Literature. After our discussion on Wednesday, my mind was racing in regards to literature.

My First thought was on the topic of instructive literature. We talked about how literature that is not didactic, basically is worthless. If you are reading a piece of literary work that is not shaping the inner workings of your mind, then you are reading "trash" literature. But i guess my question is what exactly is the criteria for a piece of literature to be considered instructional? I feel as if every piece of literature possesses the ability to teach someone something. Everything from comic books to books on literary criticism, can teach the people reading them at least one thing. I think as long as you are reading, you are learning. Why do we have to create this hierarchy for literature? When the hierarchy is created, i feel as if it discourages people from reading. What i mean by that is i know people who might enjoy reading "trash" novels, but because we place them at the lower end of the totem pole, they are not even given the opportunity to explore their identity as a reader. As far back as i can remember, schools gave students limitations on what they read inside a classroom. These limitations consisted of classical and intellectual readings, and as a result left out the "unimportant" genres. In doing this, i believe a lot of kids grew up never appreciating literature, whatever it may have been, because they were never encouraged to read books that sparked their particular interests. If you have a kid who is interested in sports but he is never given the option to read a book on sports, then that might be taking away the chance for him to want to read. Dr. Sexon said that most people don't read anymore, that some people will go for a year or longer without having read a single book, but i think the reason for that is because from the beginning they are functioning off the notion that we talked about in class; if what we read is not didactic, then basically it is pointless. This is why people have fallen away from reading, if someone wants to read for their pleasure, why does that mean that they are not going to be learning from their text? I think this is where the ball has really been dropped...(to be continued)