Reply to Why, oh why, do the schools still ask students to read so much fiction?

Forum Index » Schools and Education General Discussion

Reply to "Why, oh why, do the schools still ask students to read so much fiction?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]A history book about a certain time might explain events and major characters of the period. A great fiction text from that time might reflect on, question, critique, wrestle with the issues. A reader might actually gain a clearer picture of the events or a more profound commentary from fiction. There are infinite ways one can learn from the classics. Of course one should read non-fiction, too, but to say that Greek literature is no longer relevant is to say that discussing ethics and philosophy and family dynamics is not relevant. Yes, there are other ways to wrestle with the massive questions but, what makes you think the other ways are better? Or more profound? Or more complete? Or more convincing?

I teach literature and history at the college level. I never tell my students that I am trying to instill a love of literature or appreciation of art. What people take pleasure in is their own business. I stick with the more practical reasons. I am trying to make my students good readers of texts--all sorts of texts--so that they can become critical thinkers, so that they can spot contradictions and flaws in logic, so that they can take on challenging questions and stick with them and construct robust arguments, so that they can detect patterns of thought and become stronger thinkers. And I think that reading literature, and analyzing it, is a path to a higher order of thinking. I do not think that it is the only path. But I will say that I teach very bright kids from every discipline and they can all benefit.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics