Return-Path: <nifl-womenlit@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id f4HE0ef15718; Thu, 17 May 2001 10:00:40 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 10:00:40 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <67.1431aaa9.28353304@aol.com> Errors-To: alcrsb@langate.gsu.edu Reply-To: nifl-womenlit@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-womenlit@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-womenlit@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: AWilder106@aol.com To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-womenlit@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-WOMENLIT:1451] Re: X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Mailer: AOL 4.0 for Mac - Post-GM sub 146 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Status: O Content-Length: 2531 Lines: 51 Dear Deborah and all, I read all sorts of books, from "trash" to "good books." I put those in paren because I turn to certain books for certain reasons, I re-read children's books that are old favorites, I even re-read my mother's children's books. For years I have suffered in silence while people tout "good books" which I found dull, and I went back to my chidlren's books or trash on my own. A bookseller friend of mine was recently shocked when he looked at my upstairs bookshelves. And I have a doctorate.... BUT this story has a happy ending. Last week in the Chronicle of Higher Education I read an essay on this very topic, a college teacher starting with the books her students loved, then trying to build on from there a capacity to appreciate "good books." Last paragraph: "For many years now, I've taken my students' love for their summer books as a good starting place; my plan has always been to move them from an affective to an intellectual response, from loving a text to understanding it. What I didn't consider was that loving might be a way of undeerstanding, not merely a precursor to it. How that works, I'm still not exactly sure. When I find out, well, that's where my next book will come from." On myself: if I had had to learn reading from the dreadful little passages that seem to be adult literacy staples I never would have, or it would have been much harder. When my brother and I were little we (mother) subscribed to magazines, etc. They were our very own. I took Jack and Jill, my brother, older, had comic books --many--later Time magazine. My mother subscribed to scads of magazines, I certainly do--just hold me back--and 3 newspapers. During graduate school I cut back, due to expense, and felt the loss of the newspapers keenly. This is very un PC, but oh, well--I had a friend who was down and out stay with me for a couple of months because he had no place to go, and the first night he was here he asked "Where is your pornography?" Feeling I was somehow derelict myself in being a hostess, i went down to a bookstore and bought him some HIGH CLASS BUT LOW PRICE pornography--called literature, but the line is kind of fuzzy, frankly. On this topic, there is a sexually frank book that is recommended for adult ltieracy classes??? By "Sapphire?" Have i got that right? Now, that shocks me, or I should say, adult lit people's reaction to that shocks me. Gotta run. I love this conversation, Deborah is right, it is real. Andrea
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