Literature Circle Essay As Richard Hughes once said,“All that nonfiction could do is answer questions. It’s fiction’s business to ask them.” When you read a piece of nonfiction, it gives you the information and it is your job to answer questions about it. When you read a piece of fiction it makes you critically think to ask your own questions and to answer them. Without fiction in the school’s curriculum, students will be unable to critically think about pressing social issues and will have a harder time understanding underlying themes and symbols representative of our society. In the novel, Highly Illogical Behavior, by John Corey Whaley, Solomon Reed is an agoraphobic and does not want to leave his house or even go outside. This book could …show more content…
Studies have shown that people who read fiction have an increased vocabulary and understanding of words than people who do not read fiction. “A 2013 Emory University compared the brains of people after they read fiction (specifically, Robert Harris’ Pompeii over nine nights) to the brains of people who didn’t read. The brains of the readers showed more activity in certain areas than those who didn’t read—especially the left temporal cortex, the part of the brain typically associated with understanding language.” This quote scientifically proves that those who read fiction have an increased knowledge of vocabulary. This further proves my point that fiction improves critical thinking skills. Studies have also shown that works of fiction improve critical thinking by expanding an individual’s creativity and allowing them to be more open-minded. “A study published in Creativity Research Journal asked students to read either a short fictional story or a non-fiction essay and then measured their emotional need for certainty and stability...These findings suggest that reading fictional literature could lead to better procedures of processing information generally, including those of creativity.” Creativity is one of the most important aspects of critical thinking because it allows you to think outside the box. Thus, fiction improves creativity which in turn increases your critical thinking skills proving the point that fiction allows high level thinking. To summarize, fiction helps one to ask questions and think critically by learning more vocabulary than non-fiction texts as well as allowing the reader to be more