Fiction and My Reading Habits
I do not read much fiction anymore, and I would consider myself to be a non-reader. The only times that I read are when I have to complete specific readings for class. I do not find reading unappealing, but I just do not seem to have time to read a book anymore due to school. When I was in middle school and elementary school, I used to really enjoy reading for fun, and I specifically loved reading fiction. I remember that one of my favorite authors in middle school was Kiera Cass, and I loved reading her book, The Selection. It was a dystopian type of novel in the future about competing to marry a prince. I would love to be able to read fiction again outside of school, but I would need to have more free time in order to do that. When I got to high school, my work load and extracurriculars increased, so I did not have time to read anymore. I am excited that this course includes a lot of fiction because fiction was my favorite as a kid, so it will remind me of my childhood. With fiction, we are able to get to know the characters of a story personally, and I like how the story can be more imaginative and creative since the author is making the storyline up. Nonfiction is boring to me since it is mostly facts and real experiences. Sometimes reading can be difficult if the storyline is not interesting, and I think part of the reason that I identify as a non-reader is that I have not found a lot of books that interest me. I would need to browse more book titles to find something intriguing in order to get back into the habit of reading for fun.
I find that many students loved reading fiction as children, and then stopped. There is a lot of research showing that reading fiction is the single most important way that people gain empathy for experiences and points of view and cultures that are not their own. It's certainly possible to learn a lot about other cultures through research (and we will be doing plenty of that in this course), but I think it's crucial to combine it with reading fiction. I'm glad you're looking forward to reading some fiction again!
ReplyDeleteI relate to how your reading decreased as a result of less and less free time. The amount of books I read during high school was a small fraction of what I used to read when I was younger.
ReplyDeleteI can definitely relate with you on not being able to find the time to read for pleasure. School definitely can be the main culprit, but for me I think it also has to do with not being able to find good books as easy as I was able to back in elementary and middle school, which is something you also touched on. I, too, am not the biggest fan of nonfiction, but I definitely do see the value of reading nonfiction books in order to become more knowledgeable. It's almost like fiction helps you build your emotional intelligence, and nonfiction helps you build your academic intelligence.
ReplyDeleteI can relate with you on how it's been harder to find free time to read books. I remember reading every other day back in middle school, but then stopping in high school because I lost all my free time with my job. I now set myself fifteen minutes before bed to read a book, so that I can still enjoy books as well as sleep better without staring at a screen. Hopefully you can find someway to recapture your care for books.
ReplyDeleteI can definitely relate to not having as much time to read, with an increased work load and assignment requirements. I can also relate to the fact that reading something that isn't interesting makes the whole assignment immensely more difficult to get through. When the reading is boring, finding the details you need/want and getting through all of the analysis is so much harder. I, too, am glad that we get to read more fiction this term and hopefully enjoy the assignments instead of dreading them.
ReplyDeleteI feel the same, and it's not necessarily that I've run out of time to read books, I've just found that other mediums are much more time-efficient. It could take a whole week to finish a book and in the fast pace of the world we live in now it can be quite difficult to slow down and take the time to properly read a book.
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