Freshmen Pre-Reading

In the summer of 1997 I graduated from high school, passed my 18th birthday, and saw with a fellow soccer player my first rated-R movie: The English Patient. I remember the post-practice itch on my shins from the shinguards and propping my legs up on my over-sized practice bag, bulging with cleats, extra socks, water bottles, hair bands, braces for ankles, my left knee's custom-fit carbon exoskeleton, athletic tape, and a spare turtleneck still hanging around from the winter season. We had come to the theater from a day at soccer camp, and we smelled of sweet girl-sweat and grass and chlorine.  We were practically alone in the theater that afternoon, but we still covered our eyes during the sexy parts and took turns peeking to see when it was safe to look again. I remember liking the movie for its artsy-ness (the comparison of a desert to a woman's back still lurks in my imagination), but I don't think I really understood it very well.

A few short weeks later, I received notice from my college-to-be that they were asking the entire freshman class to read Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient to be discussed together during freshmen orientation.  I read it, but can't remember any provocative or interesting conversations that it started. The fault for that failure lies less with the book than with freshmen, who (myself included) were far more interested in comparing SAT's, taking internet personality quizzes together that purported to tell you what kind of medieval personality you had (White Knight, for the record), and hanging out in the dorm hallways lighting Peeps on fire.

Apparently, assigning pre-reading has become common among the top-tier colleges, and a recent report by a "back to the classics" association of scholars (as far as I can tell) surveyed the choices.  13 years ago, my alma mater chose a novel that had been premiered in the same summer as a movie, thinking perhaps that such a choice would be "relevant" to the students. From what I can see of the study, the principles of selection employed now-a-days are pretty similar.  The overwhelming majority of books assigned were written in the last decade, many of which were bestsellers or of great topical interest, such as Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma and Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner (also a 2007 film).  The only four pre-1900 books read were Huckleberry Finn, Walden, Frankenstein, and the Communist Manifesto, read at only 6 of 290 programs.  The report, claiming in passing that they could detect a liberal political bias in the selections, largely aimed at making the colleges more self-aware about how their selections match up with their aims and whether or not books of recent topical interest (and frequently less challenging reading) can fill the bill as well as books of proven merit (in other words, those regarded as classics).

One aim of such a program was to have at least one book in common amongst freshmen from various curricular backgrounds and who will quickly specialize.  In the Inside Higher Ed piece that reports this story, one college official objected that the program aimed at creating community, not a common foundation for an intellectual conversation.  Another noted that easily read books covering current events are essential, since the students won't necessarily have the professors guiding their conversations. What seems clear is that while the Freshman summer read is a popular trend in higher ed, precisely what it is aimed at achieving is a bit more murky.

This caught my eye because a colleague of mine recently assigned his incoming freshmen to read Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book.  Love Adler or hate him, you have to admit that you can learn a lot from him about what it means to seriously study (and not just quickly ingest and spew for a test) a book. Students who have struggled with reading slowly during their first semesters at college have emerged from reading this book with dewy eyes, a sigh of relief, and renewed enthusiasm, exclaiming, "If only I'd read this sooner I wouldn't have wasted so much time re-reading ineffectively!" Unlike a summer read of the Kite Runner or even Huck Finn--an exercise which may, or may not, inculcate critical thinking, community, or whatever else they're supposed to do--a read of Adler's book actually prepares you to be a student in an explicit way. So few college freshmen come with the ability to read and analyze a complex book well, even on the most literal level. I can't remember how good of a reader my 18-year-old summer self was, but my guess: not that great, valedictorian or no. I can't remember much of the English Patient (even with the movie's prompts), but I don't think it deserved the burden of trying to independently usher me into "critical thinking", "community", or "issues". I'd rather take the commen-sense advice of Adler, and then get the advantage of adapting it with a faculty mentor to how I think and learn. So kudos to my colleague, for that's exactly what he's doing with his students as they prepare to slog through the classics and the not-so-classic.