Active Reading: Setting Purpose for Reading

Essays on the Teaching of English
Raymond Stopper
Based on His Book, Teaching English, How To….

Active Reading: Setting Purpose for Reading

10-Second Review: How I learned not to read everything.

In my first year of teaching, a dramatic example of the power of setting purpose for reading changed forever the way I read for information. Suddenly, I understood the meaning of Bacon’s 1625 advice that some books need to be read only in parts. At no time in my schooling, from first grade through college, had anyone ever suggested that “you don’t have to read everything.” I almost always read as if I had to read every word from beginning to end, and the only alternative I thought I had was, frankly, to decide not to read long assignments at all.

My first year of teaching English was very busy. I needed time to plan my lessons, to mark tests and compositions, and to find interesting ways to teach difficult subjects like writing, spelling and vocabulary, not to mention the literary selections I was going to teach. In addition, all teachers were required to oversee an extracurricular activity and, in the spring, I became co-director of the junior class play. Still, in addition to the duties associated with teaching, I picked this particular spring to enroll in a master’s degree program in English. One afternoon a week, I had to drive many miles down to the university to attend a class and then turn around and drive back again to be in time for play practice, usually held in the evening after supper.

Book Report. The course in which I was enrolled was called The Life of Johnson, Dr. Samuel, that is. In addition to the texts of Johnson’s poetry and essays and Boswell’s Life, the instructor required that we read one book of criticism of Johnson and to report on it in class.

Desperate. With everything else I had to do, that book went on the shelf. Occasionally, I looked at it and said to myself, “I really need to get to it or I’m going to be in trouble.” But I didn’t “get to it.” Weeks passed, then months, and, suddenly, it was the day before I was scheduled to report on that book in my graduate class. I was desperate. I had not even cracked the cover.

After play practice that evening, I came back to my room, took down the book and thought about what I could do. I was tired. I had just completed a full day of teaching and play directing, faced the same prospect tomorrow and, with no break, needed to drive to the university immediately after school for my class on Dr. Johnson. And this time I needed to report on a book I had not read.

Finally, I decided to spend two hours learning as much as I could about the book, taking another two hours to write my speech, and then, regardless of how good or bad it was, to take my chances. It would be late, but I needed to have some sleep before trying to teach the next day. I was no longer capable of pulling “all-nighters.” I would allow myself four hours to do what I could. Not a second more. I planned to be in bed at 1:00 a.m., no later.

I opened the book and read the foreword. In a page and a half the author summarized exactly what she was going to say in the book. I was surprised at how much I learned about her point of view from only a page and a half. Since my assignment was to summarize the author’s point of view toward Johnson’s writing and to respond to that point of view, I thought to myself that I could almost write the paper with just the information from the foreword.

Then another thought struck me. I was teaching my students to introduce their topics in opening paragraphs and to summarize in closing paragraphs—wouldn’t professional writers do the same? I decided to read the opening and closing paragraphs of each chapter. As I did so, I began to realize that some chapters were more important than others, and I was learning about the author's supporting arguments. With some of those arguments, I needed more detail. Remembering that I taught students to begin paragraphs with topic sentences, I took the first “important” chapter and read just the first sentence of each paragraph in the chapter, looking for details of her main arguments.

Excitement. I was becoming excited. In a relatively short time, I was feeling confident that I knew the author’s argument. Since all I had to do in the speech was to give the major points of her arguments and then respond to them, I already felt that I knew almost enough to begin writing my speech. I quickly read the first sentences of paragraphs in the remaining three or four “important’ chapters and began to write.

Confidence. Within an hour I was finished. The paper did not have to be typed until a later date. I had summarized the critic’s argument and then I had responded, somewhat sarcastically, to her point of view about Samuel Johnson. It was 11:00 p.m., and I was soon in bed, feeling wonderfully confident that I had accomplished what the instructor wanted from a review of this piece of literary criticism.

I still had a feeling of confidence when I moved behind the desk on the dais in that classroom at the university the next afternoon. I read my speech. I gave the author’s point of view in some detail, and then I launched into an attack on that point of view. You see, Samuel Johnson was one of my favorite authors, and I did not like at all the critic’s opinions of his writing and ideas.

Success! Finished speaking, I stood, but was stunned when the entire class began to clap. The instructor, his face in a broad grin, said, “Mr. S….., that was an exquisite speech.” I almost sat down again, in complete disbelief. One thought kept running through my mind: “…but I didn’t read the book.”

How explain it? Of course I had read the book—enough to achieve my purpose. The book was not worth reading cover to cover. It was not a masterpiece of criticism of the work of Dr. Johnson. I read what I needed to read, found the gist of the author’s argument, and completed the task of responding to it. That’s what the professor wanted and that’s what I accomplished. I learned for the first time that all books do not have to be read from cover to cover and to do so could be a monumental waste of time. I now understood Francis Bacon’s advice about reading, “Some books are to be tasted….”