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Development of Reading ability
Role of literature in education
Role of literacy and literature
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Recommended: Development of Reading ability
Can Empathy Be Improved Through Literary Fiction? Reading is an important tool in language development in children. As they grow older and reach secondary school it evolves into looking deeper into the themes and motifs of the narratives studied. This maturation of concepts helps individuals identify complex ideas and possibly aid in developing empathy. According to Scientific American’s article Novel Finding: Reading Literary Fiction Improves Empathy (2013), researchers have found evidence that suggests that reading literary fiction may improve a reader’s ability to grasp what others think or feel. “...this may be the first empirical evidence linking literary and psychological theories of fiction” (Chiaet, 2013). The theory focuses on how …show more content…
Literary fiction improving a soft skill like empathy is explained by suggesting that books awarded enough literary merit to be considered into the category are superior in showing fleshed out characters relationships and struggles. “Although the settings and situations are grand [in genre fiction], the characters are internally consistent and predictable, which tends to affirm the reader’s expectations of others” (Chiaet, 2013). The theory uses research performed by a social psychologist Emanuele Castano and David Kidd, a PhD candidate, as its main pillar in the argument on improving the capacity to empathize. During five studies a varying number of participants were given excerpts three different categories; genre fiction, literary fiction, or no work at all. The individuals were then given a test that is used to measure how well they could analyze scenarios that facilitate empathy. The result showed that the test takers given the literary fiction did have a marked improvement; thus, implying an improvement for empathy overall. The theory may sound more convincing from such tests results but there are holes in the research that makes it still only defined by
In “The Baby in the Well: The Case Against Empathy” by Paul Bloom, Paul want’s his readers to understand that empathy is not very helpful unless it is fused with values and reason.
Annie provides evidence by studies, published in 2006 and 2009, in her second paragraph. The evidence provided by the studies was "that individuals who often read fiction appear to be better able to understand people." By including this in her essay, she is able to support her claim about the importance of "deep reading."
Prose has noticed through her experience that college students are unable to read even the basic pieces of literature. Some are also “incapable of doing the close line-by-line reading necessary to disclose the most basic information.” This is due to the little concentration and focus on the writing of a book. These students are also the ones who loathe literature. The students are quick to make judgements about books and their character because they have been taught that in high school. This is taught to them through reading questions asking about the student’s opinion on a certain character or even the author. This diverts their minds totally from learning about literature to learning about how to judge a character or story.
When you read, especially fiction, you experience a broad sweep of human life. You gain access to the thoughts of others, look at history through another person’s eyes and learn from their mistakes, something that you otherwise would not be able to experience.
When adolescents read these stories, they realize that they share the feelings of the characters
Empathy is one of the greatest powers that a human being can ever hope to achieve; one person being able to understand the inner-workings of another is something truly amazing. However, empathy isn’t something that one is always naturally able to accomplish; in fact, it usually takes a long time for one to develop any empathy at all. In Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, the reader follows Scout Finch as she experiences her youth in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama. In this story, we experience her empathy for others as it increases or decreases. Though there are many examples of these alterations in Scout’s relationships, there is one that is both prominent and more complex than a few others; her relationship with her aunt, Alexandra. There are three specific instances in which we can track the progression of Scout’s empathy towards her aunt; meeting Aunt Alexandra, Scout wanting to invite Walter Cunningham over, and the assault by Bob Ewell of Scout and Jem.
I think that the good novelist tries to provide his reader with vivid depictions of certain crucial and abiding patterns of human existence. This he attempts to do by reducing the chaos of human experience to artistic form. And when successful he provides the reader with a fresh vision of reality. For then through the symbolic action of his characters and plot he enables the reader to share forms of experience not immediately his own. And thus the reader is able to recognize the meaning and value of the presented experience as a whole. (Kostelanetz 10)
With that empathy gained from reading a person would be more likely to be civic-minded, be active in their choices and actions, and of course reading creates imagination. Empathy is not created by reading, empathy is not only for the literate. The fact that a person does or does not hold the skills to understand text is not a determining factor in whether or not they can show compassion and understanding for another or a situation. However, I do feel that reading allows a person to broaden that innate empathy through literature and learn of others lives, predicaments and struggles that are not like their own. Being able to read helps expose a person to the diversity of new worlds where norms collide and rights are taken and given. Worlds where morals can grow and shift and beliefs can take hold and wilt or strengthen. All from the text in a book, on screen, or found on the page of a newspaper or magazine. “What literature does—nowhere more powerfully than in fiction (the novel and the short story)—is put us in the inner lives of other people in the dailyness of their psychological, social, economic, and imaginative existence. This makes us feel, more intensely probably than anything else, the reality of other points of view, of other lives”(Gioia 422). The following text is an example of an essay that causes readers to empathize and understand
Empathy is not the ability to ask what is wanted, it is the chance of understanding what may be needed. In Margaret Edson’s “Wit,” Vivian Bearing is faced with the life-threatening illness of ovarian cancer. Throughout her battle, she encounters Jason Posner and Susie Monahan, characters tasked with caring for her during her illness. Undeniably as Vivian’s health deteriorates, Jason and Susie are affected. Through various scenes and interactions, these characters reveal how they empathize with one another. Empathy requires them to not only step outside of their comfort zone, but also view the world in a different light thanks to Vivian.
Empathy is imperative to teach kids from a young age in order to help them recognize mental states, such as thoughts and emotions, in themselves and others. Vital lessons, such as walking in another’s shoes or looking at a situation in their perspective, apprehends the significance of the feelings of another. Our point of view must continuously be altered, recognizing the emotions and background of the individual. We must not focus all of our attention on our self-interest. In the excerpt, Empathy, written by Stephen Dunn, we analyze the process of determining the sentiment of someone.
In the article “The Baby in the Well: The Case Against Empathy,” Paul Bloom puts forward a tendentious thesis. Empathy, according to him, is overrated. The imaginative capacity to put oneself in the place of an oppressed, afflicted, or bereaved person does not lead to rational, thoroughly-considered solutions to important problems. Indeed, it can lead to hysterical displays of ill-directed charity, the misallocation of resources, and total blindness to other significant issues. Bloom appeals to his readers’ sense of logic by using examples of environmental and geopolitical crises that require forward-thinking solutions; he suggests that, because of the need to think about the future and the big picture, a politics of empathy cannot be relied
“The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy.” –Meryl Streep Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. This particular skill requires one to walk around in someone else’s shoes. It is a very valuable emotional skill that develops in many characters during the course of the novel. In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, empathy is consistently present whether it’s Atticus being empathetic, Atticus teaching the kids to empathize or them empathizing themselves in certain situations.
Afghanistan was a war country where people got attacked by the talibans. In the kite runner a novel by Khaled Hosseini Afghanistan, was a dangerous country. It's the story about a relationship About 2 boys called Hassan and Amir that at this time in the book they were victims and innocents and don't deserve a punishment on the story. People gain empathy when others need the help, when they lose someone, when there's a bond between people and are demonstrating when others have help us we want to help them.
...d areas, including sympathy/empathy unresponsiveness and its negative outcomes, are the topics for future researches that can help us develop our understanding of emotional responses to fiction and emotional education. The fact that most of the concepts related to the issue raised in the text can refer to numerous types of processes implies on needing and developing other theories and researches. Therefore, in my opinion, in his essay “Empathy and (Film) Fiction” Alex Neill well-studied the concept of identification, empathy and emotional response to the film and, moreover, visualized the new “fresh” understanding of the significant value of the empathetic responses.
Empathy is the ‘capacity’ to share and understand another person’s ‘state of mind’ or their emotion. It is an experience of the outlook on emotions of another person being within themselves (Ioannides & Konstantikaki, 2008). There are two different types of empathy: affective empathy and cognitive empathy. Affective empathy is the capacity in which a person can respond to another person’s emotional state using the right type of emotion. On the other hand, cognitive empathy is a person’s capacity to understand what someone else is feeling. (Rogers, Dziobek, Hassenstab, Wolf & Convit, 2006). This essay will look at explaining how biology and individual differences help us to understand empathy as a complex, multi-dimensional trait.