Tuesday, July 12, 2016
Reading Lenses
This week, I want you to think about your reading. As we read, we add what we learn to all that has come before: what we've already read of the text, our knowledge of its contexts, and the wealth of knowledge that shapes us as knowers. Parts of this process are automatic, and we also have the ability to consciously shape the lens through which we read and understand. As you may have discussed in your English courses, critical theory offers different approaches to how we choose to understand and analyze a text. If you'd like, you can learn more about this from Professor Kristi Siegel's succinct and clear overview of approaches to literary criticism. For this week's post, I'd like you to consider your English summer reading book (or, if you didn't start reading that book as soon as June arrived, another book you're reading. You are reading a book, right?). First, examine the ways you naturally process what the text offers. What ways of knowing do you employ, and why? Next, consider another perspective--or lens--through which you might view the same text. How does this new perspective alter the ways of knowing at work? Finally, extract a knowledge question from your observations and analyses. Please post your response by the end of Sunday 17 July.
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When I read Black as me on the train, I just though about "I have my summer reading and I will travel for five hours, so why not?". The I started reading the book. At first, I used sense perception and emotion to read it. Because I read with my eyes, and tried not to be disturb by circumstance. As I feeling I was soaking in the world of book, I started to use my imagination and reasoning to "read" book. The book is about a white American undercovered himself as an African American. While I was reading the lines where he walked on the street, tried not to look at white women, I pictured the scene to make me feel the intensity. And I realized how hard it was to live in that time period as an African American.
ReplyDeleteWe read book all in different ways, but the process is eventually the same-to fully understand a book, readers need to get involve in the setting of the book, from shallow to profound. Especially in this book, it began with plain text, and made me quite weary; however, as the author started doubting relationship between blacks and white, I became more involved in the book because the text caught my attention. This process made me think To what extent can imagination justify the way studying ethics in passive ways.
I read a book called Letters of a Businessman to His Son which my father recommended to me. It is a composite of thirty letters written by a man who owns a successful medical company to his own son who also works at the same company to be a great businessman like his father. Each letter has a great advices on business and also on the life in general. When I first read this book, I used language to understand what the author was talking about and reasoning to interpret what the author said with my own logic. However, when I read the book again, I realized that I also used my emotion as a lens to analyse the book. My father is also a businessman who I respect a lot. Therefore, I felt like my father was giving me the advices instead of the author while I was reading. When I thought in this way, I could accept what the author said more smoothly.
ReplyDeleteKQ: How using the emotion as a way of knowing affect on one’s acceptance of the knowledge?
When we have a positive emotion, we are likely to accept the knowledge without enough justification. On the other hand, when we have a negative emotion, we can possibly deny the knowledge without a certain reason. It is a good thing to use emotion when we read because we can get into the text more, but at the same time, we have to be careful not to ruin our interpretations by our emotions.
I am re-reading a book that we read in English class called Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi. It discusses her life within the patriarchy and how her gender and social class affect her prosperity. When I first read books, I read the text from a face point of view. I avoid looking too deep into the text in the beginning for chance that I may misinterpret the overall message. I use reasoning and language to help guide me into understanding the background of the story before analyzing different aspects. In the story, I believe her social class was primarily the reason why she was not able to fully prosper. Others believe it is her gender. Since she was constantly sexualized and abused, she was weak and surrounded by controlling men. This may invoke ways of knowing such as emotion as one observes the suffering El Saadawi undergoes due to abuse. Some may analyze that if she was a man, these events would never occur tying it back to her gender being a setback.
ReplyDeleteKQ: How does emotion affect the way we interpret and analyze ethical events?
KQ: To what extent can personal beliefs affect reasoning when analyzing a text?
This summer I read a book called Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger. I started out reading with reason and language. I had read a previous series written by this author and really enjoyed it so I thought that I might enjoy more of her work. I actually had to read the book twice because Carriger uses a lot of old proper english and weird names. Using my previous experiences with her books I was able to use reason to figure out some of the more complicated language and my knowledge of language to deduce certain words. The first time I read the book I used reason and language to process the information but the second time I read the book I also used emotion. The book takes place at an all girls school and goes through some of the issues that I could relate to from our school using emotion.
ReplyDeleteKQ: In what ways can emotion be used to help better a knowers understanding and analysis of a text?
When I first started reading Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin, I used sense perception, imagination and emotion. It's a book talking about racism in the 1960s, Griffin used his own experience( dyed himself to black, and traveled deep south) to tell the readers how it feels like to be a black man in that period of time. I read the book through sense perception, and I used imagination to feel the scenes that Griffin described in his book, and imagined how hard and how sad it will be if I was a black living in the period of time. When I was going to finish the book, I read the book at an outsider's perspective. I used memory and reasoning in addition to the other ways of knowing I was using. I recalled the memory of what I learned in history class about the relationship between black and white in the U.S. and I used reasoning to compared the situation described in the book and the situation I see now.
ReplyDeleteKQ: How can reasoning and memory help a knower to better analyze a text from different perspective?
While reading Women at Point Zero by Nawaal El Saadawi, I use memory, reason, sense perception, emotion and language to perceive what I am reading. I use memory to recall past readings and learnings that play into what I am perceiving of the book. I use sense perception to see what I am reading, and language to interpret it. I use emotion to understand what this book is making me feel, and how it is doing so. Finally, I use reason to understand and process what I am reading, and apply my own knowledge and reasoning to this. If I apply a feminist lens to my reading of Women at Point Zero, some of my ways of knowing would change. For example, sense perception and language stay the same, all of their purposes are the same ones. I use them to read. But reading this book in a feminist lens alters the way I use emotion, reason, and memory. My emotions have changed because everything I am perceiving in the book, I am thinking of how it is or isn't feminist. I am now using my emotions based around this, and reading this book using a feminist lens heightens my emotions in regards to feminism. I am using memory differently now. Before memory was used to recall reading skills to further understand this book. Now memory serves as a tool for me to recall other instances where feminism affected someone or something. The way I use reason to know has changed because I while reading the book in this new adapted lens, my reasoning is regards to feminism, once again.
ReplyDeleteKQ: How do different ways of knowing alter a knowers ability to interpret a text?
For my acting program, in which I am studying the Meisner technique, I was required to read "Sanford Meisner on Acting". When I first started reading this book, I mainly employed my emotional memory because I viewed the technique as using emotional memory to trigger emotions on stage. Therefore, as I was practicing acting techniques in class, I found myself using a lot of my emotional memory to reveal my inner life; however, as I continued reading, my perspective on the system changed as I involved more of my imagination. Acting is essentially living truthfully under imaginary circumstances and through this realization, I employed my imagination whilst reading to see what other ways could stir emotions on stage. In doing so, I was able to understand the book to a greater degree as through the reality of doing on stage, in imaginary circumstances, emotions can indeed be triggered.
ReplyDeleteKQ: How do emotions stirred by the imagination differ from those stirred from emotional memory?
I am reading my English summer reading (Black like me by John Howard Griffin). This book is in a diary form and is about a white person(who dyed his skin black)'s experiences in the Southern part of America as a black person. When I first started reading the book, I used my sense perceptions. I used my eyes to read the words and sometimes I read it to myself because in that way I understand better. After a few pages, when I found out what the author was going to do and his reasons for it, I started to use my emotion and felt like that I was feeling what the author was feeling. Later on when the author was describing what he saw in the Southern part of America, I used my imagination to "see" the scenes that he was describing.
ReplyDeleteWhen I started reading this book, my attitude towards it was kind of indifferent. However, when I started to use my emotions, it was like I was connected with the book.
KQ: How can emotions affect one's perspectives towards a piece of literature?
When reading memory plays a key role in the understanding of the text, not only in the technical way that you need memory in order to transform the squiggles on the page into word with meaning, but also as you gain a greater understanding of those words. Memory of previous experiences or knowledge shape the way you interrupt the work. Emotion and reason are also important, as they also influence what meaning you take away from the reading. For instance, in reading ‘Black Like Me’ I used my emotion to empathize with the experience of writer and main character John Howard Griffin, my memory to recall the knowledge I already possessed about racism in America, and my reason to apply that knowledge to my understanding of the book. I am reading this book in modern times and hence am already convinced of the rampant racism in the South in the 1960’s, however it would be interesting to read this book from the perspective of someone from that time period who was not convinced of the prevalences of this problem. They would possess a completely different set of preconceived conceptions and shared knowledge than someone from my generation. This raises the question, to what extent can shared knowledge of a generation evolve? For instance, often times the bigoted behavior of older people is as excused with the explanation ‘they are just from a different generation’. But they live here, in the present, no longer in that time period where homophobic or racist remarks could be said without repercussions. Why has the shared knowledge of their generation not evolve with the times? It appears that while generational shared knowledge can evolve to some extent, it is doomed to reach its limits before catching up with modern times and leave many to stagnate in a sheltered bubble of bigoted inaccuracies.
ReplyDeleteWhile reading 'The Flea Palace' I use language, memory, reason, and emotion. I rely upon my language and memory to understand cultural context. Then use reason and emotion to process the story and plot line.
ReplyDeleteI could also approach this text through a Marxist point of view, as the building where the novel takes place was built by Russian nobles, but is now a dilapidated apartment building home to many families. This mainly changes the way I use emotion and reason. When looking at this novel from a Marxist lens I have to remove myself emotionally from the plot and observe how power dynamics shift story to story. My reasoning changes from making sense of the plot to making sense of the relationship between characters and their social or economic class.
KQ: Are internally experienced, or personal, ways of knowing (such as memory, and emotion) more difficult to separate from externally experienced ways of knowing (such as reason, and language) when trying to examine a situation without interfering bias?
Ciara writes:
ReplyDeleteI recently finished reading a memoir by Cheyrl Strayed entitled Wild in which the protagonist does a solo hike along California's PCT or Pacific Crest Trail to deal with personal struggles. While reading the book, I used memory, reasoning and emotion to both connect with and better understand what was happening in the story. Because of similar personal struggles and n aspiration to do a similar solo hike on the ACT, my employment of reasoning and emotion might be different from someone else's who didn't connect as much to the book. What might have seemed to be a stupid personal journey to some readers seemed to me to be a person embarking on something that I wanted to but had never found enough courage to do. By employing different perspectives, I realized that this was a story that could speak to people on many different levels and that is was on to interpret the meaning behind the words differently than the next person who read them.
KQ: To what extent does a knower's emotion and reasoning change when considering different perspectives?
Meredith writes:
ReplyDeleteI am currently a counsellor at a middle school camp, and many of the campers were raving about the Percy Jackson series, so I thought I would reread them, currently, The Lightning Thief. While reading I use several ways of knowing. Memory, imagination, and sense perception to name a few. I use sense perception to read and understand the words on the page. I use memory to recall my previous opinions on the story and the events that took place. Lastly, I use imagination to come up with the images of what is happening in the story in my mind’s eye. An alternate lens I could use to see this book through is the way I read the book as a younger child. This time, while reading I focus not as solely on the story that the book is telling, I instead focus both on the story and the writing style of the author. I did not do that when I was reading the series for the first time, I was so enthralled by the adventures of the characters I did not pay attention to how the author was writing. I did not use memory as much when reading this series for the first time because I was not drawing on previous experience of reading the book.
KQ: How do the ways of knowing change when comparing the first time a knower reads a book, to the second?
For my English summer reading, everyone in my class was assigned a section of How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas Foster to analyze and one of the sections that I was assigned was titled, “Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampires”. I can only guess that I was assigned this chapter because of the topic of my Extended Essay. The text offers insight on the choices authors make to fit the scheme of vampires in their writing. The ways of knowing that I employed while reading the text are memory and language. Memory was employed because through the process of writing my Extended Essay on vampires in literature, I saw many themes that were explored in the text and I could identify with uses of all of the techniques in other vampire texts. Language was also a way of knowing that I employed because language and syntax are very significant when writing sci-fi literature. It led me to realize that the way you form your words while writing vampire literature can turn the friendly Dracula into a blood sucking, human killing vampire. I think that in any perspective this would be seen in the same way simply because the world view on vampires is pretty much the same overall.
ReplyDeleteKQ: How can the way a knower uses language transform the way they can perceive characters in a book?