Article: Contemporary Anglophone Literature & the Problem of Critical Thinking

Author note: Original article is from Anton Pokrivčák. This is my reflection to his article about Contemporary Anglophone Literature and the Problem of Critical Thinking. You can find it on the Internet under the name as it is in the chapter. This was my work for subject in the college, which I am now attending.

I think Pokrivčák's claims and thoughts were argued and supported enough. He stated that many literature professors and even literary critics are only looking at the surface and use ideological interpretations. He used examples of works and showed us how can be literatury works misunderstood and misinterpreted, when some part is extracted from text.

I agree with him that many people including critics nowadays see mostly sociological, political, gender-based or race concepts in the work and not the main idea, even if the work wanted to show something else. They look only at the concepts and do not look for deeper meaning. So many readings, which are based on these concepts are misread.

And also in my opinion too Slovak students or any young adult nowadays do not read that much. They are on social media and when it comes to literature, mostly they do not want to read thick books, where are only theories or just because they have to and also when it is for school. The book have to be interesting for them and have to catch an eye only with its cover or title, or even with small preview on back of the book or cover. And also they do not want to read, when the book is made into movie. They think they will watch movie and understand what is the book about. But they are wrong, because in many movies are added parts, which are not in the book. They need motivation for reading and after reading a book, it should be usedin interesting exercises and activities, they can with them develop critical thinking, which they need in life. Or teachers should just stir up debate for students and they can argue and discuss their opinions about the book. And it can be connected with watching movie and making presentation about them. In class can be made groups of people reading the book and the other will watch movie. After that in the class can be these two compared and students can tell their opinions.