If you can forgive the person you were, accept the person you are, and believe in the person you will become, you are headed for joy. So celebrate your life.
Barbara JohnsonRead
Teaching literature is teaching how to read. How to notice things in a text that a speed-reading culture is trained to disregard, overcome, edit out, or explain away; how to read what the language is doing, not guess what the author was thinking; how to take evidence from a page, not seek a reality to substitute for it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the importance of deep reading and analysis in literature, contrasting it with superficial reading habits.
Barbara Johnson highlights that teaching literature goes beyond mere authorial intent; it involves guiding students to engage with the text on a deeper level. In a fast-paced world where quick reading is prevalent, she argues for the necessity of learning to recognize the nuances and complexities within a text, so that readers can appreciate the richness of language and the evidence it presents, rather than oversimplifying it or substituting it with their own interpretations.
Themes
LiteratureReadingEducationAnalysisLanguage
In practice
Example use cases
A teacher could use this quote to emphasize the importance of thorough reading in a literature class.
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