Week 4 Reflection

A reader can learn through reading Literature because it helps you to gain new experiences though otherwise you wouldn't get to experience.  If no one ever read, no one would ever understand each other or what other people are going through in the world without them actually going through it themselves.  It is the closest thing we can get to to understanding each other without fully experiencing it ourselves.  People are reading less today because the media is making it seem like it is a total waste of time and there are much better things to spend your time doing, like watching pointless TV shows, or spending hours on end on the computer.  There are much fewer critical readers and writers today because no one understands how or when they are actually using their critical reading or writing skills.  People don't understand what they mean, so they don't know how to put them to good use.  You cannot be a good critical reader or writer unless you are constantly thinking about how to better those skills as you are reading or as you are writing.  Unless you are really reading or writing the majority of your time, you won't understand how to obtain those skills and put them to work.  Poetry can be very helpful when developing these skills because it makes you think and interpret what the poem is trying to say.  The poem usually doesn't just state what it was about, otherwise it wouldn't be poetry.  Poetry makes you think about how YOU interpret it rather than how others see it.  It gives you a chance to use your critical skills, as well as to be creative in the way that you think about different aspects of the world.