Shared Experience

Ok so a topic came up in 541 the other night that is near and dear to my heart. As a lit devotee for many a year now, I have come to certain realizations about the nature of the written media. It is, the reading of it is, an isolated event. We read the book; we think about it. Perhaps, later, we are lucky enough to discuss it with someone who knows it as well as we do and whose opinion can serve to enlighten ours. But this happens after we have already experienced the text, it is a reflective exercise. Nonetheless, this is part of what draws all of us English Majors to the discipline, that discussion wherein we all learn a little bit more about the books we read, the ways in which we read them and perhaps a bit more about ourselves as readers. It is that opportunity that is so important: to turn the private and personal and rewarding nature of reading into a shared experience. I remember the professor at Rutgers, Vesterman, who first showed me how to close read, who helped me take my appreciation for literature to a new level. The books we read in his course are still among my favorites, if only for the fond memories they hold. The discussion in those classes challenged me to explore my own abilities as a reader. The texts were challenging, my peers were competent and eager and my professor was excellent. I learned why reading and discussing books was my academic passion in that class. Now years later, I have nurtured many other interests that often compete with my desire and time for reading. I love to watch movies and good TV, I listen to music so often and so loudly that I often feel that there is nothing else in the world but that song. And I hurl myself into credit card debt in order to ensure a certain level of aural quality in my car and my apartment. In fact, the stereo in my Subaru is certainly worth more than rusty old, beaten up station wagon that houses it. My point is that nearly everything else I enjoy in life besides reading, can be shared with others in real time, in the moment. Many of these things are in fact better because of it. As anyone can plainly tell, I am a very social person. Most people thrive on personal contact with others, I am a fanatic. The little connections and interactions between other souls and myself is what charges my batteries. I love people. Thus, those other media sources like film and music that lend themselves so well to common experience, to simultaneous and shared enjoyment are very valuable to me.

I had an epiphany one night a couple of years ago, as I sat listening to music with friends of mine. Among mostly close friends, who I knew to be lovers of literature, I wondered aloud why we were always bound to the same activities when indoors. Why couldn't we read a book together or a poem. It sounds stupid or crazy to most people, but then, you goofy English teachers who read my blog are not most people. What happened after that is that we did... we read a book. We took turns, actually, reading aloud and discussing what each person had chosen to read. Since that day, I have incorporated reading aloud into my social circles and party time as often as possible. It is usually difficult, it requires a bit of focus and dedication from all involved. It is not nearly as passive as watching even the most demanding film. But when it happens, it is fantastic. My girlfriend and I have actually completed a novel aloud together, Of Mice and Men, and we are in the midst of numerous others. One of my favorite shows on NPR is Selected Shorts, where a professional actor reads a classic short story to a live audience. To me, this is about the coolest thing in the world. People actually pay to go see these people read. I know that reading aloud is going to be a major part of my relationship with my children when I become a father, and I want it to be a major part of my classroom when I become a teacher.

This brings us to the class discussion in 541. The topic of reading aloud came up, and I felt that my opinion was in the minority. There seems already to be a stigma attached to reading aloud in the classroom. I have heard many an MAT student remark with disdain that one or another host teacher spent entire periods reading from the book, to sighs, yawns and eye rolls from the audience. Or the class who spent six weeks reading Shakespeare aloud and doing nothing else. I agree that this is BS, it is a time filler and, in my opinion, a waste of time. Even the survey we conducted in 505 with Kennedy indicated that the majority of students had a negative attitude toward reading aloud in class. But none of this changes my attitude toward reading aloud with my students. I want my students to get used to reading aloud, and to me reading to them. People say that many students are mortified by reading aloud, that it is cruel to force them. People say that many student readers are not very good at reading aloud, which turns off everyone involved and can make the student doing the reading feel even worse. Worse still some students are terrible readers and don't know or don't care, they are the first ones to raise their hand for the activity and they are the most difficult ones to shut up. I recognize that these are legitimate hurdles for a teacher like myself, but I am afraid of being discouraged by these hurdles. I don't want to give up this ideal. I want to get to a point, in my classroom and in my personal life where reading a book aloud is commonplace. And where it is accepted and looked forward to by a majority. I want to figure it out. I apologize for this inordinately long post, and for the parts that may seem pretentious or self indulgent, but these things are important to me. I am hoping that you English teachers will understand where I am coming from, if you guys don't then the hurdles I speak of are even greater than I imagined. Am I crazy? Will anyone want to join me? Does anyone have success stories about reading aloud in the classroom? If books can be more powerful and emotionally involving than movies, even music, why shouldn't they be shared in that initial moment of power and emotion by more people than the one holding the book.

Here's Kerouac reading from On the Road...

My website project...

Well I finished up my website and published it. I used GooglePages which was really user-friendly, I don't think I had to consult the Help menu a single time. I just fooled around until I figured out how to do what I needed. I am pretty happy with it and think I could use a version of this site for my actual professional website. At the very least, I am now confident that I can make a decent website using the free internet software and systems. I tried to resist the urge to be personal and honest as much as possible, but a fair amount of me made it onto the site I think. Here tis...joefoxiv.googlepages.com

Apologies...
"If you can think about something like birds, you can get outside of yourself, and it doesn't hurt as much. That's the whole idea. That's the whole challenge for the human race. Think about that. Put your thinking cap on, Sam. Put that in your pipe and smoke it! But I can barely get to the point where I can be a self to get out of."