What were the main ideas that we learned this week? What questions do I still have?
This past week, we learned how to tell the difference between "commercial fiction" and "literature fiction". We studied this a few different ways that included discussing with each other what our ideas were and reading an article that tried to piece together exactly how to tell the difference. Commercial fiction was, in a way, shown as just the "pleasure" reading that really doesn't require any sort of thinking because it is just a way that we escape our day-to-day lives. Where as literature was described as a work of fiction that has a deeper meaning and requires a reader to have a better understanding of what they are reading. This idea is very much a spectrum because not all commercial fiction doesn't have a double meaning and you have to think to understand what is going on (I.E. Harry Potter). Personally, I thought this week's idea of literature made commercial fiction look fairly bad and I don't agree with it. We also learned about college application writing and how sometimes the college will ask you to limit the amount of words that you are putting into your paper. This type of writing shows that you can condense the writing and still have a good piece of work in front of you, which is very important. I still have questions on how to tell the difference between the two styles of writing. It is extremely hard for me to find any examples to show why I think it can go either way. When reading a story for me, I'm not thinking about specific sentences that make it literature or commercial fiction; I look for the basic feel of the story. Do I have trouble reading it? Does this feel like other books I've read like "Twilight" or does it feel like "Huckleberry Finn"? I need help to understand the difference between them and if there really is a difference. A story shouldn't be graded on whether or not it's literature but if it has a meaning to it that is worth while; whether that be how to deal with a relationship or the deeper meaning of how a little white boy can grow to love a runaway black slave.
This past week, we learned how to tell the difference between "commercial fiction" and "literature fiction". We studied this a few different ways that included discussing with each other what our ideas were and reading an article that tried to piece together exactly how to tell the difference. Commercial fiction was, in a way, shown as just the "pleasure" reading that really doesn't require any sort of thinking because it is just a way that we escape our day-to-day lives. Where as literature was described as a work of fiction that has a deeper meaning and requires a reader to have a better understanding of what they are reading. This idea is very much a spectrum because not all commercial fiction doesn't have a double meaning and you have to think to understand what is going on (I.E. Harry Potter). Personally, I thought this week's idea of literature made commercial fiction look fairly bad and I don't agree with it. We also learned about college application writing and how sometimes the college will ask you to limit the amount of words that you are putting into your paper. This type of writing shows that you can condense the writing and still have a good piece of work in front of you, which is very important. I still have questions on how to tell the difference between the two styles of writing. It is extremely hard for me to find any examples to show why I think it can go either way. When reading a story for me, I'm not thinking about specific sentences that make it literature or commercial fiction; I look for the basic feel of the story. Do I have trouble reading it? Does this feel like other books I've read like "Twilight" or does it feel like "Huckleberry Finn"? I need help to understand the difference between them and if there really is a difference. A story shouldn't be graded on whether or not it's literature but if it has a meaning to it that is worth while; whether that be how to deal with a relationship or the deeper meaning of how a little white boy can grow to love a runaway black slave.