Associate Professor Dr. Todd Womble, has taught English and Literature classes for 15 years. He said he has seen big changes in students’ ability and willingness to read books.
The required amount of reading for even English majors has decreased since Womble was in school. He is unsure if that’s because students have proven that they won’t do the work, or if faculty are scared they can’t do it.
“I think your generation is just as smart as any generation and just as able to read as any generation,” Womble said. “I just don’t know if you all have as much time or want to dedicate the time.”
The findings in the Arts Participation Study of 2022 match up with Womble’s observations in the classroom. Over the previous 10 years, the reading of novels and short stories declined by 17 percent.
Art history and drawing professor Dan McGregor has made an effort to push students past their limits when it comes to reading long, difficult texts.
He said three main things force students to slow down in our fast-paced, device-centered world. Number one is creating art, number two is praying, and number three is reading.
“Students can’t read novels anymore because their minds have just been trained to read in little short bursts. The grit and the grind and the discipline of reading for a really long time is something they haven’t been asked to practice,” McGregor said.
Technology can affect more than just the attention spans of students. Resources such as ChatGPT, Sparknotes, and YouTube summaries can increase the possibility of students getting away with not reading assigned texts.
Womble said though he usually can’t prove it, he can tell when students haven’t read. Their discussion commentary is vague and surface-level.
“I could sit here and you could explain to me what Hunger Games is about,” Womble said. “You would walk me through the plot, the characters, and everything, but that would be pale in comparison to me actually reading the book. There’s something inherently different about the experience of reading a book. It has nothing to do with knowing what happens. It’s just something in the words and sentences, and paragraphs.”
McGregor enjoys reading historical texts, fiction, and spiritual books. What he has learned through reading has influenced his artwork in multiple ways. He created a painting based on the poem “General William Booth Enters Into Heaven” by Vachel Lindsay. Right now, McGregor is working on illustrations for nature guides.
“I think if you’re an illustrator, reading is critical because you’re illustrating a story,” McGregor said. “If you’re doing research on something like, what does a camel look like? You know, what sort of gun was being used in this time period? There are all sorts of research you have to do that inevitably involves reading.”
Reading has shaped Womble into a more open-minded, empathetic person. He said he knows the world much better because of reading so much.
“If you spend your life reading a whole lot of books, especially a lot of fiction, you can not help but, in any situation, try and think about all the different perspectives,” Womble said.
Womble said the best thing students can do to get into reading is to try and choose good books. Many students on campus don’t read because in high school, they only read books they didn’t want to.
Womble recommended “Homegoing” by Yaa Gyasi, “Let the Great World Spin” by Clum McCann, and “Everything I Told You” by Celeste Ng to the general student body. He said almost every student of his who read these books enjoyed them.
