The challenge of reading a difficult text alone

If students and other folks in America aren't finishing books, what is the problem? Is it, as Professor Davis says, that we lack dedication and discipline?  I cannot speak for anybody else, but for myself, I will say that literary works can be tough to understand when I read them alone.  Despite my degree in English literature and a lifetime of reading, I sometimes need encouragement, assistance and accountability to get through a challenging text.
Help, in the form of written interpretations, university-level lectures, or discussion with a literary friend, allows me to enjoy reading difficult novels or poetry that I might otherwise abandon.  Similarly, accountability helps:  if I have to take a test or teach a particular book, I will read and re-read even the most difficult literary works until I have mastered them.

Different kinds of text present different challenges for individual readers, depending on that person's reading skills, background knowledge, and interest in the topic.  For example, if a child has an interest in a subject and has acquired a significant amount of background information on a topic, that student might whiz through a text that is overwhelmingly difficult to other students reading on the same grade level.  So a first-grader who loves dinosaurs may be able to read books far beyond his normal reading level, because he knows and loves dinosaurs, and he is highly motivated to master books about his favorite animals.

On the other hand, my sixteen-year-old students who love "auto shop" and messing around with engines can comprehend a Chilton's manual, but generally think that Shakespeare is impossible and boring.  These sophomores reject Julius Caesar because: the text is years above their reading level; they lack background knowledge about Rome; and they have no interest in Renaissance England, politics, or drama.

You can see, then, how for different readers, the same text might fall into one of three categories:
(1) the independent reading level (what I can comprehend and enjoy on my own),
(2) the instructional reading level (what I can comprehend with help from a teacher or well-informed friend), or
(3) my frustrational level (what I cannot comprehend because it is way too hard for me, even with help).


And the same text, whether it is Shakespeare or Chilton, will fall into different categories for different people.

As a fellow teacher, I understand Professor Davis's frustration.  Nevertheless, it is far more useful for an instructor to discover why students are not completing assignments than to blame society, technology or our students for their failure to read.  Today's non-reading students may be encountering difficulties because they lack interest and background knowledge, or because of poor reading skills. It's our responsibility, as mentors and teachers, to find out what our students need in order to be successful, and to do our absolute best to help them succeed.

Today's Links

Misunderstood Minds: Difficulties with Reading

Preventing Reading Difficulties and Reading Failure: Early Intervention and Prevention - lots of great information for parents and teachers

Introducing the book - one of my favorite-ever videos - a medieval tech-support guy teaches a monk how to use the newest technology

Why People Read (or Struggle to Read) Literature (Part 3)

Professor Davis has a theory about why students (and people like me) don't finish reading works of literature:

...in an age when technological toys dazzle our senses with colors and sounds, and constantly call us to come and play, books--as well as the activity of reading them--seem boring.  Books require dedication and discipline, two words that are not popular in our leisure-loving society (Davis).

I must respectfully disagree with Professor Davis.  Books aren't boring.  In fact, some books fascinate me so deeply that sometimes my husband wakes up to find me standing in the bathroom at 3 AM, book in hand.  A good novel can bring everything else in my life to a grinding halt for days on end.  The same is true for many of my friends and also many of my high school students.  Yet even the most avid readers don't finish reading every book that we begin.

If I quit reading a book, does it mean that I lack dedication and discipline, as Professor Davis so glibly assumes?  I would agree that that some students are unmotivated and lack self-discipline - but not me!  In school I was always an over-achiever. Nonetheless, I sometimes stop reading books, even an interesting book on a topic that appeals to me.

Today's Links

Literary Reading in Dramatic Decline

Reading in America

Bibliography

Davis, Jeffry C. "Why Read Books at All?" Wheaton College. Web. 12 Nov. 2010. <http://www.wheaton.edu/english/faculty/davis/guidance_for_students/books.html>.

Why People Read (or Struggle to Read) Literature (Part 2)

Although I agree with Professor Davis, that reading great literature makes for a better life, the idea that we can make better decisions by reading great literature seems a bit absurd.

Great literature is not an expert system, and exposure to great works does not automatically improve our decision-making. For instance, reading Romeo and Juliet in ninth grade did not have any discernible impact on who, or how, I dated; nor did repeated exposure to Hamlet cause me to reconsider my position on romance with royalty. (Okay, I'll 'fess up - I didn't know any princes then, so Hamlet's cruel rejection of Ophelia meant little to me). When I discovered D.H. Lawrence, I was entranced by the idea that sexual intercourse could include a profound sacred element; I seriously doubt that Professor Davis would consider D.H. Lawrence a positive influence on my life.

I often used literature to justify choices which would later seem irrational, regrettable, or hopelessly romantic. If you used my life as an example, you would probably conclude that reading good literature to aid in decision-making is a bad idea. Nevertheless, reading has had a positive impact upon me.

Upon mature reflection, I realize that those books and poems changed me, no matter what choices I made, and whether or not I remembered what I had read. James Collins explains this phenomenon as follows:

One answer is that we read for the aesthetic and literary pleasure we experience while reading. The pleasure — or intended pleasure — of novels is obvious, but it is no less true that we read nonfiction for the immediate satisfaction it provides. The acquisition of knowledge, while you are acquiring it, can be intensely engrossing and stimulating, and a well-constructed argument is a beautiful thing. But that kind of pleasure is transient. When we read a serious book, we want to learn something, we want it to change us, and it hardly seems possible for that to happen if its fugitive content passes through us like light through glass.

...we have been formed by an accretion of experiences, only a small number of which we can readily recall. You may remember the specifics of only a few conversations with your best friend, but you would never ask if talking to him or her was a waste of time. As for the arts, I can remember in detail only a tiny fraction of the music I have listened to, or the movies I have watched, or the paintings I have looked at, but it would be absurd to claim that experiencing those works had no influence on me. The same could be said of reading.

Fortunately for my adolescent self, reading helped me realize that there was a larger universe outside my own relentless self-absorption. Others, in reading, have also experienced a gloriously expanded involvement with something greater than themselves:

“It’s that excitement of trying to discover that unknown world,” said Azar Nafisi, the author of “Reading Lolita in Tehran,” the best-selling memoir about a book group she led in Iran (Rich).

Perhaps the greatest benefit of reading is that it gives us a perspective on the human condition that life alone cannot offer. Books free us of the constraints of time, place, culture, race, and gender to offer us experiences we otherwise never would have. The writer distills universal human experience into a single moment of sublime awareness for a character (Zahran).

Reading great literature is truly and deeply transformative.

No matter how independent or unique we consider ourselves, the truth is that we become like the people we spend time with. I once heard it said that who you will be in five years depends largely on two factors: (1) the books you read and (2) the people you spend time with....

If who you are is not who you hope to become, the surest remedy is improving the quality of the books you read and the people you spend time with (Partow 128).

Henry David Thoreau said that he did not wish to come to the end of his life and discover that he had not truly lived. As a result, he chose to live deliberately and read widely.

What better way is there to live?

There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by. A life of good days lived in the senses is not enough. The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less; time is ample and its passage sweet. Who would call a day spent reading a good day? But a life spent reading -- that is a good life (Dillard 32,33).

Today's Links

Interview with Annie Dillard

The Annie Dillard Log

Bibliography

Collins, James. "The Plot Escapes Me." New York Times 17 Sept. 2010, Sunday Book Review sec. Web. 16 Nov. 2010. <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/books/review/Collins-t.html?_r=1>.

Dillard, Annie. The Writing Life. New York: HarperCollins, 1990. Print.

Partow, Donna. Walking in Total God-Confidence. Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 1999.

Rich, Motoko. "A Good Mystery: Why We Read." New York Times. 25 Nov. 2007. Web. 12 Nov. 2010. <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/weekinreview/25rich.html>.

Zahran, Mary. "Why Read." Big Read Blog. National Endowment for the Arts, 18 May 2010. Web. 16 Nov. 2010. <http://www.arts.gov/bigreadblog/?p=1940>.

Why People Read (or Struggle to Read) Literature (Part 1)

A quiet evening with a book is the perfect ending to a stressful day, especially if I can enjoy a nice glass of red wine and a few bites of dark chocolate with my suspenseful thriller or off-beat romance.  However, not all my reading is so pleasurable.
Often, I read quite seriously.  I read "informational text" to answer practical questions such as how to deal with a parent suffering from Alzheimer's, or to answer questions that interest me, such as animal cognition.  I really do want to know what my dog knows, and how she knows it.  When I am perplexed by man or beast, I turn to books and the Internet.

When I feel frustrated as a writer, I pick up a work of literature which comes highly recommended.  Despite having a B.A. in English Literature, a MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry), and numerous teaching certifications, I find many of these books to be tough going.  Far too frequently, these edifying books pile up in my study or go back to the local library, never to be read to the end. 

You might think that, given my skill as a reader and writer, that I could finish any book.  Given my experience as an English teacher, you would guess (correctly) that I believe in the life-changing value of literature. 

That's true.  I whole-heartedly agree with Jeffry C. Davis that reading "good literature" does indeed "free students [and life-long readers] to be who they were meant to be."  Davis, like many English professors, believes that good literature teaches us how to live better lives:

If you want to learn about yourself, learn about others--people both real and fictional.  This way you can gain insight into their struggles, fears, longings, beliefs, habits, and relationships; then you can apply that insight as you make sound decisions for your own life (Davis).

You might think that, if reading literature could give us such great insights, we'd be all over it like ants on a picnic, and that literary works would outsell self-help books.

Alas, this is not the case - and if you don't believe me, check out today's links to current bestseller lists.

Today's Links

Amazon.com's Best-Seller List

National Public Radio's Best-Seller List

New York Times Best-Seller List

U.S.A. Today's Best-Seller List

Bibliography

Davis, Jeffry C. "Why Read Books at All?" Wheaton College. Web. 12 Nov. 2010. <http://www.wheaton.edu/english/faculty/davis/guidance_for_students/books.html>.

The Real Reason that I Read

If I were being honest about most of my reading, I would have to admit that I could probably find something better to do with my time.  After all,

Reading is absurd, isn’t it? Page after page of symbols. Voices in our heads that aren’t our own. Why persist? (Dodge)

Nevertheless, I read daily and passionately.  I immerse myself in novels about werewolves and vampires, detectives and fantasy heroes.  I read about failed marriages and middle-aged women, young people on quests, people struggling to survive and people trying desperately to save someone they love. When I discover a new author, I track down every title available from my local library.  Wherever I go, books go with me, and I cannot imagine a life without reading.

Richard Peck explains this addiction wonderfully:

From novels we want a better life than we're having:  more adventurous, more dramatic, ultimately more hopeful because a novel is the life story of a survivor.  We can experience real life without reading (Peck ix).

Another author explained it this way:

“It’s that excitement of trying to discover that unknown world,” said Azar Nafisi, the author of “Reading Lolita in Tehran,” the best-selling memoir about a book group she led in Iran (Rich).

I could lie, and say that I read for self-improvement, to "light the single candle of [my]self" (Bloom), but the honest truth is that I read for pleasure.  Happiness for me is as simple as a good book, a glass of wine, and chocolate. 

I can even do without the wine and the chocolate, if I have my book!

Today's Links

Harold Bloom, Interview:  On Books, Like Ill Fortune

On the Pleasures (and Utility) of Summer Reading

Bibliography

Bloom, Harold. "How to Read." Presidential Lectures and Symposia in the Humanities and Arts. Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA. 18 May 1999. Lecture.

Dodge, Chris. "Why Read Books?" Utne Reader (2005). Utne Reader. Jan.-Feb. 2005. Web. 12 Nov. 2010. <http://www.utne.com/2005-01-01/WhyReadBooks.aspx>.

Peck, Richard. Introduction. Anonymously Yours: A Memoir by the Author of Ghosts I Have Been. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Simon & Schuster, 1991. Print.

Rich, Motoko. "A Good Mystery: Why We Read." New York Times. 25 Nov. 2007. Web. 12 Nov. 2010. <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/weekinreview/25rich.html>.