Blog 10

Well coming into this course i was expecting the worst but it really turned out to be an alright class. I'm not much of a reader but i found most of the material covered in class somewhat interesting, or at least it was made to be interesting to us haha Overall id say i learned a little bit more about how to use my analytic skills to understand and interpret a deeper meaning in a piece of literature. I can see how some of the things we learned over this semester can definitely be used in the future for whatever i may have to do.

No more books?

I know i'm not much of a reader and all but i still understand the importance of literature and how books really help the spread of knowledge. A distinctive characteristic of our species is the ability to record history and information in writing to ensure that we can progress in the future. Even when reading is not a common part of our lives, without the ability to understand and interpret concepts, how would we ever have a true understanding of our past? Besides the obvious pros for books such as entertainment, they make it possibe for the spread of ideas, which i think is the most important attribute of reading. My entire life, a majority of the things iv'e learned through school have come through books. Where would I be if books didn't exist and i couldn't read? When I think of people "burning books" today, two terms come to mind. Censorship and shortcuts. In our country at least, any piece of written work has some importance to it for somebody. When a book is banned because of its' content, i can see that as a form of "burning" someones ideas. Referring to shortcuts, Sparknotes and other sites ruin the real meaning of a book by getting rid of the concepts and storylines and replacing them with the main general ideas you can get from reading the back of the book. It makes the book lose its real value if you're not actually going to read it.