The art of reading is both a conscious and unconscious experience shaped by our own needs -- immediate and long term. Moreover, it is an experience that is built upon our history of reading, whether by choice or not.
On the third page of The Last Page, there is a single line: “I am not alone”. The power and act of the written word both validates and challenges our own thinking. We learn about writing and the thinking behind the words by engaging with pieces of text. We are not alone because we begin to experience what and how people view elements of our world, what is directly and indirectly considered important and gain a better understanding of the content and context of the texts.
Scattered throughout my house are numerous books: some partially read, others read numerous time, others collecting dust on a bookshelf and some I’ve never that I’ve never cracked the spine. Many of the books I turn to because, consciously or unconsciously, I am drawn to them. I seek an experience that I hope that the books will allow me to have. Manguel’s (1996) The last page cites that “what the book told . . . , however fantastical, was true at the time of . . . reading.” Reading helps us gain an understanding of who we were, or are, or hope to become by allowing us to share in the experiences that the texts offer.
I spent the last summer travelling through England, Scotland, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. It was not the first time I had travelled across a large terrain and made sure I was prepared. I often view my experience of these journeys as an opportunity to get to know myself.
Arriving at Heathrow airport, my family was aghast with how I struggle with my suitcase up and down the underground stairs – “why did you pack so many books?” they mutter as I muster the strength to keep up to them and their lighter luggage. On this trip I had packed fifteen books. Before travelling I had selected books purposefully, not sure the order I would read them or where in my journey I would be when I did. The Buenos Aires Social Club, Into the Wild, The Five People you Meet in Heaven, The Last Lecture, The Tao of Piglet, The New Buddhism . . . the list goes on. During the summer months, away from dense academic readings, I read books that make me feel grounded; I want to understand who I am and who I hope to be. Reading books about other people’s struggles, fictional or otherwise, allows me to come to grips with my own life and see the choices that I have, or should, make in a different light. I do not know what I hope to gain from the books before I read them, but I am confident from the outset that I will have a deeper understanding of something by the end of this reading journey.
After many years of travelling and countless more years of tailoring my reading preferences, I am becoming more aligned with the books I want to read. But still, like anything I have read, I am drawn to readings because of a need that I seek at that time; whether I am aware of what that need is or not. I think that a lot of reader’s history is about this need: comfort with a particular author or subject or new experiences with others. Sometimes the need is determined from our own intrinsic motivation or is granted to us from another source.
Having taught English for half a dozen years now, I am careful with the novels I choose to teach. For my own needs and those of my students I find that I vary the reading content of my English courses each semester and often with each class. Each group of students is different: some want to experience the classics, others want something new, while others do not know what they want for their own reading experience.
I want to teach students books that they can connect with. I want them to view literature as not simply a hoop, but as an opportunity. I hope to help them create their own reading history that will allow them to be life-long readers. Further, as an educator I must keep in mind that, as Birkerts’ (1994) article The Guttenberg Elegies states: “a change is upon us – nothing could be clearer. The printed word is part of a vestigial order that we are moving away from – by choice and societal compulsion . . . This shift is happening throughout our culture, away from the patterns and habits of the printed page and toward a new world distinguished by its reliance on electronic communication.”
I know what I read when I was in high school and sometimes that connection allows me to teach the same novels and, hopefully, give students the same experience. But other students want something that is more relevant to their generation. Born Digital Natives view literature in different light then previous generations. As educators we cannot expect that they want to acquire information the same as previous generations because they do not acquire information the same as previous generations. The texts we select to teach to this generation must be purposeful to a changing culture, but one that still allows them to experience their own reading journey.
