Is Reading Popular Fiction Worthwhile?

In this article in Education Week, Jeffrey Wilhelm (Boise State University) and Michael Smith (Temple University) push back on the notion that students get much more from reading literary fiction than popular fiction – the idea that reading good literature is like cod liver oil (you may not like it, but it’s good for you), while popular fiction is worthless and even degrading. Wilhelm and Smith cite research findings that when students enjoy reading and do lots of it, their academic and social skills benefit. Interviews with teenagers showed that romance novels helped them learn about other people’s strengths and shortcomings; helped them deal with the struggle to become adults; and helped them think about what an admired character in a book would have done in a similar situation. One student had this to say about reading vampire books: “I mean, we all have these needs so you have to be careful about not being a vampire and sucking someone else dry, or hurting and discarding them. But you have to be really careful not to let someone do it to you, too, like dominate you, just because you like being liked or feeling attractive or whatever.” 

“Reading for pleasure outside of school has real and long-lasting benefits,” say Wilhelm and Smith. “Adults should listen hard to the wisdom of young readers of marginalized texts, who, as they read these texts, are deepening their understanding of themselves in the world and expanding the possibilities of who they might become.”

“Don’t Underestimate the Power of Pleasure Reading” by Jeffrey Wilhelm and Michael Smith in Education Week, Jan. 22, 2014 (Vol. 33, #18, p. 25), www.edweek.org;

From the Marshall Memo #521