Analysis: A Revolution To Slow Down Reading

In Sven Birkerts writing, “The Owl Has Flown,” Birkerts puts forth something to think about for any modern day reader. Birkerts believes that over the years the methodology of reading has changed as the technology has advanced. In the older days, people had small amounts of texts to choose from, but read them more thoroughly, and gained in depth knowledge about each book. In this day and age, the scope of reading has broadened but at the same time become shallower. He believes that we now read large amounts of materials, divulging ourselves into all sorts of different subject matter, but that we merely skim across its surface gaining no knowledge. In his opinion we have gone from vertical to horizontal depth. He deems an increase in the

According to “Why We Read: The University, the Humanities, and the Province of Literature," Richter illustrates why literature should be studied in the first place. David Richter is an English professor who was very dedicated to his job. In this article, he had five section: English Literature as an Object of Study, The Era of Grand Theory and Cultural Wars, Reading Liberation; Teaching as a Propaganda, The Function of English at the Present Time and After the Culture Wars: The Problem of Disciplinary. The founder of English Adam Smith was not English at all but a Scottish polymath who taught English lectures in 1748 and 1751. The author goes on to explain all the knowledge about how literature became so important. He used those reference

-As readers we come across many details in literature that hole significance, however the common reader usually misses the deeper

How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines by Thomas C. Foster is a book that explains there is more to literature than just a few words on a paper or a few pages in a book. Thomas Foster’s book portrays a relatable message to a wide based audience. This book is relatable for two reasons, the way it is written and the examples it uses. The book is written in a conversational manner, as if the reader was in a group discussion about books and writing. As for the examples, they are informative, descriptive, relative, and entertaining.

Thomas C. Foster in ‘How to Read Literature like a Professor’, references the different literary devices that authors use in literature, in order to enhance the reader’s ability to critically analyze literature from any time period. Foster expands the reader’s understanding of literature by exploring the profound impact of symbols and common themes on literature.

New historicism is premised upon an ideological attempt to wed the practice of history and literary criticism. In this type of textual analysis, the literary work is juxtaposed with historical events (characteristic of the time period in which the work was produced) in an effort to understand the implications within the text. This line of inquiry serves to recover a "historical consciousness" which may be utilized in the rendering of literary theory. "Poems and novels came to be seen in isolation, as urnlike objects of precious beauty. The new historicists, whatever their differences and however defined, want us to see that even the most unlike poems are caught in a web of historical conditions,

　　In the essay “Reading and Thought”, Dwight MacDonlad talked about the kind of poor reading people are attached to in modern society. MacDonald believed reading materials such as Times and New York Times are too overwhelming for the readers. Readers tend to skim through the reading materials because most of the reading do not have any connections with their daily lives. Moreover, MacDoanld claimed that the readings people do these days are not thoughtful. The readings are rather irrelevant toward the readers. It is because the journalists to produce dull pieces of readings which are meant to be skimmed through without having too much thoughts involved. As the journalists do not have much consideration of the materials they produced. To the journalists the readings they produce are just a series of news that should be read driftly and left behind with no thoughful idea needed to be informed. These effects caused modern society to have a poor reading habits because people do not reflect and give time to think about the readings they did. Readers casually accept the readings even though they do not have provide any resourceful information for the readers.

While all fields of academia possess some level of practical application, there remains an ever-important and all-encompassing skill which is needed to truly understand each subject: reading. Though literacy rates in the US near 100%, literacy unaccompanied by tools such as context, critical analysis, and sufficient skepticism can leave one lost in arduous texts and vulnerable to flawed arguments. This notion is rarely rejected by anyone at face value, rather, questions regarding the implementation and perceived importance of certain reading strategies alienates differing camps. Many attempts at mitigating the dilemma of subpar reading comprehension have been made, most notably, Daniel Willingham's proposed reform of early education, Michael

In his piece entitled “ Disliking books” Gerald Graff, a professor of English and education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, tells his story of how with some helpful insights he shifted from disliking literature to enjoying reading and analyzing the texts. The author shares that during his early school years he developed an aversion to literature as well as most liberal arts disciplines for not being able to find their application in his daily life. Coming from a middle class family, it was expected that young Graff would go to college. Since no particular discipline really interested him and his family did not own a business to set him up on a successful business path, he decided to major

Carr brings in Maryanne Wolf a psychologist at a University also a writer to speak on her opinion of matter. Wolf directly said “we are how we read” (Carr), Meaning that if we continue to put technology and that efficiency over education and understanding our mental capabilities will continue to decrease over time, we are seeing people struggling with their abilities to understand the words printed before them, people can't make the same kind of connections from one topic to the other like they used to be and no one can read an entire book let alone an article like this one without getting distracted by the smallest

Throughout the article Carr establishes the mental process of what reading used to be, and now the modern technology reading. Before one is immersed in the tech world, reading books and newspapers was easy, flying through the books and need to run to the local library. Nowadays, teenagers, and adults all resorts to the Web. Whether it is a blog, social media post, or the online newspaper, many tend to read the bare minimum. Some may complain about the comment or caption is longer than a paragraph. Readers in today’s age

Richard Rodriguez, in the passage “Remedial Reading” from his autobiography “Hunger of Memory”(1982), promotes active reading as a developer of one’s mind. He justifies his position by describing his initial experiences with reading, specifically his attachment to the reading. Rodriguez’s anecdote functions as an encourager of stubborn minds trying to read and displaying its potential to change their life for the better. Rodriguez uses a very descriptive style that may be too verbose for children but compliments the verbosity with enough explanation of his purpose for his message to be known or ascertained.

In Dwight MacDonald’s Reading and Though, he disagrees with Henry Luce’s Idea of functional curiosity. Luce coined the term “functional curiosity,” meaning “the kind of searching, hungry interest in what is happening everywhere.” MacDonald’s opinion of functional curiosity is that it only encourages practice in reading rather than giving beneficial information. He considers today’s literature as flimsy and overwhelming. MacDonald assumes that all reading done in today’s society is “shallow thinking.” I agree with MacDonald that there is a great amount of mediocre literature floating around, but he does not take into account the technological advancements, the lifestyles of people today, and students.

In the article On Refusing to Read written by Amy Hungerford (2016), the author argues that with amount of books being published nowadays but the limited time and energy being devoted and social factors being involved, scholars and intellectuals refuse to take time considering the value of the books that they choose, instead, doing research on those that are commonly accepted by normal public in order to make their articles published more easily and to enhance the reputation. Amy (2016) also claims that the narrow choices of the books may cause more valuable ones to be buried. Meanwhile, the visual text, delivered by Jerome Corgier (2016), shows that an upside down umbrella holds a bunch of English words but some overflow from it, which conveys that accepting every piece of information is inefficient and inept. Both texts agree that the abundant outside information influence readers’ selection on books they read. However, the visual text emphasizes more on the imbalance of what individuals take in and what they refuse to read; the article mainly argues the interaction between social forces and scholars’ personal choice towards reading books.

Reading has at all times and in all ages been a source of knowledge, of happiness, of pleasure and even moral courage. In today's world with so much more to know and to learn and also the need for a conscious effort to conquer the divisive forces, the importance of reading has increased. In the olden days if reading was not cultivated or encouraged, there was a substitute for it in the religious sermon and in the oral tradition. The practice of telling stories at bed time compensated to some extent for the lack of reading. In the nineteenth century Victorian households used to get together for an hour or so in the evenings and listen to books being read aloud. But today we not only read, we also want to read more and more and catch up