We don’t seem to be recovering from the drop in literacy within the United States among school age children in 2019 and following years. The standard response is blame the problem on children not receiving an adequate education during the Covid pandemic. However, reading literature in education was on its way out before that time. My discussions with Language Arts and Literature teachers in the early 2000’s revealed many who thought secondary students had no need to be exposed to works written more than fifty years ago. Some preferred an even more recent time frame.
A number of new English teachers had not been required to do as much reading as those obtaining degrees twenty years ago. So, they choose new popular novels, especially those made into recent movies, to provide students with books that were easier to read. The written assignments that didn’t require analysis of what they read. There was no need because the authors told the reader the kind of characters they encountered in the books and the meanings behind symbols.
What do we have to lose when we no longer require students to read works that are not easily read but have withstood the test of time? Perhaps we will be robbing students of a chance to increase empathy and social skills. Being able to grasp the mental state of other people is valuable for functioning in society. Researchers and scientists do not know a lot about what contributes to this skill. However, two recent studies show that reading fiction, and in particular literary fiction, increases it.
A study by Mar and Oatley (2010) from York University found that individual who choose to read fiction often were more able to empathize with others and understand the world from their perspective. They made no division between literature and popular fiction.1 A more recent study by Kidd and Castano (2013) indicates that reading literary fiction at least temporarily increase people’s ability to understand that others have differing beliefs, values, goals and desires. These researchers from the New School for Social Research, conducted experiments to test participant’s accuracy in identifying the emotions of others after they had been reading popular fiction, non-fiction, literary texts or nothing at all. They found those that had read literary texts were able to more accurately identify the emotions than those who had read popular fiction or non-fiction.2
So what exactly is the difference between popular fiction and literature?
So what exactly is the difference between popular fiction and literature? According to the literary theory by Roland Barthe, fictional text is divided into two types. He describes “readerly” text as those in which the reader is mostly passive, and does not have to make much effort to receiving the text. This type of text is largely entertaining and the author tells you what you are experiencing. On the other hand “writerly” text require that the reader engage with the writer. This text requires greater effort to read and comprehend the codes of meaning.
You open a book of what we call popular fiction and you know from the get-go who is going to be the good guy and the bad guy.3
We tend to see ‘readerly’ more in genre fiction like adventure, romance and thrillers, where the author dictates your experience as a reader. Literary [writerly] fiction lets you go into a new environment and you have to find your own way.4
There is not a rigid line of demarcation between the two literary fiction and and other types of reading. However, literature is usually marked by an in depth focus on characters inner feelings and thoughts, with few characters remaining it a static state. This forces the reader to make an effort the understand them and and construct their own frame of reference for the characters.
Comprehension of literature may require work that the students may not want to do. I’ve heard teachers voice the fear that students will give up if challenged to read books that hold meanings not apparent on the initial perusal. But, sticking with those works does have its benefit. One of those is becoming aware of people unlike ourselves.
Photo by K.N. Listman
Write about what? 
Education in this country, of all types, has fallen off the mark. In lieu of that, one hopes parents can encourage their children.
However, I do feel that genre fiction can be engaging and challenging in the hands of a good writer. Perhaps the only satisfaction is that the younger folks are reading atcall.