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Reading "outcomes"
Apr. 9th, 2009 01:39 pmOver in ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
bookish (which is by far the best book discussion community on lj by the way) Someone posted a link to this and I think it's really patronising and really sad.
The article is problematic from the start:
I really don't like the assumption that to be productively literate, whatever that means, you have to be able to apply what you have read to your life straight away without thinking about it and turning it over in your head, and if you don't apply it to your life immediately then reading it was a waste of time that you got nothing out of.
The article then goes on to imply that novels are not important and they are something people do to while away the time, rather than people like novels and get a lot out of them.
I personally never read how-to manuals, business and personal development guides...and yes, even personal productivity blogs with the same mindset. The last three because they bore me rigid and the first one because I don't learn practical stuff from books, I learn practical stuff by seeing it done or working out how to do it myself. I do, however, read science and current affairs treatises, I read them for pleasure all the time and I find it really bizarre that the author of this piece assumes that I would read them in the same way I read all the other genres I'm interested in.
It really bothers me that everything is more and more becoming about "productivity" and "outcomes" rather than for the experience itself. If you take time to luxuriate and really engage with a book you will learn something from it, even if, possibly especially if it is a well written thoughtful novel.
I like taking books apart, exploring them, critiquing them, that's why I have an English degree but i hate the ticky box style of study that the writer suggests. I do take notes often when I'm reading, I mark pages that effect me deeply and I talk and write about what I've read a lot but i don't feel that I have to do that and if I did It would negatively effect my reading experience.
reading is an intensely pleasurable, intensely engaging activity for me and I don't want to treat it like a task I am getting graded on. Despite the fact the blogger tells us to treat different types of book differently he gives a list of things to do while reading each book, as if all writing is the same and we learn from all books in exactly the same way.
I find some of the points really patronising as well. People who like books, who read lots of books will automatically interrogate what they are reading because not all the books they have read will agree with each other. If people are not interrogating the books they read that is not a failure of the reader but a failure of the teaching of critical thinking skills in school.
I cant express how much I disagree with We labor under the misconception that we learn by reading; we don’t. We learn by using what we’ read. Obviously if you use what you've read your understanding of it will get stronger but you need to learn it first before you are able to use it.
The dismissal of the novel is probably what bothers me most about this piece though. The need for narrative and story telling is part of what makes us human. Narratives are the way we learn best, they enable us to anchor information in time and place and context and to relate it to ourselves. We need stories to be human and the erosion of time and space and understanding of the need for narrative really damages us, makes us less creative and less capable of connecting to the world and each other.
bookish (which is by far the best book discussion community on lj by the way) Someone posted a link to this and I think it's really patronising and really sad.The article is problematic from the start:
But are you productively literate? That is, when you read, do you learn anything that you can apply immediately to your life, or do the words and ideas just bounce around your brain’s pleasure areas for a while before disappearing like so many wisps of morning fog?
I really don't like the assumption that to be productively literate, whatever that means, you have to be able to apply what you have read to your life straight away without thinking about it and turning it over in your head, and if you don't apply it to your life immediately then reading it was a waste of time that you got nothing out of.
The article then goes on to imply that novels are not important and they are something people do to while away the time, rather than people like novels and get a lot out of them.
Not that there’s anything wrong with reading just for pleasure now and again — by all means, grab a novel and hit the beach. But too often we read important stuff — how-to manuals, business and personal development guides, science and current affairs treatises, and yes, even personal productivity blogs with the same mindset.
I personally never read how-to manuals, business and personal development guides...and yes, even personal productivity blogs with the same mindset. The last three because they bore me rigid and the first one because I don't learn practical stuff from books, I learn practical stuff by seeing it done or working out how to do it myself. I do, however, read science and current affairs treatises, I read them for pleasure all the time and I find it really bizarre that the author of this piece assumes that I would read them in the same way I read all the other genres I'm interested in.
It really bothers me that everything is more and more becoming about "productivity" and "outcomes" rather than for the experience itself. If you take time to luxuriate and really engage with a book you will learn something from it, even if, possibly especially if it is a well written thoughtful novel.
I like taking books apart, exploring them, critiquing them, that's why I have an English degree but i hate the ticky box style of study that the writer suggests. I do take notes often when I'm reading, I mark pages that effect me deeply and I talk and write about what I've read a lot but i don't feel that I have to do that and if I did It would negatively effect my reading experience.
reading is an intensely pleasurable, intensely engaging activity for me and I don't want to treat it like a task I am getting graded on. Despite the fact the blogger tells us to treat different types of book differently he gives a list of things to do while reading each book, as if all writing is the same and we learn from all books in exactly the same way.
I find some of the points really patronising as well. People who like books, who read lots of books will automatically interrogate what they are reading because not all the books they have read will agree with each other. If people are not interrogating the books they read that is not a failure of the reader but a failure of the teaching of critical thinking skills in school.
I cant express how much I disagree with We labor under the misconception that we learn by reading; we don’t. We learn by using what we’ read. Obviously if you use what you've read your understanding of it will get stronger but you need to learn it first before you are able to use it.
The dismissal of the novel is probably what bothers me most about this piece though. The need for narrative and story telling is part of what makes us human. Narratives are the way we learn best, they enable us to anchor information in time and place and context and to relate it to ourselves. We need stories to be human and the erosion of time and space and understanding of the need for narrative really damages us, makes us less creative and less capable of connecting to the world and each other.
