Reading

I have mixed feelings about reading for pleasure, although I suppose it depends on what I am reading. Throughout my educational career, reading has seemed to be more of a chore than a pleasurable experience. I have found that I rarely enjoy the books I am assigned to read in school, but I am not quite sure why. I'm sure part of it stems from my confusion with literary analysis. Most of my memories from English class in high school are about my teacher discussing some obscure, underlying meaning in a passage written by the author. Where I saw a girl rebeling against her mother, my teachers saw an underlying contempt for society and hatred of self in just a normal teenager. To be honest, I often wondered if the authors actually meant all of these interpretations in their books or if the teachers just made them up and overanalyzed everything. However, I do remember two books in high school that I thoroughly enjoyed reading: To Kill A Mockingbird and Animal Farm. These were by far my favorite novels because they were about historical topics that I was interested in.

On the other hand, I find much more enjoyment in reading when I read for pleasure out of class. Especially during the summertime, I love sitting outside with a good book and a glass of ice cold water. My favorite books are fast-paced action thrillers where the story progresses quickly and there is not too much unnecessary detail. My favorite author is Vince Flynn, as I have read most of his works. However, I have often wondered if my lack of motivation in reading for school stems from the fact that the assignment seems like more of a chore than my own choice. This diminishes intrinsic motivation in reading, and I think this could have some factor in my different feelings of reading for school and reading for myself. Intrinsic motivation is the personal reward that comes from performing a task. This can be diminished if a person is paid to do the task or is forced to do it. I believe that this theory of intrinsic motivation has something to do with my difference of feelings, and this is something I will try to work on in the future.

Nicholas Keith