OT: Reading concentration

[Rosalind]

When I travel I always make sure I have something to read. I actually have enough material in my personal library to keep me busy for several decades but for some reason I always buy more! I wish I could stop but I think I'm beyond help! LOL

for the past 5 years every time I take a book off my to-read list, there's another dozen on it, but that has more to do with study than anything else.

And I always bring a book with me on the plane too, although I usually bring big chunky non-fiction books, because one it takes me longer to read them, and two I can put them down any time when something happens. I've started to take novels with me on planes lately though, because I want to go through that to-read list.

I'm wondering if so many people have trouble concentrating today because of all the multimedia stimulation they get? TV shows are generally very fast paced because they only have 40 minutes <snip>. The discipline of solitude and quite has been lost and I think the ability to concentrate on any one thing for very long has been affected

I used to do Chinese calligraphy every couple of days when I was in high school, because they let me relax and force me to concentrate on something for a couple of hours. Hell, it takes 30 minutes to just prepare the ink for writing, and I refuse to use ready made ones. I should get back to it, now that study has finished.

I dunno... hasn't school always been boring?

not to me, I had some very very good teachers throughout school. But it also helped that my primary school's library had some fascinating books on Maths, which I think helped me with my enthusiasm for Maths.

 

[William Leisner]

And who does choose the reading materials? I mean, S.E. Hinton, Emile Zola - fuck me sideways. All kinds of antiquated, hyperemotive coming-of-age treacle. I remember being made to read this whole thing on the life lessons we can learn from Joe DiMaggio. Setting aside the antideluvian morality, what fifteen year old living today knows or cares who Joe DiMaggio is? Bleech.

At least you had books written in the same century. Try being force-fed The House of the Seven Gables for freshman English class...

 

[Trent Roman]

That's nasty. Even today I find Hawthorne's long work labourious and preachy. I can't imagine what I would have done reading that as a teen.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Thrawn]

I dunno... hasn't school always been boring? I remember being far more fascinated by the sweep of the second hand on the clock than most anything the teacher had to say. I did all my homework in front of the TV, and I hated every single stupid book I was assigned to read up through senior year (even though I would go to the library and read what I wanted to read).

What's changed, I think, is that there's more competition for attention, and there's the feeling that the longer something lasts, the greater chance you're going to lose eyeballs to something else...

Quoted For Massive Amounts of Truth (except TV/homework - I wouldn't have cared, but the 'rents wouldn't allow it). Just because a kid's attention wanders while listening to some dinosaur drone on for an hour about stuff you already know doesn't mean he has a short-attention span or ADD (narrowly avoided the ritalin, myself) or what-have-you. It's natural for kids to be bored and I don't expect children to have the willpower or social skills to pretend otherwise. My high school tenure only caught the beginning of the portal digital device revolution, but you didn't need gadgets to keep the drudgery out: an active imagination was plenty sufficient (pen and paper helped, though: I have reams of cartoon strips I doodled in class). Cell phones, PDAs and the rest of it are just the most visible manifestation of an old phenomena; scapegoats, really. And who does choose the reading materials? I mean, S.E. Hinton, Emile Zola - fuck me sideways. All kinds of antiquated, hyperemotive coming-of-age treacle. I remember being made to read this whole thing on the life lessons we can learn from Joe DiMaggio. Setting aside the antideluvian morality, what fifteen year old living today knows or cares who Joe DiMaggio is? Bleech.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

Well, my freshman year English teacher used Star Wars to teach the heroic cycle.

And I'm a geometry teacher, so I don't even approach all that.

I do remember hating The Scarlet Letter though, like a true abiding hatred. So much so that I asked to write my final paper on The Scarlet Letter on how the style inadequately conveyed the emotion of the story, rendering it all dull and lifeless, and to her credit my English teacher let me. Got an A on that paper.

 

[The Grim Ghost]

I really enjoyed The Scarlet Letter. I believe Hawthorne's short stories tend to be a lot better than his novels though. The Minister's Black Veil is a favorite of mine. Secret Sin!! House of Seven Gables was quite dull, I agree on that.

TC did you try any of our ideas? How did they work out for you?

 

[Ktrek]

I'm sorry Trent but growing up in the 60s and 70s I don't recall being ever bored nor not paying attention to my teachers. It was considered RUDE and I have always despised rudeness when it comes to things like this subject. My memory seems to recall most of my classmates paying attention and the exception was just that...THE EXCEPTION.

Kevin

 

[tmclough]

TC did you try any of our ideas? How did they work out for you?

When I wrote the OP, I had just finished reading The Wrath of Kahn and started reading TNG's A Rock and a Hard Place. The former was slow reading, with a lot of mind wandering, as per my post. The latter I could tell I would like a lot from the beginning, but my mind was still wandering. However, as I got into it more (in the sense of pages/chapters/whatever), my mind wandered much less--basically, once I got past the introductory chapters.

That said, before that point, I tried playing computer games before reading. The first time I tried it, it seemed to help, for a while. When my mind started to wander again, it was a good time to stop, both bookwise and timewise. The next time I tried it, my mind started to wander in the same sorts of ways, but while playing the game! Not enough to affect the performance of the game much, but enough to affect reading (or listening without playing). Shortly thereafter, the book started getting deeper, and I didn't have much problem.

Late last night, I finished Rock, so I'll have to see what happens with my next book.

Until a little over a year ago, most of the books I bought and read were more or less of the how-to/reference type. I never cared for fiction type books even growing up. Then, when I decided to get back into ST, I also decided to get into reading ST novels. Part of the reason for this was to get away from the Internet more, which I honestly feel is a, if not the, major contributer to my wandering mind being a lot worse than it was back in school (including college). Back then, it was more "Booooooooooooriiiiiiiiiiiing!". Also, I liked Math (my major) and science, which were more about problem solving and ideas, but not English and History, which were to a great degree, reading and memorizing. My internet usage is more text-based than multimedia, but with almost any question within reach of a Google search, and my mind always thinking of things to look up (and remebering what I was going to look up before), plus with all the websites that a quick scan of says "No good--Next!", I think my attention span has dropped a lot over the past 13 years. Plus, all the stresses of life, past and present, doesn't help.

 

[KRAD]

Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville are great short-story writers and wretchedly awful novelists. So naturally, teachers assign their novels to kids.

 

[Trent Roman]

Well, my freshman year English teacher used Star Wars to teach the heroic cycle.

Star Wars is surprisingly useful. The other day I took over a conference for a friend of mine, and while we were going over lexical terms the issue of how to distinguish pastiche from parody came up. I tried to elaborate on what was in the textbook, but it was obvious that most were getting lost in the obscure technicalities. Then it hit me: "Star Wars is pastiche; Spaceballs is parody." That did it; like lightbulbs going on over their heads. I was worried that Spaceballs might actually be something of a dated reference, but obviously enough people had seen or heard of it. Really, it makes to use these stories: in the past, mythology was often used as pedagogical tools; Star Wars is a form of modern myth, and has the same kind of accessibility.

At the risk of exhibiting my historicist tendencies, I find puzzling the attitude that expects people will be able to pick up books written in far different social contexts, particularly historical, and understand it nonetheless simply for being written in the same language, or something approaching it, and damn those who can't. That these stories speak to the human condition and are, as such, universally accessible. But you need to be able to relate to the text at the immediate surface level before you can go looking for deeper meanings, I think, and I don't expect teens with limited life experience and/or historical/world knowledge to all be able to make that empathic leap with characters far removed from their own circumstances (some do, obviously, though not necessarily consistently). I'm entirely against the school of thought that it represents a 'dumbing down' to use contemporary examples as a means of accessing such literature.

I do remember hating The Scarlet Letter though, like a true abiding hatred. So much so that I asked to write my final paper on The Scarlet Letter on how the style inadequately conveyed the emotion of the story, rendering it all dull and lifeless, and to her credit my English teacher let me. Got an A on that paper.

That's pretty good of her. A lot of the teachers I know have a horror of allowing critiquing (as opposed to the usual content or thematic analysis) at that level. I guess they worry they'll wind up with a paper that basically says "It sucks" across a thousand words. Certainly my teachers felt it would the height of arrogance for some punk to pretend to know better than a figure of Hawthorne's standing (well, for us it was Maupassant, but you get the point).

I really enjoyed The Scarlet Letter. I believe Hawthorne's short stories tend to be a lot better than his novels though. The Minister's Black Veil is a favorite of mine. Secret Sin!! House of Seven Gables was quite dull, I agree on that.

Mine's "Rappaccini's Daughter"; I'm hoping to get a T.A.ship next semester to a course with that story on the syllabus, which would be fun. (I like to say that, if Beatrice Rappaccini had been written about a century later, she would be a comic book superhero/villain). A lot of the American Romantics are far better short story writers than novelists, I find. Melville's novels are a chore to read, but some of his shorter fiction is quite good. And Poe, well, his one novel makes me glad it is the one novel.

I'm sorry Trent but growing up in the 60s and 70s I don't recall being ever bored nor not paying attention to my teachers. It was considered RUDE and I have always despised rudeness when it comes to things like this subject. My memory seems to recall most of my classmates paying attention and the exception was just that...THE EXCEPTION.

True; from what I've read of the 60s, it is hard to imagine the student youth of that time being disrespectful to their elders.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[The Grim Ghost]

^ I also love Rappaccini's Daughter.

Really, you didn't like the Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym? I do prefer Poe's short stories, but AGP has always made me wish that he had taken another crack at writing a novel. I found it to be an exhausting but ultimately satisfying read.

I have never been able to get into Melville, mainly due to my dislike of Moby Dick. I loved Steven King's thoughts on it from Danse Macabre, that a lot of English teachers would prefer that they took out all of the stuff about the whale so they could only focus on the symbolism (I'm paraphrasing here) I haven't checked out any of his short fiction though, I think going to give it a try.

Sorry again for going so OT, I just couldn't resist!

 

[KRAD]

I thought Arthur Gordon Pym was a bit of a mess, honestly. Poe was best when he was succinct. I remember reading "Murder on the Rue Morgue," and I was about ready to beat my head into the wall by page four....

And yeah, I'm with Trent, most of the American Romantics were better when shorter. (As opposed to the British Romantics, who mostly disdained prose altogether....)

 

[Trent Roman]

Yes, "Narrative..." makes me want to take out a red pen and start hacking off paragraphs. There are good ideas there, but it gets lost under a lot of verbiage. Of course, I should probably mention that I've had to read it several times now for my thesis, so I'm predisposed to be jaundiced about it's length and meandering quality for more than one reason.

And yeah, I'm with Trent, most of the American Romantics were better when shorter.

Let's see... Poe, 5'8"; Melville, 5'9.5"; so far so good, but I can't seem to track down Hawthorne's height...

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

Well, my freshman year English teacher used Star Wars to teach the heroic cycle.

My freshman English class did the same.

I do remember hating The Scarlet Letter though, like a true abiding hatred. So much so that I asked to write my final paper on The Scarlet Letter on how the style inadequately conveyed the emotion of the story, rendering it all dull and lifeless, and to her credit my English teacher let me. Got an A on that paper.

When we read that in my Junior year, I distinctly remember the class figuring out the entire plot by around the point where Chillingworth arrived. In fact, I recall stating that Hawthorne wasn't dropping hints about things, he was dropping anvils. Good of your teacher to actually let you critique it - a lot of teachers seem to just assume that there's no way that their students could actually appreciate such works and won't let them.

 

[backstept]

one thing I used to do to help my concentration was to take a one-a-day vitamin, B vitamin, and roughly a liter of green tea throughout the day

though if you're already taking vitamins I dunno what to tell ya

 

[Marie1]

This may sound dumb, but do you have a pattern of mind-wandering?
If you get really into a scene thats the type you like, can you read through and lose yourself in it?

I'm an avid reader, and don't usually lose concentration, even if parts are slow, or I don't identify with the characters... unless I a) start imagining a scene- especially if I would have said or done something different, or b) (more common) I get angry and end up stopping briefly while fuming.

I don't know about you guys, but Coun. Matthias (sp) in the DS9R bugs me to death. To death!! And the funny thing is, the writers have all done a good job writing when it comes to her, the dialog, the scenes... the WoDS9 Andor story etc. But I get so mad at her I lose track of reading!! Councillors shouldn't be able to rise above ensign status!! She's just...whats wrong with that woman?? Grrrr!!!!

Ahem... umm... so yeah... any triggers?