Rekindling Reading

tomliamlynch — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 12:24:51 +0000

I went to a dinner last night with colleagues from graduate school. One friend was excited to tell us what she just bought. “A Kindle!” she exclaimed. “It’s in the mail as we speak.” A table of English Educators has much to say about the Amazon’s Kindle. The second model especially. From its marriage of tech and literature to its new ability to read aloud to the user. We mused about what technological devices like the Kindle do to the reading experience.

(The Kindle’s name, of course, is witty: while it itself is paperless it borrows its name from fuel for fire, something paper does quite well.)

As is want to happen in engaging conversations, I heard myself suggest something, that I hadn’t ever considered before: What if the sheer physiciality of reading literature factors into why some students resist reading? The very things we at the table were holding up as the greatness of reading literature–the weight of the book, its thickness, the smells, the turning of the page, the writing of notes, the placing of finished and unfinished books on the bookshelf–might be precisely what prevents some students from reading literature.

We English teachers come from a very specific perspective. We think reading is good, vital, and pleasurable. We have come to enjoy the physiciality of reading; we love reading books. Students often don’t.

Reading literature doesn’t have to be for our students what it was for us. (In fact, all accounts it isn’t already and surely won’t be in the future!) Imagine a classroom in which every student had a Kindle and could download any book they wanted in seconds. Imagine English departments that didn’t spend thousands of dollars on books, but invested in a limitless subscription to Kindle so that students could download newspapers as well as literature. What would students say are the differences between reading on a Kindle versus books?

I would love nothing more than to study this question. (Amazon, if you are reading, I have emailed your PR department with a proposal!) I imagine it would offer at least new insights into our students’ relationship with literature, and might even change the way we ourselves teach literature in our own classrooms.

“Electronic Gadgets” Jab

tomliamlynch — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 21:18:22 +0000

This week, when Chicago schools chief Arne Duncan was questioned by Congress for approval, Senator Lisa Murkowski commented on Duncan’s son, who was conspicuously reading a book behind his father. The New York Times noted that Murkowski commented she was “glad to see that your boy is there reading books instead of playing with an electronic gadget.” This must be addressed. Did Mr. Duncan say nothing in response in defense of new literacies, or at least the complexity of literacy in the 21st century?

I imagine him responding, “Actually, Senator, electronic gadgets represent a new path in literacy. Though we might think of them as senseless gizmos, there is much research that suggests we don’t actually know how such devices affect the mind. James Paul Gee’s research suggests that video games, for example, can offer educators insight into the way the mind learns. Donald Leu’s research on the way students read online versus on paper suggests that there is no simple correlation: skills in one does not translate into the other. Elizabeth Birr Moje’s research questions the relationship between out-of-school literacy practices and in-school literacy practices. In fact, if my son was sitting there reading Twilight on Amazon’s Kindle, I can’t imagine criticizing his reading device simply because it was electronic.”

He didn’t say this, of course. Perhaps politics dictates such hearings as the wrong time to pontificate. My worry is whether or not he wanted to say this?

Tom Liam Lynch :: New Literacies, New Literatures » adolescent literacy

Rekindling Reading

“Electronic Gadgets” Jab