Why Are You Reading?
Many IB students misunderstand the purpose of reading at this stage. Hopefully, you have already learned to enjoy reading, and you already understand that reading is a form of entertainment. Since you already know this, it would be ridiculous for me to CONTINUE teaching you to be entertained by reading. Therefore, at this point, you must realize that you are no longer reading for entertainment. It absolutely DOESN'T MATTER if you are enjoying the texts you are reading. Enjoyment no longer has anything to do with learning about literature.
So if you aren't reading for entertainment, what are you reading for? Enlightenment. Knowledge. Better judgment. Deeper insight. A personal undestanding of and connection to other cultures, people, places, times.
If you're the type of person who feels like what you read goes "right in one eye and out the other," you need to become interactive with the text. How do you do that? You do it the same way you become interactive with another person: through communication. I'm not suggesting you sit down with a novel and have a heart-to-heart. That would be weird. Instead, make every effort to think, question, and notice all parts of the plot and character development. Be sure to acknowledge the setting and consider how that (the time and the place) affects conflicts and characters. Look for irony and foreshadowing. When something "rings your bell" as having been mentioned before, go back in the text and find where it was mentioned before.
If you're comfortable writing in a book, write in the book. Write your questions, thoughts, and observations right there on the page that inspired them. Underline anything that strikes you -- maybe it's funny, sad, especially well-written, or maybe it provides a link into some other element of the story. Below, I've posted a scan of a page in my copy of The Great Gatsby so you can see what "writing in a book" looks like.
The entire time you read, remind yourself to think "Why is this author telling me this? What am I supposed to get out of it?" Believe me when I say this: If you aren't getting anything out of a text that is widely accepted as "good literature," it isn't the text's fault. Millions of literary critics aren't wrong.
Why do you have to read every text twice? First, if you're thinking, "I didn't like it much the first time, so I definitely don't want to read it again!" then you read with the wrong purpose in mind. Remember: you aren't reading it to "like" it. There are multiple good reasons for reading a text more than once. The second time you read a text--
* You become more familiar with the characters and scenes.
* Some of the things that confused you get cleared up. Anything that doesn't get cleared up, make note of so we can talk about it in class.
* You can actually recognize foreshadowing.
* Your brain makes connections you didn't see the first time.
* You notice and remember smaller details.
* You can concentrate more on literary technique and author's style than on plot.
* You notice and understand more figurative language (idioms, similes, metaphors, allusions...)
If that doesn't convince you, consider this: At least some of your classmates will have read the text more than once. It will be obvious to everyone, once class discussion begins, who has read it more than once and who hasn't.
So if you aren't reading for entertainment, what are you reading for? Enlightenment. Knowledge. Better judgment. Deeper insight. A personal undestanding of and connection to other cultures, people, places, times.
If you're the type of person who feels like what you read goes "right in one eye and out the other," you need to become interactive with the text. How do you do that? You do it the same way you become interactive with another person: through communication. I'm not suggesting you sit down with a novel and have a heart-to-heart. That would be weird. Instead, make every effort to think, question, and notice all parts of the plot and character development. Be sure to acknowledge the setting and consider how that (the time and the place) affects conflicts and characters. Look for irony and foreshadowing. When something "rings your bell" as having been mentioned before, go back in the text and find where it was mentioned before.
If you're comfortable writing in a book, write in the book. Write your questions, thoughts, and observations right there on the page that inspired them. Underline anything that strikes you -- maybe it's funny, sad, especially well-written, or maybe it provides a link into some other element of the story. Below, I've posted a scan of a page in my copy of The Great Gatsby so you can see what "writing in a book" looks like.
The entire time you read, remind yourself to think "Why is this author telling me this? What am I supposed to get out of it?" Believe me when I say this: If you aren't getting anything out of a text that is widely accepted as "good literature," it isn't the text's fault. Millions of literary critics aren't wrong.
Why do you have to read every text twice? First, if you're thinking, "I didn't like it much the first time, so I definitely don't want to read it again!" then you read with the wrong purpose in mind. Remember: you aren't reading it to "like" it. There are multiple good reasons for reading a text more than once. The second time you read a text--
* You become more familiar with the characters and scenes.
* Some of the things that confused you get cleared up. Anything that doesn't get cleared up, make note of so we can talk about it in class.
* You can actually recognize foreshadowing.
* Your brain makes connections you didn't see the first time.
* You notice and remember smaller details.
* You can concentrate more on literary technique and author's style than on plot.
* You notice and understand more figurative language (idioms, similes, metaphors, allusions...)
If that doesn't convince you, consider this: At least some of your classmates will have read the text more than once. It will be obvious to everyone, once class discussion begins, who has read it more than once and who hasn't.