How to Read

          If you look at this blog regularly, I can assume that you know how to read. Or, that you know what sounds letters make, and what they mean when strung together. But is this reading? Or absorption of information through text?
          To know how to read, you have to know how to think. Especially: how to think literally, logically, and metaphorically.
          Literally is the least important of these. If you ever read Amelia Bedelia as a child, you know the dangers and silly mistakes that can arise from literal thinking. A love seat is not shaped like a heart, and you cannot swim in a pool table, and when you "dust" furniture, you are actually removing dust, not adding it.
          Logical thinking is important because it helps correct literal thought. If someone tells you to heat up a can of soup, logic tells you they probably don't want to eat the can. It also adds to sentences: "Trim the steak" means "Trim the fat off the steak." (Thank you, Amelia, for these wonderful examples!)
          Metaphorical thinking helps you understand metaphors. When I say, "She was a rose," do I mean she was literally a flower, or that she was bright and cheery? Probably the latter.
          Now you know the three types of thinking, and how they can be applied to reading. Critical reading reveals a lot, especially when it comes to literature.
          Take To Kill a Mockingbird or Huckleberry Finn to a comfy spot and read a passage. It may be gripping enough that you want to read on, but only choose a paragraph or so. Then stop.
          Think. What makes this book so good? What is the book trying to tell you? Even if you already know that To Kill a Mockingbird is about racial injustice in the South, think about how it is showing you this. Where does the title stem from? How does that metaphor apply to Tom Robinson? Use literal thinking first, logical thinking next, and metaphorical thinking last. Even if you know as soon as read it, stop and think how you know it. Critical reading is stopping to see how a story works, why it grips you.
          Critical reading is also to understand. Read The Boundless, a modern work of fiction, and the classic A Picture of Dorian Gray. How does The Boundless mirror Dorian Gray's story in that of Mr. Dorian's? Why do you think the author chose to reflect that story into his?
          This is reading that not only fuels the imagination, but also fires the intellect.