Entertaining Novel example essay topic

Reading for Enjoyment: A Personal Assessment In today's society, a decreasing number of teens chose to read solely for enjoyment. A limited number of students read on their own at all, because many simply have never understood the benefits of reading over the various alternate forms of entertainment, such as television and film. These other means of entertaining oneself are often abused, as I have found through personal experience. They ultimately divert people from discovering the pleasures of a good book, which can garner much greater rewards in many forms.

In the technologically advanced world in which we live, entertainment is synonymous with electronic media. Is it not easier to be sucked into the monotonous, "cheap" entertainment that is provided by television and movies than to stair at a printed page? The empty soap operas and sitcoms that clutter our modern culture do nothing to improve the way we think about the world. In fact, in my experience, the bland written scripts of television with their repetitive jokes and common clich " es cause the viewer to become stupefied to the point where anything thrust in front of them would be entertainment.

This addiction to electronic media has had a negative effect on my own inclination towards reading novels, as it has for many others. Although I often tell myself to avoid extensive exposure to such second-rate diversions, to resist them is a difficult task. They will always remain "quick fixes" for our entertainment needs, and nothing more. Throughout my life, there have been days where I took the extra bit of effort to open up a book, instead of simply watching "the tube", and I feel that this is beneficial to me in many ways. One obvious advantage is the development of one's mind and language skills.

A novel puts vocabulary in familiar context for the reader, and helps improve his or her overall reading ability. For me, learning and being tested on vocabulary in school does very little good unless I actually encounter these words by means of outside sources. After seeing a word in the context of a novel, it is often branded into my memory. To add to these benefits, reading also proves more thought provoking in general than, for example, a banal sitcom on television, by encouraging imaginative, creative thinking. Many see electronic media as a more effective form of escape than reading.

Based on personal experience, however, I would disagree. When I read a book that interests me, my own thoughts and imagination help to shape the situation in my mind. The entire process is very relaxing as well as stimulating mentally. In general, reading has a much more personal feel than other forms of entertainment because as one reads, they become involved with the setting extensively. An entertaining novel can even give the reader the sensation that he or she is part of the story, as an observer or even a character in that world.

This feeling of involvement that comes from reading fictional stories continues to amaze me. For the past few years, fantasy novels - a series of books called Dragonlance in particular - have sparked my interest. The alternate worlds formed through these sets of written stories, are ideal examples of the way written word can draw a reader deep into the heart of a story. I felt so intertwined with the characters after reading novel after novel of the Dragonlance series that I literally cried and was distraught for long periods of time after deaths of major characters. I can't speak for all people, but for me, this type of strong connection has never occurred through viewing a program on television, and it takes a phenomenal movie to rouse powerful emotions such as these in me.

In my opinion based on personal experience, if more teens took the initiative to read for enjoyment, a positive effect on our society as a whole would ensue. An overall improvement in language skills could very likely arise from this, as well as increased importance of moral values and compassion among the teen population. Reading would demonstrate an effective way of diverting teens from the superficial lifestyle presented in many forms of electronic media, and accordingly would make them re-assess the things that should hold importance in their lives.