Glacier Theory: A Better Understanding Of Early American Literature

This semesters texts have been extremely divers. From precolonial texts spoken by native Americans that were written down by other people, to the early national period. This textual diversity has deepened my knowledge about early American literature and will forever change the way that I read any text. I still believe I have a long way to go in my journey of understanding literature. Although, I now have some tools in my belt to aid in the process of breaking literature down and getting a better understanding of it. Two of the tools I have pick up this semester are the glacier theory and a better understanding of how I process text. I use these tools every time I view a text and I believe that I have a better understanding of literature

This theory is broken down into three equally important parts. The first part of this theory is all about aesthetics. I read the text and I ask myself if I like it or not. Most of the time the answer is no but I do understand that I cannot read something one time and understand it enough to like it. After this step, I read it again. The second step requires me to look a little bit deeper into the text and to really start asking questions. Why did I respond that way? What does this mean? These are questions that I ask myself and think about after the second reading. The third reading is the final stage of the process even though in most cases I will read a text more than three times. This is all about critical analysis. Looking deeper into everything; the word choices, punctuation, and the overall structure of the text. For me, this step is definitely the hardest. I believe this step is the hardest because most of the time it is hard to even know what to ask. There are times when asking questions can even throw me off course. Overall, my understanding of literature has greatly improved since the beginning of the semester because of this theory and putting it into use to analyze