Bolliger 1 Matt Bolliger Professor S.

Lipnicky English 106 23 September 2013 Reading for the Sake of Reading As a child, I often did what all children do with their parents: argue about bedtimes. I, of course, wanted to stay up later, but my parents were more interested in me being healthy and fully rested. There was one exception, however. I could stay up as late as I wanted as long as I was reading. This was more than acceptable to me and I took advantage of it. In fact, my parents revoked this rule because of how much I was abusing it, but that did not stop me; I loved to read. I could easily get lost in a book and lose track of the world around me. This was a problem when in 3rd grade the teacher called everyone up to the front of the classroom when reading time was finished. I heard her, but I did not register her words. I was more interested in my book. I have had other similar experiences. As a child, I once read an entire book (Hachiko Waits) cover to cover instead of going to bed. That was not the plan, but the words kept egging me on and the pages kept turning until there was nothing left to turn but the back cover. I was no prodigy. I was not extraordinarily intelligent or gifted. I just liked books. I liked stories. All of this serves to prove one simple fact: reading is easy. It is accessible to everyone if they are given the proper tools and direction. And this is important, because there is another simple fact: reading is vital. That is why my parents would let me stay up late to read. That is why they didnt enforce a bedtime when they knew I was up late reading, even though they said they would.

Bolliger 2 This is why one of my high school teachers championed it so passionately. Mr. Bedore was a Marine Scout Sniper in his youth, and saw combat. He worked in a law firm. He often taught classes to college students. Now, he is a teacher in the humanities department. He made sure to wear a Hawaiian shirt almost every single day. He was bald. He had a trimmed beard. He had a large potbelly. He was smart. He was funny. He made classes fun. Needless to say, he leaves an impression on his students. A strong one. I had him for classes in Ancient, Medieval, and Modern histories. Eventually, I became a teaching assistant for his AP European History class. At the beginning of every semester, the first thing he would do was ask his class what books they read over break, and he would try to find something to say for every single one, whether he knew the book or not, to engage students in a conversation about reading. He would often go off on little tangents about the benefits of reading. He kept telling us, Just read. He did this because he loved reading, and he knew that reading makes people smart. Reading makes people successful. The more one reads, the more familiar he or she is with language. The more familiar a person is with language, the more effective that person is at writing, speaking, debating, and every other facet and medium of communication. Reading makes people powerful. A persons life is a story, and if one does not read, one will be stuck on the first page. One needs to keep reading to better understand the story. Pages should not be skipped and words should not be skimmed. Doing so will result in an incomplete, unfulfilled adventure. I have seen this in my own life. Again, when I was younger, I noticed that I had a greater exposure to more complex vocabulary. Like I said, I was not gifted or extraordinarily smart, I just read more than some of my peers. There were words I knew that the less avid readers did

Bolliger 3 not. Likewise, the people that read more than me knew more than me. This became especially true at the high school level, when I started to read less. One of my close friends, and probably the smartest, reads more than anyone I know. He is not antisocial, he does not spend all day and night reading, but he reads for fun and he does it often. He is an example of one who becomes powerful through his reading. He often was the center of a social circle. Not in a flamboyant or arrogant way, but in an intelligent one. People would listen when he spoke, even when it is in a joking manner (which was more often than not). Teachers loved having him in class because he was always willing to share developed and complex ideas. He was able to hold conversations on a multitude of subjects because he was well read and knew, at a minimum, a small amount of things about each. Overall, he was just interesting. Some say the ideas of work and fun are dichotomous, but the key to Zachs success is that he reads for fun. Not only did he enjoy assigned reading as school work, but he also enjoyed reading on his own at home, the way I did when I was younger (and still do). He read a mixture of elevated literature and simple stories, and both of these contribute to ones overall ability as a thinker in the same way that running around and playing games as a child contributes to ones overall fitness. Reading is like a professional sport in this respect. One may play tennis for pleasure, but the act of playing, even just for fun, builds skill that benefits that person when he or she competes with other professional athletes. Thus it is that readings for pleasure builds skills that are used in more complex thinking and scholarly work. I did not accidentally power through the entirety of Hachiko Waits or stay up late at night reading to consciously improve my intelligence; that was just a perk. It was not until I started to mature that I began to understand that. As one of my teachers said, ones ability to communicate

Bolliger 4 is his or her most valuable asset. Anyone who masters the skill of communication will be successful. This has been evident in all of my experiences as a human being and, aside from the fact that it is endlessly enjoyable, it is the most logical reason for a person to pick up a book.