More than Simply Literacy by Minjung

More than Simply Literacy by Minjung - August 2017 Scholarship Essay

On the first day of class, I will walk in, my hair pulled into a no-nonsense bun and a stack of papers under my arm. Turning to the large group of college freshmen blinking at me over their laptops and syllabi, I will announce, “In this class, I will be teaching you how to read.”
A chorus of confused murmurs will ripple through the lecture hall. Inevitably, someone will raise their hands and say something to the effect of, “Ms. Yu, we’re… er… sitting in a college literature class. I think it’s safe to assume that we know how to read by now.”
I will nod at the student brave enough to speak up. “Yes, I am sure all of you can look at ink on a page and decipher it into words. However, I contend that very few of you know how to actually read—actually gain true insight and enjoyment from what you are reading. If, by the end of this class, you have not learned how, you may feel free to laugh in my face.” I will offer the sea of puzzled faces a confident smile before adding, “We will start right away. Turn to page 367 in your textbooks.”
According to a survey conducted in September of 2016, 50% of U.S. adults are unable to read an 8th grade level book. 70% of Americans have not stepped into a bookstore in the last five years. An astounding 80% of U.S. families did not purchase a single book this year.
All around me, I see what is not exactly illiteracy but what is certainly an inability to appreciate the true value of literature. The sad truth is that most Americans see books as a last-resort form of entertainment even in airports. The pages of Edith Wharton and Edgar Allen Poe are merely requirements, walls of a prison they broke through when they completed their final mandatory English course and at which they never bothered to look back.
Even now, in high school, I see books differently than most of my friends do. Rather than a prison, the black and white form a sanctuary into which I can flee after a long day. Characters and happenings from plays and poems and prose echo my innermost thoughts; the symbols and feelings are mine: I wait for Godot, I drag the carcass of a great fish across the sand, I sing songs of America, I reach for the light across the bay.
I refuse to believe that this appreciation means I’m somehow special. It is my personal conviction that everyone can learn to fall in love with reading if they are just taught how much thought and emotion books can contain. Furthermore, I believe with all my heart that a true appreciation of literature is a defining measure of an engaged mind and a fulfilling life.
So I will begin my class by demystifying Shakespeare. I will show my students through his ghosts and puns and bears that the Bard is not quite the face of elitism they have learned to expect. My students will begin to recognize that the fiery ambition of Macbeth, the misplaced jealousy of Othello, and the mischievous gallantry of Mercutio have been passed on like heirlooms to the present. I will help them fall in love with children of Shakespeare’s mind and weep as they breathe their last.
I will teach them that Dickens’ lengthy descriptions are more than catalogs, that absurdist plays are not quite as absurd as they may seem at first glance. I will have them lock poems in their hearts with which they will one day propose to a lover or lull a child to sleep. There will be no written tests—only discussions in which no thoughtful answer will ever be wrong. My students will come to view books as a creative endeavor that is not complete without their input; I will encourage them to take from each work a hope, message, or lesson that belongs to them alone. Their final assignment will be to find a piece of literature in which they feel at home.
In the end, my gift to my students will be the love of reading. And my gift to my country will be a generation of young people who love to read.