Reading Literature Makes USarter And Nicer Analysis

A piece by Annie Murphy Paul dives deeper. Reading literature makes us smarter and nicer is an article about how much literature influences the lives of children and adults. Paul argues that reading is more of a spiritual experience than anything. While reading, the reader dives into the world of the characters and story. It is so immersive that sometimes, he/she will be unaware of his surroundings since they are so involved in the story: That immersion is supported by the way the brain handles language rich in detail, allusion and metaphor: by creating a mental representation that draws on the same brain regions that would be active if the scene were unfolding in real life. The emotional situations and moral dilemmas that are the

In elementary school, Dan was one of the “slow learners.” At the age of eight he still did not know how to read and was placed with all of the other slow learners who he referred to as the “slow group.” Because of this, Dan decided he needed to find some better people to hang out with. He befriended a boy who was also named Dan. This kid loved to read comic books and make his own comics. Dan Hurley (our Dan) thought that it would be cool if he could have something that both he and his friend could do together. He decided to learn to read and make his own comic books. After learning to read proficiently, Dan started to have fun doing it. He continued to read for most of his academic career. By the time Dan made it into high school he was getting straight A’s and developed an IQ score of 136. Dan was very interested in how he actually became so smart after being in the slow classes all his life. He speculated that it might have something to do with the fact that he was reading a lot more, but he wanted to find out for sure. He decided to spend the rest of his days interviewing psychologists and neuroscientist around the world to find out more. Through his studies, Dan found that there are three types of intelligence. “Crystallised intelligence" (Hurley), which is the mixture of knowledge that fills your brain (i.e. knowing how to ride your bike or

I used to sit in my basement and play with my Spiderman action figure for hours on end. Never seeming to get bored. However, when it was time for me to go to sleep, my mother always ensured that I was reading myself to sleep. I didn’t know it at the time, but she did it to make sure that I would become a knowledgeable young man. I didn’t see it as a chore. I loved to read just as much as playing with my toys and I gladly read myself to sleep almost every night. I continued to read till I was about eleven years old and for whatever reason decided that I’d had enough. Up until about a year ago, reading wasn't something that I did at all. Looking back at these times, I realized that it was then that I stopped making progression intellectually. I didn’t feel like I got any smarter while I spent my days playing video games and dreading school. This being a research paper, I decided to study myself and do some research on my own life. I found that during the times I stopped reading, I had less friends that I truly cared about, and had almost no hobbies that I truly enjoyed doing. I was following the crowd and stopped becoming my own person. I was a product of celebrity endorsement and social networking. Every action I made was because of somebody else. I was still the same sensitive, quiet person, but nobody knew that. I was a part of the two out of three students that said reading wasn’t cool. Shame on me. Now that I have picked up reading again, I