Why Should We READ?

Why Should We Read Charles Dickens?

VIDEO 

Intrigued by so many educational videos on different subjects, I finally decided to choose the video that would be the most suitable to my specialty – librarianship.  Today, the whole nation is concern about the illiteracy among young adults.  In fact, nowadays 19% of high school graduates can’t read (see https://www.statisticbrain.com/number-of-american-adults-who-cant-read/).  The fact is devastating.  As an educator and librarian, I make all efforts to find a solution.  I read a lot of articles and books; I participate in the online discussions and review the blogs.  But none of them has practical, down to earth solution.  A lot of ideas and suggestions are either too vague or too theoretical.  None of them, in my opinion, works.  So, what to do?  How we can ask a young man to read? What is reading?  Why we, humans, need to read? 

Wikipedia says, “Reading is a complex "cognitive process" of decoding symbols".  This cognitive process is available only to the homo sapiens, which differ them from animals.  Reading develops the intellectual nest that bring the humans to the higher level in their evolution.  To make the country the most invulnerable and scientifically reformative, the Bolsheviks organized the campaign against illiteracy in Russia in 1917.  In 10 years the illiteracy was defeated; the tools and strategies used - proactive teachers, educators, librarians, pamphlets, flyers, government support, and ideology.  Until recently, the man in Russia, who did not read all Tolstoy’s books has been ashamed by his contemporaries. 

Today, the Ted-Ed educators offer similar tools that can be used against the illiteracy in USA.  The series of videos, called “Why Should We Read?” contains the point of views on Woolf’s, Joyce’s, Virgil’s, etc. work. All these videos briefly describe the life of the author thru the prism of his or her literary treasure.  For example, the video on “Why We Should Read Virginia Woolf?” explains the motifs of main penwork of Woolf in the light of Modernism, the art stream of XX century. 

The video ‘Why Should We Read Charles Dickens?” embeds two themes: the life of Charles Dickens and Industrial Revolution.  These two themes are inseparable and tweeted because as a child, Dickens experienced not only inequalities between workers class and aristocrats, but also faced the poverty and famine.  It is very interesting to see how thru the video clip the educators were able, within a few minutes, to bring to the audience the purpose of the Charles Dickens’ work and his style of penmanship. The clip starts with the term “Dickensian” and ends with another term, “Dickensie.”  Both terms are intertwined and both means the same thing: “A story with true adventures and discoveries that occurred in the most unexpected places.” Using the words “adventure”, discovery”, “unexpected places”, the educators try to deliver a message to the audience, “Get a book and start reading.  And believe us, you get intrigued by the plot and the characters.  Just open the book and read…Exercise your mind!”

The animation part plays important role in this video.  In the beginning, the first slide shows the three main heroes from the well-known novels of Dickens.  These heroes then appear one by one during the story about Dickens as his prototypes. 

Despite all positive elements, however, this video is not addressed to young readers.  The analytical approach and critical review of Dicken’s work make this video more suitable for mature audience, rather than K-12 students.  However, this video can definitely be played for the AP English students.