Eating Alone Can Sometimes Be A Good Thing
During my lonely lunch break today, I whipped out my phone and tried to find videos to watch while eating my BBQ Pork Chow Mien (which was pretty good considering it’s from Benson). After a watching a couple beauty videos, I stumbled across this.
It brought my back to the days of high school where I needed a quick fix for yesterday’s homework I forgot to do, turning to sources like Sparknotes and Crash Course. Watching this video reminded me not only of my difficulties analyzing and understanding literature in the past but also how different my current Critical Thinking and Writing class is from past English courses.
But Isn’t This Video About Literature?
Although this video does discuss more about literature and the function of reading it, it also gives insight to English and writing in general. Hosted and written by John Green, vlogger and writer of popular young adult novels such as The Fault in Our Stars and Looking for Alaska, The Crash Course video provides knowledgeable commentary about the whole purpose of reading and writing in a comedic and easy-to-swallow way. For example, after discussing how humans perceive language, Green explains that, “Writing–or at least good writing– is an outgrowth of that urge to use language to communicate complex ideas and experiences between people”. By saying this, he takes a step back and looks at writing holistically and for its true, raw purpose. Unlike Green, I believe that even bad writing can accomplish this communication, and by bad writing I mean texting using “4” for “for” and “u” for “you”.
On the other hand, Green provides a different, unexpected view to writing’s counterpart, reading. He states, “Reading is always an act of empathy. It’s always an imagining of what it’s like to be someone else.” Usually when I think about reading, I think about trying to understand a passage about a certain topic or trying not to fall asleep during a boring article. Yet, Green relates to reading as if it were a conversation and learning the mindset and perspective of the author. In this way, reading seems so much more significant that people have been taught to view it as since it’s easy to lose sight of a reading’s important message.
Lastly, Green asks the viewers, “to look closely at a text and pay attention to the subtle ways the author is trying to communicate the full complexity of human experience, but I’m not asking you to go symbol-hunting because reading is supposed to be some treasure map in which you discover symbols, write them down, and then get an A in class”. Completely and accurately depicting the student’s view of English, literature specifically, he calls on the audience to fully take in the reading and employ the same wide, big-picture perspective he has been speaking about throughout the video. Regardless of the type of reading, this thinking can be applied and unlocks the true meaning of the author’s writing and why it’s significant.
To sum it up, Green’s “asking you to read critically because by understanding language, it will 1. Have a fuller understanding of lives other than your own, which 2. Will help you to be more empathetic, and thereby…4. Reading critically and attentively can give you the linguistic tools to share your own story with more precision”.
Thanks for reading!