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Early 20th-Century Literature Videos 47 videos
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Dr. Seuss: Changing the Way We Read 921 Views
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Description:
You'd have to be a Grinch not to acknowledge what a huge effect Dr. Seuss had on all of us. Horton may have heard a Who, but hey... we heard it, too.
Transcript
- 00:01
Seuss: Changing the Way We Read, a la Shmoop. For someone who is considered mainly a children’s
- 00:11
author…
- 00:12
…Dr. Seuss has had a pretty incredible effect on the way we read.
- 00:15
Of course, we don’t mean that in any bizarro, Seuss-ish sense.
- 00:19
It’s not like we’re reading upside-down on the ceiling…
Full Transcript
- 00:22
…or in the company of a couple of perilous poozers from Pompelmoose Pass.
- 00:28
Okay, so it’s not only about the way we read…
- 00:31
…it’s also about the way we interpret what we’re reading.
- 00:35
Wait… really?
- 00:38
Are we saying that Dr. Seuss left as much of an impression on each of us as literary
- 00:42
giants like… Homer, and Shakespeare?
- 00:48
We most certainly are. For one thing, we are all introduced to Seuss
- 00:52
early on.
- 00:54
Not many people make their way through The Iliad before first familiarizing themselves
- 00:58
with One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. Before Seuss, the only stuff youngsters read
- 01:04
were books like Dick and Jane…
- 01:06
…short, boring exercises in rote memorization…
- 01:09
…with no semblance of an interesting story…
- 01:12
…and certainly no instances of actual humor.
- 01:20
A lunch date with Dick and Jane would have been pretty excruciating.
- 01:23
They wouldn’t be able to talk about much other than the last time they saw Spot run.
- 01:30
Seuss’ books taught kids to learn with the use of phonics…
- 01:35
…the use and repetition of words representing sounds…
- 01:39
…rather than with memorization.
- 01:44
Although… we’re sure the Batman comics also did their part.
- 01:53
Dr. Seuss turned children’s literature on its head…
- 01:58
…making it genuinely fun and engaging for kids to read.
- 02:02
And if we discovered in our formative years that reading could actually be a… good time…
- 02:06
…we were more likely to continue reading into our adulthood.
- 02:10
Or… whatever you’d like to call our… advanced stage of immaturity.
- 02:14
There was plenty of weighty stuff going on beneath the surface of Dr. Seuss’ rhymes.
- 02:18
Many of his stories were allegories relating to communism, racism, or environmental awareness…
- 02:23
…but even if we couldn’t write a 40-page thesis paper about it before we turned seven…
- 02:28
…there was still a subconscious sense that we were being taken seriously…
- 02:33
…that we were being treated like grown-ups.
- 02:35
Pretty cool. Seuss is largely responsible for our love
- 02:40
of literature…
- 02:40
…and especially for the notion that a book doesn’t have to be cold and humorless to
- 02:44
be… important. The next time you pick up a copy of Infinite
- 02:47
Jest or War and Peace…
- 02:49
…first of all, we hope you stretched first…
- 02:52
…and second… remember that you’re probably reading the way you are because of the Doc.
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