In the minds of ESL exam candidates, e ssay writing is one of the most daunting tasks they are required to complete, regardless of the level of the exam, the administering body or the ease with which they themselves use the language. The same applies to students who are asked to write an essay by their teachers at school. In the previous sample essays posted on the blog, the main point I stress is the need to become acquainted with this form of writing (as opposed to writing a letter, review or report, for instance), to get a feel of what authorial voice is and how to organize and progressively express the arguments you wish to make in a coherent manner. Unfortunately, the best way to prepare for exam writing or learn how to write good essays for school is to read as many essays from as many sources as possible, then write as
This is what brought me to write this post, in fact. A few weeks ago, I'd seen a question posted by someone online (no doubt a desperate student who was assigned the question by a teacher) asking how Literature instructs, and wondered why on earth anyone would ask such a self-explanatory query. After all, the reason I revere books doesn't merely come from the satisfaction I get as I turn pages over or capture the scent of a book the minute I open its cover. I've always felt they were, each and every one of them, fascinating worlds -- both real and imagined -- in their own right, with heaps of knowledge to be garnered.
So I said to myself that it was about time I got my ducks in a row and expressed in writing what I'd felt to be true for a long time now by pinpointing how in actual fact books benefit mankind. I especially hope my thoughts on the topic will change the way people view studies undertaken in the Humanities (seeing as there is a declining trend in the number of students who enroll on Literature courses at undergraduate level these days).
How Does Literature Instruct?
My dad wanted me to become a lawyer and sure enough, I'd seen enough Perry Mason and Matlock episodes in my youth to know that lawyering on screen was about as dazzling as it could get. Gregory Peck got it right in To Kill a Mockingbird, Charles Laughton in Witness for the Prosecution, but I was quite sure real life was in no way bound to be like that. Besides, stories are what really mattered to me and I dreamed of being able to teach others to squeeze the life out of them and make it their own as I myself had done so.
But what, you might ask, could anyone do with a degree in Literature or Philology apart from becoming a teacher? Possibly work in publishing, but in a world where money and job opportunities are of prime importance, how could Education or Publishing compete with Medicine, IT, or other fields of study more vital to the running of everyday business in factories, conglomerates, laboratories, state offices?
My answer to this is to take a step back and put aside all the trappings that characterize the rat race for a moment to focus on what actually is. What actually is, is that we're living. We're on a planet with several billion people, breathing the air that's somewhat fresh, building, destroying, progressing, digressing, communicating, considering options. Apart from getting a job, we have to live with ourselves and others, and use our brains to survive or thrive. If obtaining a degree in Literature accomplishes one thing, that one thing is that it trains the mind. Well actually, not trains but opens it, develops it, keeps it healthy. You may have all the training in Statistics, Finance, Management or Engineering that money can buy, but if you can't think out of the box, if you can't handle situations because you aren't used to taking a step back and appraising conditions and people, or you can't organize your thoughts and express them coherently, then it's very likely at some point in life or your career that you'll hit a dead end. Critical thinking, problem solving and analytical skills sum up the recipe for success in school, college, career and life and Literature develops these in students.
What I find Literature does (or instructs us to do) is condition our minds to be analytical, become aware of different perspectives, communicate better, imagine and be creative, and finally escape when required.
Literary studies require analytical skills first and foremost. With all the short stories and novels covered in courses, students develop their ability to deconstruct a work into its various components, becoming conscious in this way how multiple forces act in unison to complete an integrated piece. This means they see how much effort goes into any given task, with what meticulousness an author places pawns on the checkerboard and how he or she presides over the behavior of those pawns, the setting in which they are allowed to maneuver, the influence external factors exert over their actions and inner conflicts that could affect their demeanor. Students who learn to discern the techniques used to bring things together to create a project will transfer that knowledge when they supervise themselves or others in the workplace while carrying out a specific task. They could foresee problems that might affect performance, manage different people better by allocating work to those whose skills are best suited to handle the task or be aware of their own strengths and weaknesses, knowing what to highlight and what to compensate for. After all, having seen how one creates, they too become creators.
Teaching students how to think analytically is also effected through evidence culled from texts. Answering assignment questions such as "Why does Hamlet hesitate to avenge his father's death?" or "Why does the narrator in Monica Wood's short story "Disappearing" allow herself to waste away?" will require investigative flair on the part of the student, otherwise an assignment will contain unfounded statements. Plot details and citations are what create direct inference to character motivation and prove points made in an academic essay. When students learn how to analyze texts in this way, they will be able to analyze situations and act accordingly. Inferring from facts will allow them to understand situations they might come across in the workplace, or the subtle implications present in communications from colleagues, employers, associates. Trained to spot important details helps you avert the worst, foresee what is needed before it is even asked of you, and comprehend people and matters.
Since students are asked to find proof to answer
questions put before them, they will necessarily be asked to express what they've uncovered in a coherent and cohesive manner. Many might claim that written assignments are part of any academic course and that the study of Literature doesn't benefit anyone any more than it does those who choose to enroll on any other undergraduate course in terms of communicating ideas better. Well, I beg to differ. The vocabulary, phraseology and grammatical structures drawn from literary works your mind is invited to process is in no way comparable to that found in other textbooks. I don't want to get involved in the discussion about young people's linguistic penury these days, but when warnings have been issued about the limited vocabulary teens are using, which is making them potentially unemployable (read about it here), there is cause for concern. The best way to guarantee exposure to a wide range of vocabulary -- as outlined by Beck, McKeown, and Kucan (2013) in their three-tier approach -- is through the study of literary texts encompassing various eras. Read Poe, Jane Austen, Defoe, Dickens or Voltaire translated alongside Daphne du Maurier, Vonnegut, Soyinka, Steinbeck, Cisneros and see if your communication skills stay stagnant after several years of concentrated effort. Apply analysis to such texts and write assignments about them for several more years and tell me whether disciplining yourself to take each piece of evidence and drawing conclusions then manipulating that evidence to express cogent arguments doesn't rub off on you at a job interview. Thoughts are more clearly conveyed when you pay attention to the language used and you become more effective in your communication when you've been trained to recognize flashbacks, foreshadowing, analogies, anastrophes, diction, irony.
As our minds are opened to different writing techniques and we intuit a writer's motivations, we're swept away into the worlds these authors create. If we as children stop at fairy tales, our imagination will simply reach the edges of Sherwood Forest or a witch's gingerbread house, which is why reading must continue well into our senior years. Only then will it be possible to travel to places like Diagon Alley, Panem, the Glade, Arrakis, Mordor, the World State and meet Piggy, Bathsheba Everdene, Raskolnikov, Okonkwo, Emma Bovary, John Thornton, Miss Kate and Julia Morkan. The realities of these characters become ours for a brief span of time as we see their microcosms with our mind's eye. We imagine them and learn to imagine more, creating worlds of our own, images to complement those which emerge from books. Once aware of this capability, all limits placed on our conviction to conjure theorems, devise solutions or pitch an idea are erased. Originality is what makes people stand out and employers are looking for people who stand out with their alternative approach to situations, innovative ideas and initiative.
Tied to this notion of imaginativeness is the concept of escape. Stories are the cheapest holiday anyone can take to circumvent the toil and trouble of daily routine, provided there's a quiet nook available, a comfy armchair or the shade of a giant poplar. Books decompress and divert, steer the mind away from work yet exercise our cognitive abilities more than other forms of entertainment which require a more passive stance on our part. Few things need to be said on this matter since minimal effort is needed to understand how reading enchants and soothes how jaded we may feel at times; reminded of our childhood, when stories were told to us by parents and teachers, we sink our teeth into a new adventure, a colossal predicament or a controversial account. More importantly, being able to escape and unwind is a basic human need, much like sleep reboots the mind every night. Reading lowers stress levels by as much as 68% according to a 2009 study by the University of Sussex, more than listening to music or taking a walk outside, because it reduces heart rate, eases muscle tension and alters people's state of mind. Dr. David Lewis, who co-authored the study, seems to agree:
Last but not least, reading has made me see that there is more than one perspective that needs to be taken into account, regardless of the situation. It has made me accept the fact that I need to see things from other people's point of view and that it's okay if the way they see things is different from how I see them. After having read hundreds of novels and many more short stories, it is impossible for me to neglect how first-person and third-person narrators or limited omniscient points of view can change the way a reader experiences a tale. You have only to read Achebe's Things Fall Apart, Maupassant's "The Necklace", Woolf's "The Legacy", Chopin's "The Story of an Hour", or O'Connor's "My Oedipus Complex" to witness this firsthand. When there are different sides to a story, there are different truths that exist for each person and it is these truths that make us think about what is real, who is narrow-minded, what causes such narrow-mindedness, and how it might be overcome.
In sum, reading does more for our children, our family and friends than we can imagine. Handing people a smartphone, game console, or TV set and telling them to enjoy themselves is all well and good, but next time you decide to offer someone a gift, let it be a book. It will stimulate their minds and protect them from the various mental ailments we see taking on epidemic proportions these days, expand their vocabulary, open their minds to view things with a critical eye and accept the metaphorical polyglossia of narratives, communicate better and most important of all, it will help them relax more than any other means of entertainment available.
Please encourage people and especially children to read. Literary studies are not simply there to fill up a curriculum. They offer life skills other courses don't, complementing a student's education in the best possible way. If I haven't been able to convince you of this, read the first four pages of Canada's National Reading Campaign leaflet about what reading can do for us.
What I find Literature does (or instructs us to do) is condition our minds to be analytical, become aware of different perspectives, communicate better, imagine and be creative, and finally escape when required.
Literary studies require analytical skills first and foremost. With all the short stories and novels covered in courses, students develop their ability to deconstruct a work into its various components, becoming conscious in this way how multiple forces act in unison to complete an integrated piece. This means they see how much effort goes into any given task, with what meticulousness an author places pawns on the checkerboard and how he or she presides over the behavior of those pawns, the setting in which they are allowed to maneuver, the influence external factors exert over their actions and inner conflicts that could affect their demeanor. Students who learn to discern the techniques used to bring things together to create a project will transfer that knowledge when they supervise themselves or others in the workplace while carrying out a specific task. They could foresee problems that might affect performance, manage different people better by allocating work to those whose skills are best suited to handle the task or be aware of their own strengths and weaknesses, knowing what to highlight and what to compensate for. After all, having seen how one creates, they too become creators.
Teaching students how to think analytically is also effected through evidence culled from texts. Answering assignment questions such as "Why does Hamlet hesitate to avenge his father's death?" or "Why does the narrator in Monica Wood's short story "Disappearing" allow herself to waste away?" will require investigative flair on the part of the student, otherwise an assignment will contain unfounded statements. Plot details and citations are what create direct inference to character motivation and prove points made in an academic essay. When students learn how to analyze texts in this way, they will be able to analyze situations and act accordingly. Inferring from facts will allow them to understand situations they might come across in the workplace, or the subtle implications present in communications from colleagues, employers, associates. Trained to spot important details helps you avert the worst, foresee what is needed before it is even asked of you, and comprehend people and matters.
Since students are asked to find proof to answer
As our minds are opened to different writing techniques and we intuit a writer's motivations, we're swept away into the worlds these authors create. If we as children stop at fairy tales, our imagination will simply reach the edges of Sherwood Forest or a witch's gingerbread house, which is why reading must continue well into our senior years. Only then will it be possible to travel to places like Diagon Alley, Panem, the Glade, Arrakis, Mordor, the World State and meet Piggy, Bathsheba Everdene, Raskolnikov, Okonkwo, Emma Bovary, John Thornton, Miss Kate and Julia Morkan. The realities of these characters become ours for a brief span of time as we see their microcosms with our mind's eye. We imagine them and learn to imagine more, creating worlds of our own, images to complement those which emerge from books. Once aware of this capability, all limits placed on our conviction to conjure theorems, devise solutions or pitch an idea are erased. Originality is what makes people stand out and employers are looking for people who stand out with their alternative approach to situations, innovative ideas and initiative.
Tied to this notion of imaginativeness is the concept of escape. Stories are the cheapest holiday anyone can take to circumvent the toil and trouble of daily routine, provided there's a quiet nook available, a comfy armchair or the shade of a giant poplar. Books decompress and divert, steer the mind away from work yet exercise our cognitive abilities more than other forms of entertainment which require a more passive stance on our part. Few things need to be said on this matter since minimal effort is needed to understand how reading enchants and soothes how jaded we may feel at times; reminded of our childhood, when stories were told to us by parents and teachers, we sink our teeth into a new adventure, a colossal predicament or a controversial account. More importantly, being able to escape and unwind is a basic human need, much like sleep reboots the mind every night. Reading lowers stress levels by as much as 68% according to a 2009 study by the University of Sussex, more than listening to music or taking a walk outside, because it reduces heart rate, eases muscle tension and alters people's state of mind. Dr. David Lewis, who co-authored the study, seems to agree:
"It really doesn’t matter what book you read, by losing yourself in a thoroughly engrossing book you can escape from the worries and stresses of the everyday world and spend a while exploring the domain of the author’s imagination. This is more than merely a distraction but an active engaging of the imagination as the words on the printed page stimulate your creativity and cause you to enter what is essentially an altered state of consciousness."Therefore, although we may not know it, Literature 'instructs' us to relieve tension and anxiety.
Last but not least, reading has made me see that there is more than one perspective that needs to be taken into account, regardless of the situation. It has made me accept the fact that I need to see things from other people's point of view and that it's okay if the way they see things is different from how I see them. After having read hundreds of novels and many more short stories, it is impossible for me to neglect how first-person and third-person narrators or limited omniscient points of view can change the way a reader experiences a tale. You have only to read Achebe's Things Fall Apart, Maupassant's "The Necklace", Woolf's "The Legacy", Chopin's "The Story of an Hour", or O'Connor's "My Oedipus Complex" to witness this firsthand. When there are different sides to a story, there are different truths that exist for each person and it is these truths that make us think about what is real, who is narrow-minded, what causes such narrow-mindedness, and how it might be overcome.
In sum, reading does more for our children, our family and friends than we can imagine. Handing people a smartphone, game console, or TV set and telling them to enjoy themselves is all well and good, but next time you decide to offer someone a gift, let it be a book. It will stimulate their minds and protect them from the various mental ailments we see taking on epidemic proportions these days, expand their vocabulary, open their minds to view things with a critical eye and accept the metaphorical polyglossia of narratives, communicate better and most important of all, it will help them relax more than any other means of entertainment available.
Please encourage people and especially children to read. Literary studies are not simply there to fill up a curriculum. They offer life skills other courses don't, complementing a student's education in the best possible way. If I haven't been able to convince you of this, read the first four pages of Canada's National Reading Campaign leaflet about what reading can do for us.
