JS

The school system produces products that have a bad view of reading but do not have a vastly worse appreciation for literature. Anything that is forced on a student and crammed into a schedule, can be labeled as work by students and literature should not be work because to understand the material, a person must be relaxed for the intended meaning to come out. When people choose to read books on their own they are able to make more connection and understand what the author is doing because of schooling but at the same time they have a duller sense of the whole book and reading in general. The problem stems from the lack of desire for reading and while reading, the stress involved. In my experience I find I hate reading the books assigned in school but I usually really like the books. It does in a way ruin some appreciation of the books but for the most part I would appreciate it the same if I had read it outside of school. The problem is that books are dulled and the books I read outside of school are much more interesting than the books in school because the feeling of work makes learning and teaching harder. Some people would argue that reading should be work, in that to fully appreciate a piece of literature, one needs to force oneself to look more deeply and analyze, but I contend that what the writer does, he does to produce an effect and to feel that effect one needs to keep their mind open and not try to focus to hard. The way I read is based on reading for the plot, looking for the imagery and making the connections to my own life and not focusing too much on the methods the author used. This is the reason I read fantasy and mystery; they focus on plot and imagery and allow the reader the freedom to make their own connections. This isn’t to say that analysis and rhetorical strategies are undesirable. They serve purposes; it just depends on the reader’s purpose. If the reader is reading a book for enjoyment then it makes sense to focus less on analysis. If a person is reading to become a better writer or to understand how other people might feel about the piece of literature then maybe it requires some analysis. Unfortunately teachers focus on the analysis and kill the story and don’t ask how the students really feel about the book without promoting a certain bias. The system produces readers who don’t want to read.