Gerald Graff: The Business Of Learning To Like Books
The Business of Learning to Like Books
Gerald Graff has had a distinguished academic career; receiving his BA in English from the University of Chicago and his PhD in English and American Literature from Stanford University. Throughout his career, he has taught at various universities and is currently a professor of English and education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Today’s summary is about and excerpt from Beyond the Culture Wars: How Teaching the Conflicts Can Revitalize American Education (1993) called “Disliking Books.”
When the author was a young man he wasn’t able to relate to any assigned readings to his life and once n college often found reading to be agonizing and foreign. He frequently failed to finish famous classics
by well-known authors because they did not bear resemblance to his own life experience. Graff regularly found himself dumbfounded and humiliated when called upon because he did not know what he was expected to say about what he read and why. The author admits that he found it hard to concentrate and did not feel sophisticated enough to have an intellectual vocabulary. Later in college he found that once he had been exposed to debates about the required literature, the reading became more alluring and he found it easier to concentrate. His interest was first aroused in an assigned piece of reading when an instructor talked about a disagreement between critics over the controversial ending of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The turning point for the author was when it was revealed that famous authors were also capable of making mistakes that even students could discover. Graff became more self-assured when he perceived that his thoughts as well as those of fellow classmates were comparable to those of famous critics.
The writer suggests that knowing about the controversy beforehand made it easier to concentrate and focus on what each chapter was trying to say. He emphasizes that in order to be able to comprehend what we have read we also need to be able to speak about what we have read critically and intellectually. Graff suggests that it is beneficial as a teacher to know how it feels to dislike assigned reading and being overwhelmed by criticism.
Gerald Graff has had a distinguished academic career; receiving his BA in English from the University of Chicago and his PhD in English and American Literature from Stanford University. Throughout his career, he has taught at various universities and is currently a professor of English and education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Today’s summary is about and excerpt from Beyond the Culture Wars: How Teaching the Conflicts Can Revitalize American Education (1993) called “Disliking Books.”
When the author was a young man he wasn’t able to relate to any assigned readings to his life and once n college often found reading to be agonizing and foreign. He frequently failed to finish famous classics
by well-known authors because they did not bear resemblance to his own life experience. Graff regularly found himself dumbfounded and humiliated when called upon because he did not know what he was expected to say about what he read and why. The author admits that he found it hard to concentrate and did not feel sophisticated enough to have an intellectual vocabulary. Later in college he found that once he had been exposed to debates about the required literature, the reading became more alluring and he found it easier to concentrate. His interest was first aroused in an assigned piece of reading when an instructor talked about a disagreement between critics over the controversial ending of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The turning point for the author was when it was revealed that famous authors were also capable of making mistakes that even students could discover. Graff became more self-assured when he perceived that his thoughts as well as those of fellow classmates were comparable to those of famous critics.
The writer suggests that knowing about the controversy beforehand made it easier to concentrate and focus on what each chapter was trying to say. He emphasizes that in order to be able to comprehend what we have read we also need to be able to speak about what we have read critically and intellectually. Graff suggests that it is beneficial as a teacher to know how it feels to dislike assigned reading and being overwhelmed by criticism.