Visual (il)literacy

What happens when students watch movie adaptations of literary works?

“Increasingly in contemporary [...]  schooling, great store is placed on what is described as “visual literacy”. The appropriation of the word literacy is wrong. Film is an entirely different form and does not, and never can, help reading and writing skills.” …

“Visual literacy should not be confused with substantial textual knowledge. That requires students to understand language, how it works, how we read it, comprehend it and write about it in clear, unambiguous, grammatical English. There is nothing literary, as far as traditional skills are concerned, in watching a movie.” …

“Watching a film is an easy option. The result? A generation of “screeners” – as scholar Dale Spender calls the screen-besotted generation – who are being impoverished by an emphasis on film and not literary texts.”

From: theaustralian.com.au

Reading immunizes against depression

As kids and teenages go back to school, depression linked to change of environment and new challenges might kick in. Putting on headphones and locking yourself in a cocoon won't help. Reading might:

"Teenagers who devote more time to reading books are far less likely to suffer from depression than their peers who listen to music."

..."researchers recognise[d] large association between exposure to music and depression", and "that reading was associated with less likelihood of depression. This is worth emphasising because overall in the US, reading books is decreasing, while nearly all other forms of media use are increasing".

More: http://www.onlinenews.com.pk/details.php?newsid=236001&catname=Health



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On the woes that have befallen our country

On the "woes that have befallen our country on the social, legal, moral and even political arenas, and the role of literature in creating awareness and helping curb these evils and misdeeds":

"That the eacher is the dispenser of morality in society is undisputed. Literature teachers are expected, through poetry, novels, short stories and oral literature, to inculcate positive morality into young minds. It is these youngsters that later grow into entrepreneurs, politicians, teachers and other members of society."

Sadly, "We teachers no longer indulge learners in the journey of discovery of the intricacies of literature. Instead we take a short cut by relying on guide books and concentrating on the completion of the syllabus. The best the learners can do is to regurgitate what has been passed down to them. We are doing the nation a disservice."

"I believe morality cannot be attained through legal restrictions but through the inculcation of moral consciousness in individuals, which leads to social responsibility."

From: http://www.nation.co.ke/Features/weekend/Failure-in-society-can-be-traced-back-to-the-literature-teacher/-/1220/1935282/-/uf2703z/-/index.html



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Oxygen for the Mind

"Today our children don’t read works of imagination and the results are what we see today. Children or students who don’t ask questions in class but just take in everything the teachers feed them. Because we don’t learn to think, that is why we have students and workers who just copy and paste everything.

"Reading should not end after class or when the teacher leaves the classroom. Both parents and teachers should encourage children to read. Buying them books to read is one thing and making sure they read them is another.

"It’s high time we parents realised the big mistake we are making by taking our children to school but not encouraging them to read.

"...children and young people need good books, funny books, emotional books, fantasy books, books that enable them to think and see in new ways.

“If you live without oxygen, you suffocate. And books are the oxygen of the mind, even in these days of the internet."

From: http://www.ippmedia.com/frontend/index.php?l=56634



SpyWriter Jack King, the author of:
Agents of Change, WikiJustice, The Black Vault, and The Fifth Internationale.
Books by Jack King:


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Books: Don't mix Work with Pleasure

"Stories are crucial in our lives; we communicate with others using stories all the time. They're what we tell others about ourselves. They teach us how different people handle different circumstances."

"When a parent reads to a child, it is an intimate experience involving a strong emotion" ... "many educated parents are keen to read to their children. However, they tend to force the habit or use it to teach - or sometimes test - the child's English vocabulary."

"This may not be the most ideal and effective strategy to foster a love for reading."

"Experts have agreed that reading for pleasure and for its own sake is the most beneficial for children... If you want your child to be a successful reader, you should read to them for pleasure. Let the school do the teaching. It should be pure pleasure when you and your child read together. You can laugh over a story or cry over it together."

"Another golden rule for parents is to allow their children the freedom to choose books that interest them."

"The worst thing a parent can do is to be critical of a book which means a lot to the child."

"It's OK to let children read a book they love again and again. The important thing is they're free to choose their own books." For children who are not keen readers, it helps to find out what sparks their imagination and use that as a motivation."

FROM: http://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/family-education/article/1226031/how-parents-can-inspire-love-books-among-children

Read for Pleasure:



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Dumbing down literature

"From Reader’s Digest to Cliff’s Notes to No Fear Shakespeare, simplified novels have infiltrated American society over generations. They seem innocent enough, flaunting an “easy to read” nature meant to appeal to those less versed in complex literature and language. However, while these watered down novels may be convenient for the busy, story-oriented adult reader, they are hardly appropriate for a class focused on critical reading. They’re a skewed kind of censorship that removes students from the benefits of difficult, close reading and dumbs down the English classroom.

Words are taken out that set the entire mood of the piece; phrases that define the moment and add depth to the author’s style are taken out. Removing these aspects eliminates the experience of analyzing the author’s intent and figuring out why that phrase or scene was deemed necessary."

From: http://tigernewspaper.com/wordpress/2013/03/14/the-dangers-of-watering-down-literature/



SpyWriter Jack King, the author of:
Agents of Change, WikiJustice, The Black Vault, and The Fifth Internationale.
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How to get children to read books

"Today, with the widespread of education and the booming of the print industry, we would expect more people getting into reading habits, but this did not happen.

...some people equate reading with studying and do not read in their leisure time.

...instead of passing stories along from one generation to another, children are left to television and internet for entertainment."

How to change it? A good starting point is your home:

"When children are used to seeing books as part of their home furniture at an early age, it helps them get attached to reading."

More: http://m.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/education/despite-high-literacy-rate-uae-isnt-reading-books-for-pleasure



SpyWriter Jack King "A new King of thrillers on the horizon" www.SpyWriter.com

Why reading is important for children

"Even with video games, computer tablets and other digital resources, the book still remains a powerful tool to tell stories, teach facts, and share experiences.

Reading is very important to character development, to understand how stories flow ... I can’t say that our kids are reading less. The amount of time given them to read has changed. They don’t spend as much time in the school library. The teachers want the kids to read, but there is a limit on the time they can devote to that.

Children from lower income homes are not going to have a library inside their home ... The school and public library are the only places for them to have the opportunity to experience written stories.

While video lays out a visual story for children, reading compels them to use their imagination to create the characters, setting and situations in the story."

More: http://m.exponent-telegram.com/article_41947942-5dff-11e2-8fa7-0019bb2963f4.html



SpyWriter Jack King "A new King of thrillers on the horizon" www.SpyWriter.com

Books expand the world

"I have been told that many schools have changed their core reading curriculum to include more modern commercial novels...

I believe there are serious consequences to the exchange of commercial writing to classic literature in curriculum. We are graduating students from American high schools, some on their way to four-year universities, with a limited and vapid literary foundation of vampires, werewolves, and wizards. This ignorance means that they will neither be able to complete a New York Times crossword puzzle or receive mercy from an English professor who's been teaching before Stephenie Meyers was even an idea in her parent's heads. At its worst, this American generation will go forth in a world with a great dearth of general knowledge, undoubtedly inferior to their contemporaries overseas who have had a more meaningful education, that will detract from many aspects of their lives.

Literature is not just an exercise in creative expression, it reveals and resolves, it engenders compassion and understanding, it expands our world far beyond the borders of the written page."

From: http://blogcritics.org/books/article/fantasyland-the-limited-world-of-todays/



SpyWriter Jack King "A new King of thrillers on the horizon" www.SpyWriter.com

Sick society without literature

Can reading fiction cut selfishness, stop growth of mass-shooting psychopaths? One thing appears certain: reading fiction gives rise to empathy, and empathy leads to a more compassionate society.

"Schools don’t exist as job-training camps. They exist to educate students. To be truly educated, students need to graduate with more imagination, not less. They need to face questions about what it means to be a human being — they need to stop sleepwalking, if they’ve started it already — and they need to start learning how to love strangers. We all know that becoming properly educated is a lifelong endeavor. But Washington gives students a huge disadvantage if it leads them to think that memorizing data and processing facts is 70 percent of living well."

From: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/335520/goodbye-liberal-arts-betsy-woodruff?pg=1

"Based on the results of the post-reading exercises, Johnson concluded that the more immersed the readers were in the story, the more empathy they felt for the characters. In addition, he found that the heightened empathy led to an enhanced ability to perceive subtle emotional expressions such as fear or happiness. Individuals who experienced higher levels of empathy were also nearly twice as likely to engage in pro-social, or helpful, behavior as individuals experiencing low levels of empathy."

From: http://news.blogs.wlu.edu/2012/02/21/washington-and-lee-professor-finds-that-reading-fiction-leads-to-empathy-helpful-behavior/

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Fiction vs Non-Fiction

"The major problem with the new Common Core State Standards is that they further diminish something that is greatly undermined from the moment we enter school: our creativity.

School essentially limits innovation. The best way to succeed in school is to repeat exactly what the teacher says. But the most effective way to express one’s creativity in school has always been through the reading of fiction.

Through fiction, we are able to let our imaginations run wild, assign meaning to complex passages and have a chance to attack certain situations and moral dilemmas without living them. Reading fiction is an active, involved process."

From: http://m.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2012/12/05/ac2f6df2-3e2e-11e2-8a5c-473797be602c_story.html



SpyWriter Jack King "A new King of thrillers on the horizon" www.SpyWriter.com

Reading is crucial to success

"The hard fact is that either directly or indirectly parents are role models to their children. ... As regards reading, parents need to become readers first since its even easy for children to copy what parents do than hear what parents tell them to do. Therefore, set the example. ...

Reading is very important. It is through reading that we learn to think and write. ...

Even at pre-school age, children that are read to tend to perform better than those that are not read to, because they are exposed to books and new vocabularies which helps their language development.

Latest research studies link reading proficiency with better grades in all subjects. For example at 8 months, when comparing two babies of the same age, it was indicated that a child that was read to had receptive vocabularies (number of words they understand) increase by 40 per cent since baby hood, while the child that was not read to had an increase of only 16 per cent.

Even at pre-school age, children that are read to tend to perform better than those that are not read to because they are exposed to books and new vocabularies which helps their language development.

Children that are read to develop longer attention span which is an important skill for children in order for them to be able to concentrate and it builds listening skills and imagination. Henceforth, reading books is one of the most important activities that make children obtain better grades in their academic endeavors."

More: http://m.allafrica.com/stories/201212040095.html/



SpyWriter Jack King "A new King of thrillers on the horizon" www.SpyWriter.com

Literary movie adaptations no replacement for novels

A student "says he prefers watching films to reading novels.

He argues that watching a movie is more interesting than reading a novel.

“Reading is boring and sometimes when my teacher is reading a novel, I do not follow well,” Mponye says.

He also says it saves time to follow a story condensed in a movie, other than reading 500 pages of a novel.

Many young people today prefer watching television and using computer to reading. Educationists argue that parents and teachers should serve as models by reading and value reading culture.

[...] a literature teacher [...] says he always reads the novels together with his students. But after reading, he ensures that they watch the movie.

“Students pay more attention to movies than during reading sessions in class. It also breaks monotony of appearing before them in class,” Kigongo explains.

“However, movies should not be allowed to replace novels or books [...]

It is believed that access to more books leads to language and literacy development. These reading materials should arouse the children’s passion for reading.

They should have interesting topics, simple grammar and exciting diction to instill a love for reading.

This love cannot be forced upon any one; instead, it can be nurtured. ...

The American Association of Pediatrics advises parents to read to their children right from a tender age.

When a child reads a book, for instance, it stimulates the brain, the muscles, eyes and sense of smell and touch through turning pages.

In addition, their cognitive, social and emotional abilities are improved."

From: newvision.co.ug



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Who needs literature?

"Starting this year, at least half of all reading in our schools is supposed to be non-fiction. And that includes kindergarten.

What makes matters even worse for later grades is that students already read non-fiction almost exclusively in all their other courses, so if you take science, social studies, and math into account, only one-eighth of student reading will be literary. And that fraction is likely to shrink in the future.

So the question looms: Is literature necessary? ...

While ripping “The Cat in the Hat” from the hands of kindergarteners and replacing it with “How Factories Work” may, in the long run, produce better factory workers, it is unlikely to produce better citizens. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be operated on by a doctor who couldn’t master “Dr. Zhivago,” nor do I want to be defended by a lawyer who thinks Sydney Carton is a box of Australian cigarettes.

In truth, we should be encouraging students to read more literature, not less. Literature allows us to see how all humans are connected through common experiences and emotions. It allows us to examine our past and plan for our future. It can help make us more empathetic to our fellows. Perhaps most importantly literature exposes us to new ideas and forces us to think in new ways.

If our goal is to improve education, what could be more practical than that?"

From: http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2012/08/15/never-mind-algebra-is-literature-necessary/

Books make Friends for Life

"Data from the NEA points to a dramatic and accelerating decline in the number of young people reading fiction. Despite their enthusiasm for books in grade school, by high school, most kids are not reading for pleasure at all.  

Statistics don’t bode well for a happy ending: One-third of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives. Over 58 percent of the U.S. adult population never reads another book after high school. Nearly 42 percent of college graduates never read another book. Over 80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year. Just under 70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years. There’s more, but you get it. If 4 out of 5 adults aren’t reading, then their kids will never read either.  

And that’s a shame. Because good books, like good friends, stay with you for life, always there when you want or need to draw on them. I can’t imagine life without them.  

No matter what your child does in life, the key to success will be reading skills. You owe it to your children to read with them, as well as to them. You’ll not only be teaching them a critical life-skill, you’ll be giving them the one thing they crave from you the most – your time."

More: http://www.tctimes.com/columnists/if_i_were_king/help-wanted-must-be-able-to-read/article_f77c1fe8-d97b-11e1-95a5-001a4bcf887a.html



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Loneliness of a double life

As new school year approaches and recruiters will be sweeping every campus for impressionable youth it may be a good idea to recount what it is like to be a spy:

"Intelligence agents lead double lives, requiring them to regularly deceive other people, and not just their targets. It is not easy for a person with a solid social conscience to sustain a lifestyle that involves covertly influencing or controlling others through lies. Agents can come to feel subtly detached or separated from other people, feelings that may persist even when they resume their normal lives once their espionage is over.

These psychological burdens of detachment and loneliness are acute while the agents are deployed and living their covers among their targets, where the seemingly trusting social relationships they have built with targets are mostly false, based on lies and manipulation. Sometimes they frankly despise the targets they are pretending to admire. Their real personalities are buried under layers of clandestinity; there is no one there who is aware of their true status, other than themselves. One particularly self-aware agent described his psychological situation while deployed as a form of solitary confinement, with his own skull his prison cell."

More: http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2012/07/05-spy-wilder

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Ditch TV, write a diary, become a writer.

"Children are completely entrapped by these mediums [TV]. They think and speak in the language propagated by them. It is because media does not give them the space to process independent thinking, it reflects in their decision making. ...

I feel children today are losing the intricacies of language. Their manner of expression has become very technical. Hence, they don’t have a sense of dialogue. Writing a diary gets one into a mode of introspection, which helps them to analyse the world around them.

Adolescence clouds the brain with confusions. It's also an age when children stand to learn a lot as their mind and a myriad of feelings are very active. This is when they also wish to express themselves independently. The personal space of a diary will offer them a chance for out-of-the-box thinking."

From: http://www.punemirror.in/article/62/20120630201206300851454874bbeb95d/Kids-need-to-break-away-from-SMS-and-Twitter-mode.html

I can't help but observe that I wrote and published my first novel only after ditching TV some 12 years ago...

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Literature - love it or hate it?

Save children from literature in order to help instil in them the love of the written word:

"When reading great works, ones grasp on language strengthens. One begins to use correct language instinctively without soliciting the wisdom of Google, and besides, the careful reading of descriptions adds new adjectives to the vocabulary. Thus, overall communication abilities improve.

...the reading of literature can instill a remarkable sensitivity in a person. With regular reading, one becomes accustomed to the constant engagement of all these senses. In real life, this practice enables one to pierce the surface of different situations and grasp the timid underplays of words, tones and facial expressions."

However, school and university reading lists are doing the opposite:

"...turning literature into an academic discipline taxes the wholeness of a literary experience. ...

There is little time to stop and savour a single author’s creativity since there is an overwhelming list of texts to be covered. The reading of great works thus turns into a ponderous chore instead of a delightful diversion. It actually begins to work the other way round by making students detest literature."

From: http://tribune.com.pk/story/393839/the-academising-of-literature/



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Reading novels cover to cover helps students build confidence

"Literary fiction is an art that seeks to create an immersive experience for the reader, but we often don't approach it that way with our students. We parcel out books in pieces and ask students to analyze them along the way without the ability to understand a work in its entirety. This is sort of like asking students to interpret a corner of a painting. Without the entire context, it lacks meaning and can become frustrating."

So, this 7th grade English teacher came up with an idea, and put it into action in her class:

"Let students read novels in their entirety. Then let them talk about what they find interesting in the book, facilitating the group's exploration of the text."

"Leading a whole-novel study is like throwing a boomerang. If the boomerang is carved well, and I aim it properly, it will take a journey and come back to me. If the literary work is artfully written and meaningful to students, and I support the class well, they will arrive at all the learning objectives I am responsible for teaching and then some. What's more is that they build stamina, confidence, critical thinking, and the habit of reading whole books by themselves."

More: http://www.edweek.org/tsb/articles/2012/02/29/02sacks.h05.html



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Back to school for the CIA

"The Central Intelligence Agency and the 15 other agencies that make up the so-called ‘US Intelligence Community’ are by definition secret. They will not tell you how many employees they have, what their budget is and how it is allocated, who their employees are or where they come from. They will not publish all of their research or share their discoveries with everyone. The shredder, the burn bag, the ‘bug,’ the ‘Top Secret’ classification, the covert operation and the sealed lips are among their standard operating procedures.

The sanctuary that is the university has always been vulnerable. Today, as in the past, the Central Intelligence Agency seeks to penetrate the academy to access the best brains in the country, skew research, recruit students, burnish its image, and spy on faculty. As former CIA Personnel Director F. W. M. Janney wrote: “It is absolutely essential that the Agency have available to it the greatest single source of expertise: the American academic community.”

CIA projects on campus involve recruitment (they need to generate 10,000 applicants each year), and ‘curriculum modification,’ to teach courses their way, and have drawn faculty and students into dangerous mind control experiments, election fraud, and the training of police torturers and military death squads. Such projects always involve secrecy and the subversion of an independent faculty. They have been so successful that in 1988, CIA spokesperson Sharon Foster announced: “The CIA has enough professors under Agency contract to staff a large university.”

From: http://www.themonitor.com/articles/public-54486-eyes-wants.html