Empathize to Enjoy

A constant struggle in the world of school English classes is the topic of getting students to enjoy reading. A question that Kat and I are pondering is, “How might we enjoy the reading we do for school just as much as the reading we do on our own?” To think about this question, I’d like to spend a minute to reflect on some of the past 5 books I’ve read that I’ve really enjoyed:

Hamlet:

Of all of the pieces on this list, Hamlet is the one I read the longest time ago, in fact we read the play during my freshman year English class. However, last year we did a 15 Minute version of the show for a one act play competition that refreshed my memory and rekindled my love for this great show. Shakespeare can often be confusing to read, and I’ll admit that there were time when it was quite confusing, but I think I actually enjoyed this piece more because we read it in class, which goes against most opinions on school reading. By reading the show in class, we were able to better go through what it meant, and we even had some fun with it by acting out the occasional scene. It is also because of this show that I was introduced to wordpress because we wrote blog entries for different scenes to help us connect even more with the show, so this show will always be important to me as being my first blogging experience.

Mort:

Mort was a fantastic fantasy book written by Terry Pratchet about the character Death who takes on an apprentice named Mort who accidentally messes up the fabric of space and time when he tries to save a princess from dying when she was suppose to. The book was hilarious and super engaging to read! I honestly couldn’t put it down and finished the entire book in about 3 days over summer vacation two summers ago. The cool part was that this book was then our fall show in drama that year (actually that’s why I read it in the first place), so I got to later explore these characters even more once we got into the production. If you’re at all curious, I played the princess, Kelli.

Moonwalking with Einstein:

This past summer I finally finished a fascinating book called Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer. This book was a narrative in which Foer told the story of how he went from just a journalist that struggled remembering where his car keys were, to becoming the USA national memory champion. I think I enjoyed this book so much because it made me think and ponder really deeply while still giving a genuinely interesting story that also made me frequently laugh. The book made me really curious about the art of memory and actually inspired me to do more research on memory and mental athletes.

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: 

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy was actually a piece that I read for summer reading for school, but I really enjoyed it. This science fiction book took complex math and science theories and lots of imagination and created an arguably confusing, yet still entertaining, book about a man named Arthur Trent who gets rapped into a crazy adventure in space. During our summer reading book discussion once we got back to school, many students said they didn’t get the book at all and it was just too random for them; however, the randomness of the book is actually what kept me engaged to keep reading. I think the randomness was meant to get the reader to empathize with the main character who had absolutely no idea what was going on and had to keep struggling to put together the bits and pieces of information that he got as he traveled across the galaxy. While I didn’t feel motivated enough to read the sequels to the book, mainly because the first book just didn’t leave me on a cliff hanger wanting to read more, I would still strongly suggest this book especially to people interested in complex ideas and philosophy.

Beast on the Moon:

Currently at school I’m working on a play called Beast on the Moon by Richard Kalinoski. I typically enjoy all of the shows that I’m in, but this one in particular was written extremely well. The show takes place in Milwaukee a few years after the Armenian genocide and follows the story of Aram and Seta Tomasian on their journey to creating a new life and family for themselves in America. It is a powerful piece that beautifully captures the characters grief, pain, and hope. Every line is very purposeful with no meaningless filler which makes the piece stand out so much to me, and I can’t wait to preform it in a few weeks.

What I find interesting about this list is that 3 of the pieces are all plays, and only one of them actually has no relation to school, and yet I would still say overall I don’t as often enjoy my school required books. The truth is that I have just read many more books in the past few years due to school reading rather than pleasure reading, but the pleasure books I have read were all fantastic while I couldn’t say the same about my school reading.

I think when I’m reading a script, it is easier for me to relate with characters and visualize stories which makes them really engaging and interesting to me. Putting on a show also makes it really memorable compared to just some book you read for a class. I think I have so many plays on this list because I’m currently stressing/excited for my show in 2 weeks, and once I thought of one, the others all started popping into my memory as well. Thus I didn’t even get to talk about other phenomenal books I read like the Falconer by Grant Lichtman.

I also notice the common threads of humor in several of these pieces which helped me enjoy a book, as well as books that made me really think and ponder deep ideas. Reflecting on ideas further often helps me gain appreciation for a book as well, which makes sense as to why these pieces were all chosen since I blogged at least once about each of these books in the past.

These realizations make me wonder if the best way to help students enjoy school reading is to do more activities to get students to relate to characters and ponder the choices that the characters have to make. With plays this is easier because students could just act out scenes or try to modernize and turn a new twist on a timeless tale. For other books I wonder if students could do activities from the perspective of a specific character, or take a character and try to place them in a different story and think about how that would effect the situation.

It’s funny because I had a moment of realization of how I’m thinking like a designer currently, because all I can think of is how empathy is the key to making strong connections. If this is true for life and designing, it seems to make sense that if you empathize with characters in a book, you will learn to enjoy the full story more as well.

Styles of Reading

At some point in time I think everyone has read something they didn’t like. The question is though, “Do we need to like everything we read?” In short, I think not, but with a few caveats which I will get to later.

I think an important part to any question you answer is to understand the question being asked. In this case it is important to note that there are different kinds of reading that we do: reading for entertainment, research, communication, and just reading to grow as a reader and writer. I think for every type of reading, there is a different way to answer this big question of if we need to like what we read. By “like” referring to enjoying the style and language that an author uses, which means that you could potentially “like” something that you don’t agree with opinion wise.

If you are reading solely for entertainment, then it seems somewhat obvious that you need to enjoy what you’re reading. If you are just reading for fun, and you don’t enjoy the reading, then you probably aren’t having fun, so why are you reading it at all? If I find a book that I think I will enjoy, but then I read a little and think it is boring, then I often just stop a book right then and there. There is no reason to waste time by being bored and maybe even annoyed with what you are doing if you don’t have to do it.

If you are reading for research, then you also on some level need to enjoy the style and language of what you are reading even if you don’t agree with the opinions and ideas stated in the text. When you don’t enjoy the style of writing, then it is easy to get bored or distracted while reading, and thus you won’t really be getting the most out of the information that you are reading. The point of research is to gain knowledge on a topic, and this doesn’t have to be a disgruntling task.

Reading for communication, however, such as emails, texts, or other online messaging systems, you don’t have to like. This kind of reading is more work related and just has to be done, so no matter how bad the writing is, you will have to read it to get the information. On the bright side, typically when you read for communication purposes, you are reading shorter pieces of writing, so it isn’t as hard to read things you don’t like.

Finally, you could be reading just to grow as a reader and/or writer. In this case, it is okay and sometimes necessary to read things you don’t particularly like. It can even be helpful to occasionally read pieces you don’t like so that you can examine why you don’t like them. By analyzing what you think of different pieces of writing you can learn more about yourself while also learning techniques for better writing so you can potentially reach wider audiences.

While you definitely pay better attention and probably learn more from reading things you like, there will often be times in your life when you have to read things that you do not like. Pleasure reading and research reading are styles of reading that would be better if you enjoy what you are reading, but communications and reading to improve your own craft will often require you to read things you do not enjoy. So, “Do you have to like everything you read?,” well no, because since there are times where you won’t enjoy it then that means overall you don’t always have to like what you read. Reading is just another part of life; you won’t always enjoy it, but you have to push past the bad to get to the great.

100-Hours of Purpose

Thomas Both believes he has had a great idea, and he wants to persuade other avid learners about why his concept is worth believing in and maybe even trying out for yourself. It’s called  The 100-Hour Knack, and his claim is that “with a 100 hours of investment into a new skill or practice, you can hit a tipping point, where you start getting more out of the practice than what you put in.” 

To convince his audience, Both uses examples that everyone can understand and relate to like riding a bike, public speaking, or playing a musical instrument to illustrate skills that could be obtained at a level of proficiency after spending 100 hours practicing them. He also uses personal experiences to go into more detail on how, after enough time spent practicing, “I unexpectedly found myself sketching for other things: my friend’s baby shower, my class syllabus, and more.”  Sketching became a natural, reflexive part of Both’s life and he believes that others can have this same experience if they spend 100 hours practicing a skill. By talking about personal experiences, the reader is able to empathize with the author at a deeper level which effectively helps a reader understand the point he is trying to make about The 100-Hour Knack concept.

A key element to persuading an audience is to gain a readers’ trust, because a successful argument needs supporters. Both gains trust from his readers by using an honest voice in his writing. He demonstrates honesty while talking about the struggle before gaining a knack: “You will, in fact, put in more time, effort, and struggle in the beginning than the initial results would seem to justify.”  The reader at this point knows the challenges involved with becoming capable at a skill, but they also know that the challenges are able to be overcome. Both likes to look at these challenges as simply the learning process; simple, because people are learning everyday, so these challenges are synonymous to the everyday challenges of life. The simplicity at which Both describes the challenges make the challenges seem well worth the gain in the long run.

What may be most advantageous to Both’s argument is the reference to psychological research by Anders Ericsson. In Ericsson’s research he eradicates the myth that after 10,000 hours someone can achieve a mastery level at a given skill. The core of the argument being that research has proven that only about 12% of mastery and subsequent success is achieved from pure practice, and other factors such as age, intelligence, and talent play a larger role in achieving “mastery level”. With this in mind, if you were to think of that 12% as being the “knack” part of achieving mastery, then Both’s argument makes sense of spending 100 hours to reach the tipping point at which something becomes a kin to muscle memory.

To be honest, (like Both), I don’t really know how to end this blog post. It was interesting to examine Both’s writing technique further after already talking about the meaning of the article during ID, and I would definitely recommend the 100-Hour Knack to others because it was a great read!