In the fall of 2012, after Ron had showed the students in Susan\u2019s Nineteenth-Century British Novels course some of the library\u2019s early editions of Dickens, we fell to talking about how the session had went. \u00a0The students had been unusually subdued all semester, and were again in the library. Susan observed that the students seemed not to be making the same emotional connections to the material as in years\u2019 past.\u00a0 \u00a0Ron noted that he saw a similar trend in library classes he taught for various courses, and also in the 300-level \u201cBible as Book\u201d course he was co-teaching that semester.\u00a0 Since both of us teach rich, dense historical materials that require long stretches of concentration, we began to wonder whether the students\u2019 unresponsiveness to assigned reading was just coincidence (classes have personalities), or whether we were witnessing some larger shift in the reading habits of our undergraduates, perhaps one brought on by their digital habits.<\/p>\n
In the course of our conversation, Susan mentioned a recent story on NPR about research that Natalie Phillips, a scholar of eighteenth-century British literature, had been conducting using MRIs to scan graduate students\u2019 brains as they read Jane Austen, first in a distracted, browsing-in-a-bookstore kind of way and then in a deeply absorbed way that literary critics refer to as close reading. The research revealed a cognitive difference between distracted reading and close reading: \u201cPhillips found that close reading activated unexpected areas: parts of the brain that are involved in movement and touch. It was as though readers were physically placing themselves within the story as they analyzed it.\u201d[1]<\/a> Phillips\u2019s research suggests that close reading, the deep absorption that we commonly refer to as being \u201clost\u201d in the text, is a different, richer cognitive experience than can be had by distracted reading.\u00a0 We both began to speculate whether or not our students\u2014who always seem to have digital device at hand\u2014were reading in a distracted rather than an absorbed fashion, and as a result, their experiences of assigned texts were less profound and their engagement was (cognitively) more superficial.<\/p>\n Subsequent informal conversations with colleagues confirmed that they too found evidence of \u201cdistracted reading\u201d among their students; and a quick search on the Web led us to realize that distracted reading was a subject of interest to a number of academics.\u00a0 We decided it would be useful to draw together a group for a conversation about reading in the Vassar classroom. We applied for a Faculty Conversation Grant on \u201cDistracted Reading and Undergraduate Learning,\u201d and quickly found ourselves with funds to gather a group of faculty and librarians together to share common understandings of student reading practices at the present time.\u00a0 In order to inform our discussion with some of the research currently being done on the science of reading in the digital age, we ordered copies of Maryanne Wolf\u2019s Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain<\/i> (2007), which brings together neuroscience and the history of reading and considers the challenges posed by the digital age to the reading brain, for everyone participating in the conversation. \u00a0Wolf, who directs the Center for Reading and Language Research at Tufts University, ultimately contends that \u201cwe must teach our children to be \u2018bitextual\u2019 or \u2018multitextual,\u2019 able to read and analyze texts flexibly in different ways, with more deliberate instruction at every stage of development on the inferential, demanding aspects of any text.\u201d[2]<\/a>\u00a0 We also sent around links to several short pieces on distraction and multitasking.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n In the end, eighteen faculty and librarians gathered on May 23, 2013 for a Faculty Conversation, one of the largest such conversations to be held to date.\u00a0 Faculty came from a variety of disciplines across campus.\u00a0 The conversation was generous and bracing. \u00a0Faculty reported that students don\u2019t seem to be reading carefully and deeply the assigned material; that they seem to have an easier time with shorter books and a harder time with older ones; that they don\u2019t bring hard copies of books to class. \u00a0Librarians observed that library statistics show that fewer books are circulating; that students seem distracted during reference interviews and are adverse to print materials; that they are often seen multitasking in the library; and that they are frequently overheard saying that they \u201cdon\u2019t have time to read.\u201d\u00a0 In other words, there seemed to be plenty of evidence of diminished (print) reading as well as distracted reading.<\/p>\n Some time was also spent considering how to respond to this generational shift in the nature of reading. If Vassar\u2019s goal has always been to \u201cmeet the students where they are,\u201d the faculty in the conversation group felt that we needed not only to acknowledge our students\u2019 reading practices but also to realign our pedagogies accordingly.\u00a0 Recommendations ranged from teaching courses that focused on slow reading (and thus limiting the amount of material in the course), to adding reading labs to humanities\/social science courses, to teaching mindfulness, meditation and contemplative practices as a way to counterbalance distractedness.\u00a0 Other ideas included more institutional approaches, such as creating a reading space (without internet access) somewhere on campus, making the teaching of undistracted reading part of the mandate of the Freshman Writing Seminars, and advocating for a campus-wide day of disconnection.\u00a0\u00a0 In sum, those in attendance thought distracted reading was a serious and important issue and that there should be a wider conversation among the faculty about it.\u00a0 Moreover, the faculty agreed to meet again, after the fall 2013 semester, to continue the conversation.<\/p>\n A second Faculty Conversation Grant supported a meeting in January, 2014.\u00a0 There were some new participants, though most had attended the first meeting.\u00a0 Here again we did some background reading, including a chapter from Nicholas Carr\u2019s Pulitzer Prize-nominated The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains <\/i>(2011), and several short articles on the lost art of reading, the allure of print, and the differences between reading on paper and on screens.[4]<\/a>\u00a0 These readings delved further into the effects of technology on our ability to read, and presented the current thinking of neuroscientists and others on this topic, derived especially from the growing body of studies.\u00a0 For example, Carr cites the work of University of California professor emeritus Michael Merzenich, who believes that the heavy use of online tools has neurological consequences.\u00a0 Carr goes on to say that:<\/p>\n What we\u2019re not<\/i> doing when we\u2019re online also has neurological consequences.\u00a0 Just as neurons that fire together wire together, neurons that don\u2019t fire together don\u2019t wire together.\u00a0 As the time we spend scanning Web pages crowds out the time we spend reading books\u2026as the time we spend hopping across links crowds out \u00a0the time we devote to quiet reflection and contemplation, the circuits that support those old intellectual functions and pursuits weaken and begin to break apart.\u00a0 The brain recycles the disused neurons and synapses for other, more pressing work.\u00a0 We gain new skills and perspectives but lose the old ones.[5]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n As attendees of the second Faculty Conversation discussed issues like these, there was a common feeling that we\u2019re all in the midst of great societal change.\u00a0 Personal habits are changing, and people are approaching texts differently than they have in the past.\u00a0 For faculty on the college campus, there exists not just the long-standing problem of getting students to read, but even if they say they have read something, have they really experienced the text beyond a cursory scanning?\u00a0 This is a key question, because intensive reading has always been an integral part of the undergraduate experience.\u00a0 Shouldn\u2019t institutions of higher learning, like Vassar, now consider how this affects what they do? Do we want to continue to try to let individual faculty members address these issues as they see fit in their classroom?\u00a0 Do we want to commit ourselves to creating and supporting a reading culture on campus?\u00a0 Do we need to find ways to ensure that students learn how to read texts closely by the time they graduate, as (in a general way) Maryann Wolf suggests?\u00a0 Should we try to connect with others in academe and elsewhere who are asking such questions and trying to find ways of answering them?<\/p>\n As a result of the second faculty conversation, attendees contemplated the role of the Library and the faculty Library Committee in dealing with the issue of distracted reading.\u00a0 The Library, after all, has historically played an important role in supporting reading on campus.\u00a0 Sabrina Pape put the matter on the agenda of a Library Committee meeting and asked Ron and Susan to attend and give an overview of the issue and a review of what had so far happened on campus (Susan was not able to attend).\u00a0 The committee was engaged by the conversation, and wanted to discuss further.\u00a0 Ron attended a second meeting of the committee, and brought with him ideas from Susan and others about how to move forward.\u00a0 An important question before us at this point is: how do we share these concerns with the wider faculty?<\/p>\n Following the Library Committee meetings, Sabrina, Ron, and Susan met to consider specific ways of involving others in this conversation.\u00a0 We envision multiple efforts in this direction.\u00a0 As a first step, we hope to present this topic to one of the \u201cTalking about Teaching\u201d workshops that have been held in recent months.\u00a0 We also envision bringing one of the leading experts on the science of reading to Vassar, for a lecture that would be open to the entire community.\u00a0 Yet another idea has been to begin a new library series in which faculty will give presentations on a favorite book, outside of their own discipline (echoing the Art Center\u2019s successful \u201cArtful Dodger\u201d series).\u00a0 Of course the article you are now reading in Vassar\u2019s online journal is another way of reaching out to others.<\/p>\n Perhaps there will be other events in months to come.\u00a0 We wish to initiate a wider discussion, and welcome your thoughts and comments here and elsewhere.\u00a0 Our hope is that the college will consider and develop a clear sense of how to move forward on this important issue that strikes at the heart of undergraduate education.<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Helen Thompson and Shankar Vedantam, \u201cA Lively Mind: Your Brain on Jane Austen,\u00a0 http:\/\/www.npr.org\/blogs\/health\/2012\/10\/09\/162401053\/a-lively-mind-your-brain-on-jane-austen<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [2]<\/a> Wolf, Proust and the Squid, <\/i>p. 236.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [3]<\/a> The short pieces were Annie Paul Murphy, \u201cYou\u2019ll Never Learn!\u201d http:\/\/www.slate.com\/articles\/health_and_science\/science\/2013\/05\/multitasking_while_studying_divided_attention_and_technological_gadgets.html?wpisrc=most_viral<\/a>\u00a0and Marc Parry, “You’re Distracted. This Professor Can Help.” The Chronicle of Higher Education<\/i> 59.29 (2013). Academic OneFile<\/i>. Web. 14 Mar. 2014.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [4]<\/a>\u00a0 See David L. Ulin, \u201cThe Lost Art of Reading,\u201d http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/entertainment\/news\/arts\/la-ca-reading9-2009aug09,0,4905017.story<\/i><\/a> <\/i>and his book by the same title; Nick Bilton, \u201cThe Allure of the Printed Book,\u201d \u00a0<\/i>http:\/\/bits.blogs.nytimes.com\/2013\/12\/02\/the-print-book-here-to-stay-at-least-for-now\/?ref=technology&_r=3<\/a>; and Ferris Jabr, \u201cThe Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens,\u201d http:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/reading-paper-screens\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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