Garbage that they teach you in AP classes

[JBI]

Personal reaction/interpretation. I call BS semantic games. When you're giving your personal reaction you're giving your interpretation of the events of a book. Personal reaction is just a different way of saying "interpretation."

The point of reading a book is to enjoy yourself and possibly open yourself up more to the world around you.

That doesn't mean an education can't help, or at least provide the tools necessary to effectively communicate something insightful about the book, as to increase the enjoyment of the text by facilitating discussion. You make reading into such a solitary pursuit, when ultimately, it isn't.

In that sense, the discussion allowed for Shakespeare to be a cultural icon, quoted in the streets during the 19th century. The grounds to communicate were set up by the education of Johnson, who marked the beginning of a sense of cultural rethinking (my view), and began a long discussion, creating a platform.

Likewise, the New Critics seem to have generated the set of vocabulary that dominates our discussion - we get words such as metaphor or tenor that are not boring, or do not serve to limit how to read, but merely act as tools for discussion, giving people the ability to express what it is they are reading.


Ultimately, that is the goal of AP English, or a first English education anyway - to give people a functional ability to read, write, and express. Post-Secondary education takes that further, and specifies it, and then Post-Graduate education specifies it further - one is gaining a set of skills relative to expressing ones ideas - becoming analytical.


I think people forget that reading is about discussion. The cultural texts that we have, that form what we call "Good books" are nothing more than the ones we find worth discussing with each other, because of something inside them that creates a second platform for discussion - the value is post-textual, in the sense that they invite an interpretation from the reader, and welcome one to a new entertainment based on a discourse of such interpretations.

Eliot will never be the easiest poet, in that sense, but he still is a great poet, because he has a knack for being what people are talking about, for coming up with ideas that invite a sort of conversation and interpretation.

In contrast, Dan Brown can be summed up in a few sentences. "Hero who has perfect memory and is great at solving puzzles goes around the world (substitute world for a few cities relative to the book) in a chase against time, in the company of a friend who turns out to secretly be the villain at the end, in a quest to unlock "the greatest secret ever told." Plot-heavy novels with no real substance don't seem to generate any conversation beyond that, hence why they are soon forgotten.

[JBI]

As a student you study the work -- some of your colleagues may need more assistance than you and you shouldn’t fall into the trap that most English majors do by thinking that you are above anybody else in the room. Go to class, study the work, encourage others, learn a thing or two, and move on. No need to argue or put anybody down.

Enjoy the class

I don't no if I can subscribe. For instance, I wouldn't agree now with my high school teacher's reading of The Tyger, knowing what I know now. There is something to be said of acquiring exposure and understanding - it is an education after all, and the point of the professor is not to entertain you for a few hours and hand you free marks. You are learning skills, and are tested on skills - sometimes the texts reflect what is relevant to the material, rather than what is interesting to read. For instance, reading texts on religious controversy, such as those by Tyndale from the 16th century is not the most interesting of literature, as Gascoigne is perhaps not the most fun poet, but is still relevant for understanding the history, and intellectual climate of the 16th century.


To assume one is just being entertained gestures to the problem of the system - you can get your entertainment from reading elsewhere, outside of class. That's where I get my entertainment in subjects I don't study, and anyone can go there for it. What you go to class for, especially in the post-secondary level, is to learn things you could make use of - whether it is how to properly write, how to do research, or whatever.

I wouldn't hire somebody because they had been entertained for 4 years.

That is probably the reason for the mediocrity of so many English majors - they think of it as some useless pursuit, and as such, lose track of the purpose, have no real connection to the material, have no real interest, and ultimately make nothing of it - many ending up with bad grades, or with nothing interesting to say, even if they show up to lectures.

It's not about how much fun you can have, but about how the class gives you a fuller understanding of a said topic.

It's the same way you wouldn't go to a math class to be entertained, or a computer science class to have some fun - you are learning to do something. It shouldn't be fun, it should be challenging, and you should have to work hard through it, since, after all, Undergraduate education is not about enjoying four years, but sweating them out.

[Drkshadow03]

That doesn't mean an education can't help, or at least provide the tools necessary to effectively communicate something insightful about the book, as to increase the enjoyment of the text by facilitating discussion. You make reading into such a solitary pursuit, when ultimately, it isn't.

In that sense, the discussion allowed for Shakespeare to be a cultural icon, quoted in the streets during the 19th century. The grounds to communicate were set up by the education of Johnson, who marked the beginning of a sense of cultural rethinking (my view), and began a long discussion, creating a platform.

Likewise, the New Critics seem to have generated the set of vocabulary that dominates our discussion - we get words such as metaphor or tenor that are not boring, or do not serve to limit how to read, but merely act as tools for discussion, giving people the ability to express what it is they are reading.


Ultimately, that is the goal of AP English, or a first English education anyway - to give people a functional ability to read, write, and express. Post-Secondary education takes that further, and specifies it, and then Post-Graduate education specifies it further - one is gaining a set of skills relative to expressing ones ideas - becoming analytical.


I think people forget that reading is about discussion. The cultural texts that we have, that form what we call "Good books" are nothing more than the ones we find worth discussing with each other, because of something inside them that creates a second platform for discussion - the value is post-textual, in the sense that they invite an interpretation from the reader, and welcome one to a new entertainment based on a discourse of such interpretations.

Eliot will never be the easiest poet, in that sense, but he still is a great poet, because he has a knack for being what people are talking about, for coming up with ideas that invite a sort of conversation and interpretation.

In contrast, Dan Brown can be summed up in a few sentences. "Hero who has perfect memory and is great at solving puzzles goes around the world (substitute world for a few cities relative to the book) in a chase against time, in the company of a friend who turns out to secretly be the villain at the end, in a quest to unlock "the greatest secret ever told." Plot-heavy novels with no real substance don't seem to generate any conversation beyond that, hence why they are soon forgotten.

I agree completely. Perhaps I wasn't being clear. When I talk about reading being for entertainment or for one to enjoy themselves I'm being very expansive with those terms. One of the things I always found entertaining about literature or any art form for that matter was discussion after the fact. I think, too, that part of the process of "opening up your world" through literature involves engaging and thinking about others interpretations, not just reading the text itself.