Summary Of Reading Our World Around Us By Rick Moody

The Argument on Reading Reading has at all times and in all ages been a great source of knowledge. It widens the horizon of thinking. It plays a key role to academic success. The ability to read is highly valued and very important for social and economic advancement. However, when students walk into their English classes, no one anticipates for the professor to ask, what does reading mean? The majority, probably have never pondered the question before and almost everyone will likely not have a vivid memory of when they first realize they could read. Alberto Manguel did, when he walked us through his memory of being four years old and discovering he could read, in his essay “Reading Our World Around Us” (5). Manguel also speaks of reading as an acquired sense; beyond eyesight, beyond touch and taste, but a “sense that can decipher, translate and give voice to, reading” (6). Then there is Rick Moody, author of “The Joy and Enthusiasm of Reading,” who proposes that there is no “right” or “wrong” way to read a text. After reading Rick Moody’s essay,

If Rick Moody were to talk about reading a textbook for a Geology class, what advice would he give a student of how to read it? Would he give the same advice that was given to him by Mr. Flanders or Mr. Buxton? Rick Moody’s opinion that there is no “right” or “wrong” way to read a text does not consider other types of writing, therefore I cannot completely agree with him. In the end of “The Joy and Enthusiasm of Reading,” Moody states, “I believe there is not now and never will be an authority who can tell me how to interpret, how to read, how to find the pearl of literary meaning in all cases” (3). Even though I appreciate those sentiments, how would Moody deal with authorities, such our government, who dictates how we interpret the written laws of our