My relationship with literature

Literature has always been a big part of my life. It started with science fiction and mystery books when I was a child. I loved to read books with Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, and the stories of a young scientist named Danny Dunn. School readings were sometimes interesting, but I appreciate having to read them. I loved “Lord of the Flies”, “Animal Farm” and “1984” (which I had to read in, ironically, 1984!) As I grew older, I found myself reading more horror and African American books, like stories from Clive Barker, Stephen King along with classics like “The Autobiography of Dick Gregory”, “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” and Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple”. I found that old classic books, like Shakespeare and Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales” were books I had a difficult time reading and understanding. I also find reading plays difficult. Currently, I don’t read as much as I did when I was younger. I like to read James Patterson books currently and I’m a big fan of his Alex Cross series. (I’m anxiously waiting for the new one in November!) I enjoy reading about the sociopolitical climate that we are in. I truly enjoyed book I read by Michael Moore that made me a fan of his work.

                  When working on a literature assignment, I like being told what must be accomplished in the assignment. I hated ambiguous book reports when I was in middle school (over the summer) that just told us to give a report on two books we read during our break. I liked when we had to give a summary of the elements of fiction of a book. It made me aware of each character’s role in the book. I liked describing the roles of conflicts, as well as figuring out the theme of the book. In high school, literature assignment wasn’t as big as they were in middle school due to the diverse school I went to. We were able to take things like acting, AP English, or writing. I chose acting because of the minimal amount of reading and writing that had to be done to be successful in that class. Choosing pieces to act out was the difficult part, but I had good partners that were flexible and liked picking out the part, so I did my part by getting props and materials.  I feel I work better when I can feel compassion about the work that I am reading. I can relate to most modern stories, I can not relate to Shakespearean English, and the flow of plays that I am not actually acting out seems to interrupt my logic.