Garbage that they teach you in AP classes

There is a difference between studying a book and simply reading a book for pleasure. There are also different levels of reading. I've always liked the old Lex Luthor quote from Superman: Some people can read "War and Peace" and come away thinking it's a simple adventure story. Others can read the ingredients on a chewing gum wrapper and unlock the secrets of the universe. The professor of literature's or the literary critic's experience of reading is not the same as the high-school student's no more than my experience of painting after years of art school and years working as an artist/art educator is the same as it was when I first walked into an art museum at age 16. Reading... books change according to the experiences you bring to them. The average high-school student struggles with the language of Shakespeare or even Dickens. After years of reading older literature (including Shakespeare and Dickens... Spenser and Chaucer) what was once a struggle, is now a pleasure... and I can grasp the beauty and flow of the language. When you are formally studying a work of literature, you are developing experience in different ways of reading... learning what to look for... learning that a book is about more than plot and character... its about language, and symbol, and formal structure, and atmosphere, etc... I don't understand the very idea that someone would imagine that having a deeper grasp of an art form would somehow take the joy out of the experience. Somehow I don't imagine that the professor of literature enjoys reading any less than the composer or the conductor enjoys music, or than the artist enjoys art. Indeed, I might suggest that they enjoy aspects and elements of reading that completely elude those with less experience.

What if someone doesn't care about the "language, and symbol, and formal structure, and atmosphere, etc" they just want to read a good book that may or may not give them some insight into there own life.

It's kind of like when I took my film studies class. I mean the different symbols and directing techniques the professor pointed out to us were cool and informative, but it'd be a cold day in hell before I sat down and studied a movie like that in my free time, unless by some chance I decide to direct a movie.

But it's all summed up by the fact that we're all different.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by spookymulder93

What if someone doesn't care about the "language, and symbol, and formal structure, and atmosphere, etc" they just want to read a good book that may or may not give them some insight into there own life.

It's kind of like when I took my film studies class. I mean the different symbols and directing techniques the professor pointed out to us were cool and informative, but it'd be a cold day in hell before I sat down and studied a movie like that in my free time, unless by some chance I decide to direct a movie.

But it's all summed up by the fact that we're all different.

---

This is a bit trickier though than someone sitting down and going out of their way to "study" a film or book or whatever. As someone with a literature degree, I don't just turn it on when I feel like it. I almost always notice language, symbols, formal structures, and atmosphere, etc. naturally as I read a book for pleasure. Not to mention noticing these elements makes the book more pleasurable for me.

This is a bit trickier though than someone sitting down and going out of their way to "study" a film or book or whatever. As someone with a literature degree, I don't just turn it on when I feel like it. I almost always notice language, symbols, formal structures, and atmosphere, etc. naturally as I read a book for pleasure. Not to mention noticing these elements makes the book more pleasurable for me.

Exactly. It is just reading taken to a further level and when learned it comes natural and is not something that one is overly conscious about. When one first learns to read, one employs phonics... sounds out unfamiliar words, looks up the meaning of words that one doesn't know. With time, one no longer needs to employ such strategies much. With time and experience symbols, form, language, references to other literary works or to historical events and persons no longer make great demands upon the reader. I am currently reading Dante once again. I personally find the reading quite easy... and pleasurable... for I no longer need to struggle with all the complexities (the references, the history, the form) that once was of the greatest degree of difficulty. I might also mention that some of us do not read as an alternative to television. Some of us actually rise to the challenge of a difficult work... we gain a degree of pleasure from it... just as some garner a degree of pleasure from solving a crossword puzzle or playing a game of chess. Other simply want their pleasures handed to them... like so much mental pablum.:D

The goal is to get to the point where you need as few reference works as possible to understand a text to a satisfactory level, the level of course various with people. If I read, I don't even think about plot, theme, character, etc. unless I am reading something which uses different conventions, such as Spenser's Faerie Queene, whose characters are Allegorical figures, rather than realist characters, so they pose to the reader a bit of an uncomfortable grounding in interpretation.

But in general, the goal of learning all those terms, is so that you can apply them without thinking. It is not as if those are difficult terms; there are far, far more difficult terms, especially when you get into specialized fields.

In general, most people don't need to know what an anaphoric or cataphoric novel structure is. Still, the basics are required. Though the AP classes from what I understand don't teach basic terms, like Vehicle and Tenor.

I feel more and more like AP courses undermine their students. Although I'm off on some of my interpretations of literature, those moments are seldom; I, like many in our AP program, are advanced readers. It seems to me like teachers baby their students through curriculum, practically giving away "appropriate" interpretations of literature, if such inferences are possible.

To me, teachers should notify students of the recommeded reading ahead of time and let students fend for themselves. Essentially, give the students the books and have them make their own interpretations. My 10th Grade Honors teacher opposed my interpretation of Antigone even though both mine and his "standardly accepted one" were both equally defendable through the text.

Of course, books have intended purposes; Siddhartha wasn't meant to encourage others to be naturalists as much as it preached patience as a pathway to enlightenment. Nevertheless, I always support allowing students to deduce their own opinions rather than accept "professionally sponsored opinions," as long own's own thoughts are equally defendable through excerpts from the text. I'm tired of being force-fed opinions that aren't relevant to me because someone outside of my understanding (although being a professional in the field) thinks their understanding trumps mine.

Psychology, or psychoanalysis as founded by Freud, certainly has solid grounds for its existence and investigations, but whether its present assumptions are true and precise or not, I am unwilling to comment.

What's all this emphasis on interpretation? The point of reading a book is not to create an interpretation, or arrive at a universal interpretation - interpret nothing! if a novel is written in English and English is your native language then it is already translated, already "interpreted".

The point is to say something interesting about the story in an essay, and if it is to be interesting then it must first be interesting to you, thus every essay is rooted in a personal reaction, an impression upon the reader, and the job of the essay is to reflect this impression onto the objective world. The word "interpretation" has been loaded so full of meaning that it no longer has any meaning, and it often becomes synonymous with "bull****ting".

A professor of literature once said to my class that the goal of the critic is to increase the reading pleasure of others. This is quite at odds with the lab technician image of a professor carrying forceps. And I think that as a corollary to this, the goal of the teacher - college professor, high school teacher, whatever - should be to increase the reading pleasure of his or her students. If the teacher is not doing this, then he/she is failing at his/her job.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ktm5124

What's all this emphasis on interpretation? The point of reading a book is not to create an interpretation, or arrive at a universal interpretation - interpret nothing! if a novel is written in English and English is your native language then it is already translated, already "interpreted".

The point is to say something interesting about the story in an essay, and if it is to be interesting then it must first be interesting to you, thus every essay is rooted in a personal reaction, an impression upon the reader, and the job of the essay is to reflect this impression onto the objective world. The word "interpretation" has been loaded so full of meaning that it no longer has any meaning, and it often becomes synonymous with "bull****ting".

A professor of literature once said to my class that the goal of the critic is to increase the reading pleasure of others. This is quite at odds with the lab technician image of a professor carrying forceps. And I think that as a corollary to this, the goal of the teacher - college professor, high school teacher, whatever - should be to increase the reading pleasure of his or her students. If the teacher is not doing this, then he/she is failing at his/her job.

---

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.

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 :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Drkshadow03

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.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by pooteeweet

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.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JBI

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.