… explains to an interviewer that he was a hideously bad writer until…
What turned you around?Going to school was the big thing for me. I read voraciously but I don’t think I understood half of what I read. Taking a simple lit analysis class was eye-opening. I was able to see the technique that went into great writing. It’s more than drinking a lot and scowling.
College – at least college as it used to be, complete with lit analysis classes – can make a difference.
The Wall Street Journal article includes a clip from the film.
Here’s the film’s trailer.
August 10th, 2010 at 6:26PM
I don’t know if there IS a “college as it used to be” on most campuses. In a interesting Frontline called “Digital Nation” they interview students at MIT and Stanford and ask about reading habits. Every student noted that if the assignment is longer than 200pages they simply don’t read it. Most of the time it was because 1)they don’t have time/interest and 2)they find online summaries faster and just as informative. In other words, why read if they don’t have to?
That changes the Lit courses drastically. There are far fewer original comments or conversations that help in the eye-opening process. The professor would be the first step but with so few students actually *reading* the thing it would make it much more difficult to discover meaning.