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ELC, Summary of conversation circle notes as provided to learners
Some women in our group use reading to learn what they need for their daily lives and to improve their job opportunities. One woman said that even though she doesn't like to read much, she'll read if the materials really interest her. It's been hard for her to comprehend the things she reads but she also knows this is getting better. She's working on her GED and views this as a way of getting somewhere in life and helping her brain. She also wants to get a driver's license but is having a hard time reading the driver's manual to learn the rules. For her, reading is mostly connected with what she'll need to do for a job. When asked if she would be interested in reading for information, like how to raise her biracial child, she didn't think she would do that. But she was interested in reading drama and comedy and "love life."
Another woman was interested in writings mostly connected to information and people's daily lives. She was interested in diaries too and learning from other people's problems. She wanted to read for information that women can use in their daily life. Subjects that interested her include: dealing with their kids relationships, looking up information to see where women can get help; finding where to get jobs or a place to live and how to get day care.
A third woman didn't know how she got through high school because she didn't get very good grades. She wants to get more training so that she can get a job in an office. She's interested in knowing how to work on computers. Though she doesn't read much, she does like to read magazines and gossip stuff about people. She will sometimes read the newspaper if there's something she wants to know about.
Two women in the group both read regularly and had much to say about this topic. J. reflected on how what she reads has really helped her to understand her own feelings, especially about the violence in her life. T. mostly reads fiction and she had much to say about how reading in school was too much unconnected to life. Both T. and J. described how reading helps them to "zone out." They get so absorbed by what they are reading that they loose awareness of the people and things around them. At these times, it takes people a some time to get their attention or they get startled if someone suddenly interrupts them.
T. highly recommends the book Here on Earth. She thinks it's one of the best books she ever read but they wouldn't let her read it in high school. The stuff they read in high school was not interesting. Even though Here on Earth might be aggressive, it was an excellent book to read. T. believes that teachers always teach what they know but they never take the time to figure out something new. Teachers teach what they were taught. And it goes backwards. So nobody ever gets anywhere new. In school they don't want the students to think. The way to get through high school was just to tell them (the teachers) what they wanted to know. They didn't care about the student's opinions on anything. They teach the same thing over & over (like Macbeth or Hamlet or Romeo & Juliet) and want to always know the same answers.
T. also mentioned other books that interested her like John Grisham mysteries. She likes mysteries because she likes to figure out the problem before the end, and she's mostly successful at it. She likes reading romances (like Nora Roberts) too but doesn't really think it's that interesting to read all the sexual references. Usually its all the same boring descriptions&endash;guys and girls having sex. She tends to skip over all those parts and describes them as "more pornographic than pornography." Mostly she skips them because they're unbelievable ("yeah, like no guy in his right mind would actually do that!").
Other books that have interested her is a series called "The Letter…" series&endash; Letters from Vietnam especially touched her. She's been looking for Letters from Prison. T. said the only nonfiction book she read was one about the Holocaust and she learned a great deal from that. In general, T. always finishes the books she starts&endash;she just has to even if she skips over most if it. She also has a good memory and remembers in detail all the books she's read.
J. loves to read and is always reading. She never wants to get rid of her books because she often re-reads them. She especially likes to read true crime stories and wanted to be a crime scene investigator or a pathologist. Right now she's reading about a famous profiler who looks at crime scenes from the past (like Lizzie Borden) and tries to re-interpret them in view of current investigation techniques and science.
This is the type of reading J. enjoys. She been the victim of many violent crimes and finds it important and fascinating for her to understand the criminal mind. It has helped her to understand her own feelings and given her some perspective on why people do what they do. As a child, she thought everyone thought the way she did especially when she was thinking about revenge. Reading true crime has been a kind of therapy for her. She realized why she felt the way she did and that she had reasons outside of herself for those feelings. Something was causing her to feel destructive.
Since then, she has branched out and views it as a hobby. She reads profiler and crime scene books and memoirs of violent criminals. They are also very instructional and give her ideas about how to protect herself and her daughter. "… these people, you know, they tell you in their memoirs why they chose this victim over that one, how not to be a victim because this person had been doing this or had been doing that." She's learned practical stuff like traveling in groups, avoiding certain areas, and not looking vulnerable.
J. worries that her daughter does not seem too interested in reading. At one point, she was concerned that her daughter might have a reading disability. She will sometimes cook with her and get her daughter to read the recipe and follow it. In this way, she knows her daughter does comprehend what she's reading. It's been hard because her daughter has little attention span but she has noticed that her daughter will stay with books that are very interesting to her.
J. also agreed with T. that many of the romance books are pretty pornographic and describes the BIG historical romances as especially the worst. She also remembered her father liking the westerns written by Louie L'Amour and figured out they were the male version because every third page centered on a cowboy and his description of a woman's breasts. She said, "no wonder my father liked them so much!"
We also talked a little bit about why women like to read horror. Some of the women in the group don't like it at all. Some like it a lot. T. thinks it's because with horror at least the thing that's most horrifying is under control. You can tell when it' going to happen and you know it will go away or be over. Someone else (S.?) suggested that the books with characters like Freddie Kruger are so unbelievable that even if it's scary you can still remember that it's not real. Some of the ones with characters like stalkers or that seem more believable, are harder because you know there are real people like that and they may be out there. It's more difficult to read because it's too real and might possibly happen.
Number of learner
participants (all meetings) Age Range Race / Ethnicity How many are
parents?
European American - 4
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