why am I sad?’
Joshua broke him from his thoughts, tugging on his shirt. “Why are you crying, Nick? What’s wrong?”
Nick turned to face him but found himself unable to look Joshua in the eyes, instead looking above his head at the storm clouds dissipating in the distance. “Mom… Mom isn’t here anymore. The storm… and the tornado. They killed her.”
Joshua’s brow remained furrowed in confusion for a moment before Nick’s words hit him. The transition from confusion to despair was immediate as tears flowed from his eyes. In the next moment, he shoved his face into Nick’s side and wrapped his arms around him. “Why?”
Nick leaned down and embraced his little brother. “I don’t know, buddy. With all the things I understand about the weather, I just don’t know why it hurts.”
After a few minutes, the tears began to slow, and Josh finally looked up at Nick. “Mother Nature is a mom, too, right?”
“What?”
“Mother Nature. She’s a mother, so she’s a mom just like ours, right?”
“Uh, I guess so. Why?”
“I was just thinking that if Mother Nature was a mom, maybe our mom is like her. She takes care of us and helps us, but sometimes she hurts, too. Like a bad storm. But, it’s sunny more than it’s storming, ya know?”
Nick released Joshua and rubbed at the excess moisture in his eyes again. “I think you’re right. That’s why. A majority of the weather is so good that we never really stop to think about it, but we always remember the rarities, when nature screws up, even though—“
“Nature rarely screws up,” Joshua finished.