HG

The way school has taught me to read has greatly affected my reading habits at home. Learning to analyze literature made reading less enjoyable for me because sometimes I would not be able to concentrate on a book’s plot, which is usually the part I enjoy most, because I would be too busy trying to find the “deeper meaning” behind the story. Also some of the books I have read in school, especially the ones that are considered “real literature,” such as The Old Man and the Sea and The Iliad, I have really disliked. This has discouraged me from reading “real literature” at home. When I began to have English classes where I was required to read nine or ten books a year, reading sometimes felt like more of a burden than a pleasure. So, when I had free time, the last thing I’d want to do is read. It was also sometimes hard for me to enjoy a book when I was forced to read it in a certain amount of time. I think that reading should be something done at the reader’s own pace in order to make the experience enjoyable. For example, every time a new Harry Potter book came out I would read all 700 or 800 some pages in a matter of days and I would thoroughly enjoy it. On the other hand, it was a painful experience when I had to read less than 200 pages in The Red Scarf Girl in a week or even to read the final 5 pages of The Old Man and the Sea in an hour.