A Thought Experiment Through My Literary Past

Thanks to hours and hours of bedtime stories, I was able to read from the age of 3. In kindergarten I read to my classmates, and by second grade I was reading series like The Boxcar Children and Trixie Belden. Books allowed me to get lost in other worlds full of adventure and excitement. My love for what words can do has extended through high school. I pride myself on my book collection, anything from Hunger Games to The Picture of Dorian Gray. I’ve continued to read all the way through high school, some books four or five times because I love them so much.

At this point in my life I find myself in an interesting predicament regarding my attitudes toward reading and writing; more so towards reading. Years ago I used to love reading books for pleasure but nowadays I find myself reading things that little to no effort to digest. This includes the very basic posts on facebook expressing one’s opinion on something or articles and threads on reddit discussing topics I find intriguing. Perhaps it’s the severe senioritis that has overcome me as I enter my last semester at Chapman University. As I’ve gotten lazier I can see it start to reflect in my everyday life. Deep down I still love to read but I rarely find myself getting truly invested into the action unless it relates to something I am very

My history as a writer began ever since I was in school. I have always loved writing. I also love to read. I find it easy to express how I feel on paper. Language arts has always been one of my favorite classes in school.

My experience with literature started when I was in the first grade. My first-grade teacher was named Ms. Young. Every Friday, all the teachers would come together to have story time and read the children a book. I would be so excited for story time because I would sit down with my best friends Ashley and Jordan, and we would listen to the teacher that was assigned to read to us. During story time, all the children would gather around in a big circle and the teacher would be in the center in a big brown rocking chair, and read. Over time in the school year, the children would read bigger and longer books like the Junie B. Jones series, chapter books, and the extreme level, which would be the Harry potter series. Sometimes I would fall asleep because the book that was read was very dull. I remember Ms. Young read to us the “Very Hungary Caterpillar”9 by Eric Carle. I loved that book as a child. It had great illustrations of the caterpillar turning into a butterfly. This book made me love reading for the rest of my life. Now in college, I love to read books. I only

Growing up I was never a big fan of reading, but as I got older I noticed books are very essential. They are filled with adventures and lessons that only exist in wildest imagination. Without books many of us wouldn't know half the things we know today. Books teaches us math , science, history ,and even how to use a computer or how to play a sport. With so many different genres to choose from and millions of books to read , the task of reading can never get boring, especially when you're actively reading

When I was younger, the amount of obligations upon me fewer and less likely to affect life in the long term, it was far easier to pursue my passion for fiction. School consumed less time, and the classes were introductions to various principles rather than in depth study. The books contained within the library of my elementary school weren’t great works of literature either. They were simple stories, with simple characters and events, but I loved them anyways. These simple things made sense, a comfort blanket that I simply had to reach into a basket on a shelf to find. When library time rolled around every week, I always managed to find three or four new ones to take home, and then read them all within a day or two. I had never been a particularly athletic child; I had the time and the will to devour as many stories as I possibly could.

I have made it my goal this year to read harder and older books rather than newer and easy books. I think that I have followed through quite well, though I did read a few easy books. Three years ago I purchased an Amazon Kindle Paperwhite I have found it easier to read challenging books. It makes books easier to read because, of the in-text dictionary I can look at the definition of an unknown word inside the book, it takes the words I have searched and, makes them into flashcards that I can go through later. By virtue of this technology I was able to read many challenging books such as the Three Musketeers, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, a quarterly synthetic biology journal, and many other challenging books. Fiction books I read mainly for pleasure, unless assigned or if it's a fiction wrote in an historic time period. I appreciate historic books because they offer an insight on the thinking and way of life of the people of that era. I also think that reading books written in an classical style influences your writing style. It is my opinion that some of today's literature has become more simply worded and not nearly as descriptive as previous eras. I found that in Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne there were many outdated theories that I had never heard of this gave me an insight into the ways people thought. I have two mediums by which I read first of which is my Kindle Paperwhite which has almost every

I was always a visual learner so I always preferred seeing something before I did something. Books were like movies to me, but better. As I read what I write it reminds me of the actual time when I started to read books, it wasn’t by my 7th grade librarian but by simply wanting to go to Main Event.

Reading was the new outlet for my imagination and the stories I read fascinated me. They weren’t too unlike the scripts of computer games or the own stories I came up with on my own, but books actually had the action and emotional aspects written out. And again, while my peers were reading things about growing up, things that had morals and would teach valuable lessons (I remember one book about a shoplifter who had to do community service at an animal shelter), I read real fiction: Jurassic Park, Dragonriders of Pern, Lord of the Rings… Stuff of fantasy and science-fiction that let my mind stray from reality. Stuff that kept my imagination alive while I was being forced to learn multiplication and the names of countries. Of course, my teachers encouraged me to keep reading, as long as I wasn’t doing the reading in the middle of their lectures. But it wasn’t because of their influence, however, that kept me interested in books. It was because I loved it. It put pictures into my head and made me think. So I kept reading. But even then I knew reading wasn’t enough… Yes, the stories were fascinating, but they weren’t what I wanted. Back then I wasn’t sure what I wanted, but as middle school came to a close, I found it.

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go,” wrote by Dr. Seuss. Whether it’s a blog, tweet, text, newspaper, novel, or a poem, people have always read to expand the mind. They read to escape the moment, to gain information, and to help direct them. On pewinternet.org a survey by Kathryn Zickuhr and Lee Rainie, show that in 2013 only 76% of Americans 18 and older have read a book in the past year. As I consider my reading experiences, I realized reading has provided relieve and comradeship on my journey, guiding me and forming my current feelings on reading. Hence my reading memories have befallen parable in my life.

Ever since I was in elementary school, I was never able to grasp what I was reading. It was always a chore and I would speed through it or avoid it entirely. The extra help I received was meant to help me provoke, my eventual, love for reading, but at the time only made me feel as though I wasn't smart enough to read what everyone else my age could. While most kids would push themselves to read books like Harry Potter, I was the kid who was still reading the Magic Treehouse series. It was through the assistance of my parents encouraging me to read 30 minutes every night that caused me to love reading and become the reader I am today.

Some people read to escape, others to learn, many to judge but all of them read with a purpose. As one grows we are able to put things into categories such as the type of books I do not like, the type of books I kind of like, or the type of books I really like. All of this categories narrows it down to the way we approach literature and life in general. Dr. blabla once said: “books are the source of life, yet the way we go about them is what makes them shine.” Thinking about literature I have come to understanding the way I read, meaning I use certain criticisms towards different aspects. Psychoanalytic criticism, Reading-response criticism and New Historical criticism not only have changed the way I see literature but improved the way I approach many aspects of life.

Books are essential to everyday life. They provide entertainment to the masses. They allow students to learn without teachers. They can contain anything that someone might want to read. Books have shaped my life and made me the person I am today. Just as Sherman Alexie found his calling as a child in books and reading, books taught me things that teachers couldn’t and were there for my learning when no one else could be.

As a kid, you wouldn’t see me without a book in my hand wherever I went. I read at home, at school, and while I spent the night at my Aunt’s and Uncle’s. Reading was one of my favorite things to do when I was bored, but as I grew up and was introduced to more and more technology, reading became a thing of the past. Reading in today's modern society is seen as something that is out of date and somewhat pointless. With the advanced technology we have today, we spend our time watching videos on YouTube, spend hours scrolling through Twitter, and mindlessly stare at the TV when we are bored. Even if we wanted to read, we have no need to lug around a paper book with us, as we have whatever we want right at our fingertips.

Literature and writing is one of my favorite subjects in school. I love the critical thinking that provokes persuasive discussions; the ability to understand and comprehend other point of views on a controversial topic allows me to broaden my outlook and opinion on world problems or situations. I’m an avid reader that can get enthralled into a good book that sparks my interest. Some books that I have read were, First they Killed My Father written by Luong Ung, Night written by Elie Wiesel, and The Joy Luck Club written by Amy Tan. I really enjoyed these books because they are novels that give strong narratives on real world situations that the characters experience. However, I was not always fond of reading when I was younger. Frankly, I despised it. It wasn’t until I met some very motivated teachers to help me understand the enjoyment of reading.