MRBP #4: Making the case

This was first pub­lished in March of 2013. On our count­down of Most Read Blog Posts, it’s num­ber 4, in which we look at the idea of read­ing for pleasure.

The oth­er day I was vis­it­ing a high school class. When I was tak­ing ques­tions, a ninth grad­er asked me how I go about putting sym­bol­ism and hid­den mean­ings in my books. When I replied that I do not put hid­den mean­ings and sym­bol­ism in my books, the boy’s response was, “But my teacher is always point­ing out that stuff in the books we read, includ­ing yours.”

There are many things one can teach about a book: its con­text, lan­guage, style, con­struc­tion, its his­tor­i­cal moment, and so forth. The list is long, and pro­duc­tive. But to teach as if a text is writ­ten in code—a code only a teacher can decipher—is to tell stu­dents that they can­not under­stand what is being read. It makes read­ers feel dumb. It tells them they can­not under­stand lit­er­a­ture. Most impor­tant­ly, if one teach­es lit­er­a­ture in such a fash­ion, it robs a stu­dent of the joy of read­ing on his or her own terms and experience.

“You real­ly don’t put sym­bols and hid­den mean­ings in your books?” the boy asked incredulously.

“Nope,” I said. “I just want you to have the plea­sure of read­ing them.”

“Wow,” he said, as oth­er stu­dents nod­ded. “I wish you would tell that to my teacher.”

As it turned out, unbe­known to me, there was a lit­er­a­ture teacher in the class­room. When the kids left, she intro­duced herself.

I said, “I hope you weren’t offend­ed by my remarks.”

“Oh no,” she assured me, “I sup­pose one could make a case for read­ing for pleasure.”

I hope I did.