Like to Read? Then Proceed...! 😊

Reading As  An art | The Joys of Reading😊

How we started!

Reading is an art! 

Yes! Good and effective reading is an art that requires a considerable degree of creativity, receptivity and imagination. 

In short, a creative eye/ a receptive eye/ an imaginative eye..!

Let’s take a cursory look at our tryst with reading down the years when we were in school.

During those good ol' days of our primary schooling, we were all initiated into the world of Oral Reading. 

Those were indeed the 'good old' days unaffected by most of the trendy gizmos of today! Sigh! 😊

'Eloquent Oral Reading' we call it. 'Blab schools', as they are called in the US. Teachers used oral recitation with special emphasis on correct stress and intonation. 

Then, students were evaluated based on how receptive they were to their teacher and they had to recite back with the correct yardsticks given by the teacher. In oral reading, the focus was more on an accurate recitation of the text, with correct pronunciation!

Then, we got promoted to secondary school. The shift or rather the emphasis here was more towards silent reading. 

"No lip movements, no mumbling, no noises!" we had our teacher - administering corrective measures. In silent reading, the focus of the student was directed more towards grasping meaning , which was the ultimate goal of reading! Comprehension exercises were also given and students were asked to solve them 'quietly'.

In short, we evolved over the years... in our tryst with reading!

Now, fast forward to 'reading as an undergraduate'. 

The transition to degree level is rather sudden... What with the shift towards reading for marks marks and marks alone for our final Board Exams in school, firmly implanted in our minds by our parents, teachers and well-wishers! 

The skills we had so far acquired in our schools, on reading skills, now seem grossly insufficient. There seems to exist a lacunae!

Herein, I would like to acknowledge my indebtedness to a great Professor of our times, Neil McCaw, Reader in Literature and Culture at the University of Winchester, and Programme Leader of the BA Creative Writing Course, for his beautiful, spirited thoughts on Reading at the Undergraduate level. His book How to Read Texts has indeed had a profound influence on me.
 
Your university/college professors sure expect a progression in their undergraduate students' reading skills! 

Students are expected to turn to the Critical aspects of the study of texts.

As Neil McCaw rightly puts it, 

"If you want to write creatively then you study for a creative writing degree, whereas if you want to write critically then you study for an English degree." 

He further says that, the moment the student accepts that the process of reading is inherently creative, it becomes clear how significant he/she is, in the production and interpretation of texts. 

And wow, that is indeed a splendid way of putting it!!

I just would like to highlight two memorable phrases here: "Inherently creative" and "the reader's significance in the production and interpretation of texts".

Again, I wish to highlight these two lovable phrases: :-)

"Inherently creative" and "the reader's significance in the production and interpretation of texts".

Once more, if you don't mind - 

"Inherently creative" and "the reader's significance in the production and interpretation of texts".

 "When you are reading something," Neil McCaw [in his lovely book How to Read Texts] asks you, to just remember one thing:

"That the process you are engaged in is extraordinary!"

 Well, yes... You are engaged in the extraordinary!! the art of reading.

“Readers have the power to create meaning; not just interpret meaning, but to create it”, 

he tells the student, and adds that the student (undergraduate student) should begin to read in a more sophisticated, more interrogative way.

Sophisticated reading! Interrogative reading!! Well, looks quite sophisticated perhaps! But it’s not that sophisticated as it seems, I bet. Real easy, once you start a ‘more rigorous engagement with texts’.

I would like to end this post with an insightful observation by McCaw:

"Some first-year undergraduate students say that learning to read in this new way for a university course takes some of the enjoyment out of reading, that they can no longer just pick up a book, read through and put it down without thinking about it more deeply.

‘I can’t just read for fun anymore’, might be the refrain. But by the end of their degree programmes these same students often remark on how they read with self-conscious rigour almost as second nature, and get much more out of texts than they ever thought was possible.

Which is a way of saying that any initial resistance you may have to this new way of reading is perfectly natural.

You are being asked to interrogate material rather than simply absorb it, and that is a much more demanding mental process.

However, the skills of critical and creative appreciation and understanding that you will hone and fine-tune as part of your undergraduate development will lead you towards reading texts in truly exciting ways, seeing sophistications and nuances invisible to you before, and as a consequence becoming a highly proficient, sensitive and creative reader of texts of all kinds."

Just go ahead...

Take a book....

Start reading....!

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Happy reading :-)

Acknowledgements: My sincere thanks are due to Professor Neil McCaw, University of Winchester, UK, for spontaneously obliging me, and allowing me to quote from his marvellous book How to Read Texts