A lot of people read as a hobby and that is completely easy to understand.
But at least in my country we need to read fiction books in school and analyse them.
It’s important to know that I am talking about fiction, not about history or math books. I am talking about Shakespeare and those fiction writers.
As an example, we need to explain the meaning of verses in poems and we need to understand what is the meaning behind books.
Why we need to do this? Is the necessary nowadays?
In: Other
Because regardless of how any 1 person feels about fiction it is a huge part of all of our lives as human beings. It is a very high level form of language and communication between a bunch of people at once, and as such it can have huge impacts on society. So you really need to have at least a working understanding of it.
Because being able to understand a text beyond it’s surface meaning is extremely important, especially nowadays.
The author writes a nice story, but there are important themes and ideas hidden in the story, and it’s important to see them and understand them, because even though the story may be antiquated, its message remains important even nowadays.
Even if you don’t like reading, it’s important to be able to see beyond the surface. Most thing nowadays are wrapped in a neat package of lies, so you need to know how to understand what’s beneath the initial presentation.
You take literature classes to learn how to express your thoughts to other people, and to understand what other people are trying to express to you.
You take math classes to learn how to use logic and general rules to solve specific problems.
You take science classes to learn how to understand the world around you.
The goal is to develop critical thinking skills.
The specific works of fiction studied aren’t important, but the ability to understand themes, analyse them and form your own opinions is what matters.
In order to learn how to communicate and how you are being communicated to.
The process you’re learning when you’re learning about meaning in texts is learning how word choices, structure, and imagery can make you feel things.
Modern communication especially is all about making you feel things in order to manipulate you, whether it’s into buying things you might not have wanted until someone told you about them so very persuasively, voting for that politician who says you should be mad about the same things they’re mad about (even if those things don’t, when you really think about it, affect you very much), or whatever else they might be trying to direct you towards. Even just clicking on the next video on Youtube. (Youtube algorithmically feeds you things that will make you mad because mad people click on the next video in order to chase the high and stay mad).
Because being able to understand a text beyond it’s basic surface meaning is a valuable skill that will help you.
Aside from improving your understanding of language, it helps train you to see things as more than their surface appearance. Many, many, many works of art – whether it be a book, movie, piece of music or painting – have complicated and valuable hidden meanings that aren’t obvious at a surface read.
Priming you to consider what you watch and read beyond a surface level equips you to discover a whole world of stuff you’d otherwise miss.
* You need to learn how to read a text, understand it, and formulate a coherent opinion about that text.
* It expands your vocabulary.
* It helps you learn grammar.
* It exposes you to different ideas.
* It teaches you about history and culture.
In order to develop reading compression and critical thinking skills. Anyone can read a passage or story and get the ‘gist’ of it. It takes practice to be able to analyze what you are reading to identify deeper meanings or ways to interpret the writing in relation to real events of the time the fiction was written.
It’s a part of society. It influences what people think and what they do. That’s why it’s useful to know. Simple as that.
Should you also not learn about religion if you are not religious? Not learn about music because you don’t like listening to music?
If you don’t like reading, try watching ‘Starship Troopers’. After watching it, are you cheering along with the humans? You just classified as a fascist and failed your literature class.
This is what reading a book of fiction and analyze them tries to teach you: what you see or read might have a deeper meaning or a strong bias, trying to influence you. It’s important that you recognize that and be able to respond to it.
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