I would like to spend this journal space writing about the concept of rereading. In the article “Literacy and the Individual Conscious,” F. Niyi Akinnaso writes about his experience with literacy throughout the course of his life. One specific instance of developing literacy he discusses is in regards to his reading (and subsequent rereadings) of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Akinnaso wrote that the first time he read Animal Farm, he read a simplified version of novel at face value. To his mind, Animal Farm was just a novel about talking animals. However, upon subsequent readings (after having acquired more literacy), Akinnaso found the satirical nature of the piece; eventually developing enough that he could “‘read’ beyond the story” and discuss the text critically (151). While I have never read Animal Farm personally, this concept of rereading after having obtained more literacy is an interesting concept that I would like to discuss in more detail.
In all honesty, I don’t often reread books. However, I have found that the books that I have taken time to go back and read again have been just as (if not more) interesting the second time around. I feel like the same applies to other pieces of art (including but not limited to movies, television shows, and songs). Although I don’t reread books very often, there are plenty of movies that I have seen multiple times, as well as many shows that I have watched for second or third times. I feel that with every subsequent viewing, I become more and more literate with the specific piece at hand. Because of this, I am able to appreciate these pieces for more than just their surface value. I specifically remember this concept in regards to the movie Fight Club. The first time I watched the movie, I spent the entire time following the plot, and not paying attention to some of the subtle details that the director placed into the film. Upon second and third viewings, however, I focused less on the plot, which gave me the ability to appreciate the movie as more than just a story. It went from being a sequence of events into a full movie, a full art form.
Now for some questions: Firstly, what are some things that you that you have reread/rewatched? Has subsequent encounters with this work changed your viewpoint on it? Finally, does the act of rereading or rewatching help to develop literacy, or does your literacy level at determine what you get out of a work? In other words, do you think that it was Akinnaso’s rereading of Animal Farm that helped him be able to critically discuss the novel, or did it have more to do with the level of literacy development of Akinasso as a whole (ie. Through school and other readings) that made him able to critically understand the novel on a deeper level?
I think it was a combination of both rereading the novel and also Akinnaso’s level of literacy. Even if we don’t understand a text at all the first time we read it, we are still more familiar the next time whether we are starting from zero or not. However, his literacy development would have had a major impact on the understanding of the story. When he isn’t so concerned with the actual words on the page what they mean in a literal sense, he can use knowledge of academic language and see details and symbols he would not have had the time to read before. Reading a difficult text is exhausting the first time. We obtain any information we can and hope we can piece something together. However, after reading it more than once we are already familiar with the difficult sections and can see them more clearly after working through it again.
I’m sure we would all experience this reading any classic novel from a high school English curriculum. We may not have liked or even understood one of these novels. If we were to read that same novel now, I think everyone would understand it differently.
I think you bring up an excellent point about the concept of rereading. The most common literature I’ve reread are Shakespearean plays. When I was younger (perhaps in 3rd or 4th grade), my parents bought me an abridged collection of Shakespeare’s works, all of which were in a comic book form. Like Akinnaso, I was only able to discern the general plot from this initial reading. In middle school, I borrowed a slightly more comprehensive version of Shakespeare’s works from the library. These were still abridged but very obviously plays and not comic books. While I was able to understand the plot better, I was still unfamiliar with the subtleties Shakespeare often incorporated into his work, and I was certainly unaware of the references relevant to his time period. I read Shakespeare again in high school for my English class and then once again in my Intro to Shakespeare class at Pitt. From these two readings I understood increasingly more of the details Shakespeare included that I had missed for the most part in my previous two readings. I was only able to extract more from subsequent readings because I was in a sense “more literate.” I could also say that because of my multiple readings my viewpoint did change so that my favorite plays were no longer my favorite plays after learning how surprisingly shallow some were.
I think literacy increases to an extent with reading, but one can only get so much from a work without having sufficient literacy to understand it. Therefore, I would assume that in general it was Akinnaso’s level of literacy development which he learned from not just his literature and writing classes but also from his history classes. Just reading would make one more proficient at a certain level of literacy, but I feel the overall progress to become “more literate” would be slow.
I also am not a big fan of rereading or rewatching things. I always give it a try and find that I’m very quickly bored by it because I already know how the story/show is going to end. There have been a few things that I have been able to reread or rewatch and make it through to the end without being bored, but those things have been programs or pieces that I am very passionate about. I of course reread works of writing for school all of the time, as being a literature and writing major sometimes the readings in my classes overlap. For example, I just reread Virginia Woolf’s “Death of a Moth” for a class this week, a piece I read for the first time in high school. Fortunately, it was a short piece, so I didn’t have to push myself through rereading too much. I read it in my freshman year of high school, and am not a junior in college, so I didn’t remember much of what I thought the first time I read it (who even knows if I actually read it). This time reading it though, I was struck by how Woolf begins with the moth, zooms out, then focuses back on the moth and keeps up this back and forth pattern for most of this short piece. Usually though, when I reread a piece I’ve read in another class or in high school, I don’t find that my reading the second time differs that much from my reading the first time. I might focus on different lines, but I don’t think I draw a different meaning from the piece. I don’t know if it is because I am stubbornly set on my one reading, or that I am too lazy to dig deeper.
In the instance of Akinnaso’s rereadings of Animal Farm, I think it was a combination of his developing literacy level and his repeated looks that make him experience the book differently each time. He had to have the skills to be able to look at Animal Farm and see the different themes/etc. that he didn’t have the first time he read it, which is why the teacher gave him an abridged version of the text. He also had to have the patience to reread the books and the curiosity to want to read the book and find the meaning behind it.
I love that you bring up the issue of rewatching/rereading. I do believe that rewatching or rereading will give you a deeper understanding of a work, subsequently helping one develop a greater level of literacy. I think that it could expand a person’s level of literacy greatly. First, you watch or read and then watch or read again, I’m sure you focus your attention on different scenes, or different words…helping you gain a better understanding of the work and broadening your knowledge of that work. Therefore, gaining a greater level of literacy thanks to rewatching/ rereading. The level of literacy you are at before you begin the movie/ book helps you make your way through it, but I don’t think there is a way to not have a greater level by the time you finish. I think they go hand in hand, like with Akinnaso and Animal Farm. Yes, he read the book a first time and didn’t have a fantastic level of literacy, and then he read it a second time, having a great level of literacy. I believe his greater level helped him begin and get through the book, but he definitely had to have had a different focus the second time around. More knowledge, a better focus = more comprehending, better understanding.
Personally, I have reread one book by choice. It was Randy Pausch’s “The Last Lecture.” A subsequent encounter did not change my viewpoint on it, but it made me appreciate his story more. I read it for the first time when I was in high school and the second time was last summer. Picking up the book a second time, I knew I had already read it and I knew the idea of it, but relearning about Pausch’s life experiences/ lessons helped me better appreciate my life and time, as well.