In his book A Swim in the Pond in the Rain, writer and professor George Saunders states, “At the beginning of the first class of the semester I always ask my students to imagine themselves putting a parenthesis in front of everything I’m about to say (i.e. over the course of the semester) and preceding that parenthesis with the words ‘According to George.’ At the end of the last class I ask them to close the parenthesis and add the phrase ‘Well, anyway, that was all according to George.’” Saunders refers to his interpretations of Russian short stories he teaches and how he hopes for his students to take away what they want from them, rather than take away everything Saunders has said about them as certain. Even if his students disagree with him, Saunders asserts that that’s fine as at least they engaged with the text. Trust is put in the students to read and come to their own conclusions. But is that how most college students read?
Personally, when I’m assigned a reading for class, often I approach it as a task I need to complete, a box to check off. I do it and then I don’t think about it too much after the fact. I read more so for comprehension rather than trying to interpret the text. In talking to other people, the sentiment is similar. The two reasons that came up the most for why reading feels like a reluctant chore we have to do is because of volume and time. As students, we are likely assigned more than one reading for different classes and we have to balance studying for those multiple courses with maintaining the fulfilling personal lives we are expected to have. The pressure from volume and time will seemingly always be an issue, but it’s not the only one. We also don’t necessarily get to choose what we read for school, so because of the subject matter there’s not always a buy-in or inherent motivation to want to read for class. The value of reading for a lot of people is abstract. There’s often no tangible product or reward for reading. We often can’t see how reading applies directly to how we live our lives.
In recent years, the notion of students turning to AI to summarize reading assignments for them has become increasingly troubling. This is understandable as reading reveals truths about our world, and art and writing are reflections of life, but if we don’t put in the work, or allow the process of reading to become automated, we never realize this. Also, possibly there is a general lack of reading due to an increased pessimism regarding how we view the state of the world—when we see no hope for the future we don’t feel like doing things that don’t seem to matter that much to us. But nonetheless, professors put trust in us to meaningfully engage with the readings we’re assigned.
So, how do we get students to closely read and think critically about what they’ve read? Here’s a general prescription: we have to reframe the act of reading and the role it has in our lives. I believe reading should be framed more as a practice where we can escape from ourselves, so that the process of meaningfully engaging with what we’ve read afterwards doesn’t feel burdensome. I am constantly self-conscious about how I’m mediating an image of myself. I am motivated to do certain things at certain times because I am aware of what other people will think of me. The vast amount of time I spend going to the movie theater, scrolling online, and listening to music and podcasts is partly because I am genuinely interested in the media I consume, but also because I’m being provided with good topics to bring up in conversations with people at work and with friends, especially when they’ve been recommended to me. I feel compelled to be up to date with what people in my real life and online are saying about stuff. It’s hard to distinguish my own reasons from the influence of others when it comes to why I do a lot of what I do. Being social inherently brings upon an immense amount of self-consciousness and an intensified focus on the self as accumulating social capital is driven by the connections you make from relating to others. You always want to seem interesting and in the loop.
Reading can offer a reprieve from our anxieties about doing something that matters for the purpose of how we appear to others. It certainly functions that way for me. Yes, I have read particular books because, again, I want to be able to be part of a conversation where they may be topics of interest, but recently I have grown to recognize reading as something that I can enjoy more so just for the sake of it.
The act of reading itself is immersive. When I read it’s actually a time when I don’t feel self-conscious. Reading allows me to escape from my daily worries and become concerned with a character or an author’s worries. For instance, I recently read Spent by Alison Bechdel. The graphic novel follows a fictional version of Bechdel struggling to write her next book, overcome by the weight of trying to live ethically under late-stage capitalism. Being swept up in Bechdel’s own self-consciousness about her own privilege and complicity in the corrupting influence of money made me forget about my own self-consciousness momentarily. I was amused by the book’s humor and endearingly ridiculous moments like when Bechdel, the character, obsesses over the dramatizing of her life as portrayed in a television show based on her best-selling memoir, particularly deviations such as Bechdel not being portrayed as a vegetarian and the inclusion of dragons. It’s a funny problem to have that I don’t specifically relate to.
Even readings that are more grounded in reality (non-fiction, critical essays, academic writing, etc.) don’t make me feel self-conscious as I only have to be focused on what the writer wants me to be focused on. I just read Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction and Adrienne Rich’s When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision. I read both essays focusing on what they could say about the practice of adaptation, how an older story can be modified into a newer one. Rather than thinking about myself, what Rich had to say about the unrestrained writing that can come from the absence of considering the expectations of others, particularly a male audience, and what Benjamin discusses concerning the loss of aura and sense of realness with each reproduction of an artwork, caused me to think about pieces of writing I really enjoy that are derivative of previous works before them and how successful or not they are in evoking a sense of authenticity. I was focused on other people’s thoughts and ideas, not necessarily mine. An author’s worries can resemble my own, but then the feeling of reassurance prevails in understanding that I’m not alone with my own concerns.
Reading provides an escape from the self but can also be an important tool for thinking, when confronted with having to reflect on what you’ve read as we are expected to in the classroom. The opportunity reading creates for discovery is exciting, and the reconsideration, although frightening, brought upon by reading teaches us. I’m ultimately grateful for having read stuff that has allowed me to reflect on my own feelings regarding self-consciousness. Again regarding Spent, now having had time to sit with it, I have thought more about my own relationship to distraction, my spending practices, my writing process, my awareness of the world around me and if I have anything of value to say about it or offer it—themes examined by Bechdel through satire that I now examine in reality. A lot of my thoughts on the book have been done over an indefinite amount of time, guided by my own preoccupations with the material, and none of my conclusions feel absolute, there’s new things I can uncover by rereading or reflecting repeatedly.
This sense of openness we have to approach reading with should also be the same approach we have to subsequent review and discussion in academic settings because then it feels valuable. Reading allows us to seriously discuss issues related to our own lives and humanity at large. As I mentioned earlier, professors put trust in us to read what they assign us and generate thoughts to share about what we’ve read. This trust is tested in class discussion. A good discussion is one that goes beyond just the summary of the main points of a reading. I want to feel like I’m discovering something about the text, or I can apply what I’m taking away from the discussion to other aspects of my life. I don’t expect anything tangible or anything that will directly benefit my career/monetary aspirations as a lot of our decision making in other avenues revolves around those considerations. That’s not what reading is for. Reading is learning and it results in adjustments (ranging from big to small) of how you see the world and yourself.
Reading is also usually solitary, so you’re not being perceived by someone while you do it. This sense of invisibility is welcome because it seems increasingly rare in a time where we are being constantly surveilled or at least believe that we are. So, when thrust into class where you’re having to go from engaging with a text alone to then with a group, it can be unnerving. This is the paradox of reading—you do it by yourself on your own terms and then ruminate on it with others, now having to consider their thoughts in relation to yours. It isn’t until after finishing a book and thinking about what I would want to talk or write about, that I become self-conscious. The idea of reading goes from a relieving practice to an anxious one. I’m questioning what authority I have to comment on anything and am worried that my interpretation is “wrong.” In a class setting this feeling is intensified as naturally I find group discussion intimidating. I’m placed in a situation of having to be perceived by multiple people.
I have always considered myself to operate better in one-on-one conversations. The meetings I’ve had with Rachel Slaughter, my writing professor, about this essay are a good example. I’ve been a student in her classes where discussions took up a majority of the class time, and I rarely participated. Though, I really admired her as a professor, so we kept in touch. Now I get to talk to Rachel in a way that blends how we’ve talked before when we’re just catching up and how discussions in an academic course would occur. This sense of collaboration has made talking about what I’ve read feel easier. I’ve found that this low-pressure dynamic allows me to better facilitate my thoughts, rather than have them being left paralyzed from my own anxious conclusions.
How can students become more compelled to read and realize the value of it? I’m not alone when it comes to being self-conscious in group discussions. Being called “quiet” is used with a negative connotation a lot when describing someone, so a quiet person in a discussion is often considered a person who is not trying. But this isn’t always the case. One possibility for why students are reluctant to read and thus participate in discussions is because they don’t feel like they’re learning anything. I think professors would agree that comprehending a reading takes more than just knowing the main points of it, but I believe there’s a sentiment with students that in some of their classes professors either don’t address readings they assign at all in class so why bother even reading it, or when they do go over readings in class it is just a summary and the professor projecting their own thoughts. Professors aren’t necessarily helping facilitate students’ comprehension of the text. There’s this unspoken etiquette in the classroom. You take your professor’s word and if their interpretation of the text was different than yours then you are probably the one who is incorrect. They have authority and adhere to some kind of established academic canon, so why would you push back? Unfortunately, this results in parroting rather than an actual engagement with one’s own thought process. The fear of being wrong and a lack of openness hinders discovery. However, the complete opposite of this is where students are only asked, “What did everyone think?” This doesn’t necessarily get any discussion going either, especially if people are reluctant to share their thoughts, so structure can help and hurt.
Whenever I finish watching a film and someone asks me what I thought about it, my go to answers are, “I thought it was great” with no further comments, or “I don’t know” with no further comments. Then I usually follow both of those statements with, “I’ll really have to take the time to think about it more.” Despite saying that, I never find myself circling back too much to think about a film as I’m typically content with just letting my feelings about the film live and rest during the period in which I viewed it. The same can be said for books I read because I’m not used to continually having in-depth discussions about them afterwards. I find myself always deferring to the other person to lead the conversation and prompt me with questions. So maybe because I’m so used to not having to describe my opinions on media, assembling my thoughts or grasping what I actually want to say about what I read is tough, as during the practice of reading it I wasn’t considering what I would eventually want to write or discuss about it. Thus, another reason students may not add to class discussion is because they don’t know how to best formulate a response. They’ve done the reading, but don’t have the capabilities to articulate their thoughts on it in a discussion setting. Speaking eloquently on the fly is hard. A discussion is happening around you, other people are making great points, better than anything you could come up with, or someone just took what you were going to say and phrased it in the perfect way that you don’t know how to build off of it with your own comment. You don’t want to dampen the flow of the conversation, or your mind goes blank when you’re asked a question. The lack of a productive discussion doesn’t indicate a lack of reading, it’s just that we don’t know how to present our thoughts in a productive way. Again, it’s self-consciousness pervading the discussion space when students are nervous about how they’ll appear to others. Rarely anyone wants to be the center of attention.
I don’t really like this part of myself that doesn’t participate out of self-consciousness of saying something not necessarily well put together because discussion is what generates critical thinking, which is a crucial skill. Rationally, no one should judge someone for trying their best in figuring their own thoughts. We just need to allow the proper time and environment to build and practice it, which the classroom currently doesn’t seemingly support. It shouldn’t be rushed as broadening our knowledge and perspective is a process, and to deprioritize the arts and humanities is to also deprioritize the importance of morals, ethics, and empathy in our day-to-day lives.
Maybe it’s something else pertaining to self-consciousness. Maybe students don’t seem like they’re benefiting from readings or reading in the first place because there’s self-consciousness about appearing like you really did the work. To paraphrase writer and professor Ocean Vuong, earnest effort is not admitted, instead cynicism is performed. Being sincere in a classroom discussion seems exposing. It is undemanding to act like reading doesn’t affect you or that you don’t care about the effort you did to do the work. We don’t verbalize how affected or moved we are by anything or give our actual thoughts because then we’re being perceived for who we actually are. People don’t want to seem like they are trying hard because it looks uncool or indicates a lack of humility. Or it can also be that students are reluctant to engage in conversations about reading because they are reluctant to admit they struggle with comprehending what the reading is saying. Assigned readings can be complicated and rereading is not something that is typically integrated into class, due to time constraints. No matter the reason, here, again, self-consciousness is holding students back from meaningful participation.
A tone needs to be set that in class, sincerity and one’s best effort won’t be condemned. This might require an explicit preface from the professor—their own version of the Saunders parenthesis statement and a reminder of it throughout the course. Will students then be more willing to read or more willing to admit that they have read? Will they be less likely to turn to AI for generalized “thoughts”? If they’re having trouble organizing their own thoughts, that’s what the classroom is for. It should be a low-pressure place for collaborative discovery to happen where everyone can analyze what they’ve read together. Reading needs to be reframed in class as a safe encounter with new ideas. The reflection and interiority that reading can bring is daunting, but that’s one of the great things about reading—it can change how you see the world and yourself. Once we free ourselves from attributing a high degree of self-importance onto ourselves or once we let go of doing things that are only motivated by molding perceptions of ourselves to others, we also free ourselves from the distractions that this perspective causes. Conducting ourselves in this way might make the idea of reading more appealing if you don’t expect your subsequent thoughts on it to have a greater effect on or importance to anyone more than yourself. Reading allows us to escape from our self-consciousness and then be able to confront it productively with a perspective.
I’m unsure of concrete ways to implement these sentiments as actual classroom practices. I may wish to teach in the future, but right now that’s not my job. Again, ideally, I’d like to imagine the classroom as a more low-stakes environment, even maybe implementing structured one-on-one interactions. Some kind of middle ground should be reached between professional authority and an “anything goes” discussion on texts where the discussion is never unfocused, but isn’t completely facilitated by a professor’s thoughts, to make students feel like they’re uncovering ideas about the reading themselves. Maybe incorporating rereading specific passages out loud in class would help so that students don’t feel like they’re being tested to remember what they’ve read, and the professor can guide them to a topic, but not specific analysis yet, that they want to make sure is covered. Value then comes from students examining the passage and topic themselves with the guidance of the professor. This requires a mutual sense of respect: students respecting the professor and the professor respecting the students. An actual acknowledgement of the dissonance between unselfconscious reading and self-conscious discussion would build the trust and sincerity needed to allow for engaging dialogue about texts.
If the solution to the problem with reading lies in a shift in mindset to how we approach it, as something that is valuable to informing how we live, and understand it, as a genuine opportunity for exploration, possibly people will be more inclined to read. Talking and ruminating about what we read is difficult and finding the right words to do so may be tedious or seem redundant, but it’s a necessary skill to be able to formulate and communicate our own thoughts. This takes time, intention, and patience to develop and that’s okay. We should want to challenge ourselves and be reassured that we are capable of doing so. There is fulfillment and pleasure from revelation and being aware that your mind is at work.
Coda for Rebecca Yang’s “Paradox of Reading”
Many commentators have tried to explain why students don’t seem to be engaging with their college reading these days. They have reasonably pointed to competing demands on our attention and to a growing loss of confidence in higher education. Last summer, a former student of mine from Washington University in St. Louis, Rebecca Yang, and I challenged ourselves to write about the problem from our respective perspectives as student and teacher. We set out to identify something definitive—something more satisfying than the explanations we had already heard.
Rebecca’s essay helps me see that there is probably no single answer. No one theory takes precedence in her thinking; instead, like balloons, one idea floats alongside another. “Maybe it’s something else,” she writes. “None of my conclusions feel absolute.” I admire the lightness of her claims. Like John Keats, John Dewey, and Emily Ogden, Rebecca dwells patiently in uncertainty even as she explores new possibilities. “This takes time, intention, and patience,” she says, “and that’s okay.” She makes me wonder whether what matters most is not knowing why reading has declined, but deciding what tone to adopt now that we are here. Her tone is open, curious, calm, and untroubled. In that register, I find something definitive—something to carry with me into the classroom.Rachel Slaughter
Senior Lecturer, College Writing Program
