Shadowing Practice: Why You Need to Read Hard Books - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Audiobooks, podcasts, and YouTube have opened up a world of information, but not the sort of insight that comes from deep reading.
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Drawing on neuroscience and decades in the classroom, I'm going to explain why you should read hard books, at least some of the time, and the four tactical skills that will rebuild your focus.
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now we're living through a crisis of attention in 2015 a widely cited microsoft report revealed
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that the average digital consumer's attention span had dropped to just
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eight seconds that's one second shorter than a goldfish the average high school student
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and college age student now spends something like 30 to 45
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hours a week on screens that's about the same as a full -time job
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while dedicating fewer than two hours a week to deep formational reading.
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Whether or not your brain and mine is actually worse off than a fish's, numerous studies point to a new reality.
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We simply read less.
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Modern technology has engineered us to think on the surface, to flick, scroll, skim through information without giving space and time to deep thinking.
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Reading hard books is not just a hobby anymore.
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Deep reading is an act of intellectual rebellion, or better, an act of renewal for our eight -second brains.
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One of the West's great philosophers, John Henry Newman, once observed that time is necessary for the perfection of great ideas.
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He was referring to how abstract concepts like justice or happiness or beauty can develop within a culture over time,
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but the same holds true for within our individual minds.
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Without habitual leisure, our minds simply can't process complex ideas.
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In 1956, Harvard psychologist George Miller showed us why in his famous paper, The Magical Number 7 Plus or Minus 2.
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By drawing on experiments in human recall, Miller showed that short -term memory appears to have a strict bottleneck.
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This insight became the foundation for modern cognitive load theory.
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One of the most important insights from this research is this.
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Once ideas move into our long -term memory, the mind has a nearly infinite capacity for retention and reflection.
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In the short -term memory, however, we quickly reach our limits.
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Evidently, the mind can only keep in view about four to seven items at once
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and loses most information after only a few seconds.
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And if insights or ideas never squeeze past that narrow gate of the short -term into the long -term memory, or they aren't properly organized,
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we have little chance of gaining much from a book, idea, or a skill presented.
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The problem is contemporary habits of intellectual consumption work against both long -term memory and deep reflection.
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Watching YouTube, gaming, scrolling on social media, even listening to podcasts disrupt the formation of the intellectual habits
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that allow us to enter into the great conversations of the past and the present.
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And without cultivating a strong habit of attention, even meaningful, loving conversations within our families and among our friends becomes difficult.
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At the end of the video, you can pull up a toolkit that we made to help you improve your reading habits, if you like.
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But for now, we're often told that it makes no difference how we gain information, aren't we?
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Whether this is through YouTube, audiobooks, or digital screens.
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Educators sometimes even say that as long as children are learning to read, we're equipping them to be productive citizens.
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But both neuroscience and philosophy suggest otherwise.
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Before we turn to the four skills needed for deep reading, I'd like to name here three myths about the digital mind that actually work against gaining deeper insight.
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The first myth is the myth of sensory equivalence.
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This myth says that we learn equally well from different media.
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While it's true that our senses do serve as windows into the world, all senses are not equal.
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Listening and reading, for example, produce measurably different effects on our minds.
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And this is especially true when we're talking about trying to learn concepts that are less familiar or require more sustained attention.
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In 2021, a major survey of cognitive research was done on the advantages of reading over listening.
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For a simple literal recall, audio and print perform almost identically, so they found.
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But when researchers distinguish between simple recall versus deeper understanding, the differences become more clear.
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Reading for deep learning, that is when you're reading to connect premises, you're evaluating the coherence of claims, or you're wrestling with dense word patterns.
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Reading for deep learning shows a statistically significant advantage over listening
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for deep learning by roughly a 10 to 15 percent jump in your analytical performance.
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When attempting high -level thinking, then, readers do have the short -term advantage over listeners.
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And that advantage only increases over time.
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Over the long term, educational researchers have noted what is called the Matthew effect.
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Apparently this is named after the tax collector in the Bible.
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The idea here is that the gap between better readers and poor readers tends to increase over time.
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And this resonates with my own experience of teaching for two decades.
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The difference between a student who habitually wrestles with hard printed texts and one who relies on passive consumption isn't about 15%.
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In fact, I'm not sure if we could put a number to it.
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The real difference is more like the difference between an iceberg in the ocean
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and a log that is floating on top of the river.
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The iceberg has built up its substance and weighed over years.
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It's very difficult to move.
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This is what happens to deep readers.
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The floating log is more like the person who only skims the top, and their direction and motion is going to be wherever the currents of popular culture are moving it.
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Consider the physical act of reading a book.
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When you hold a book in your hand, you engage more of your body.
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You see, you smell, you touch what you're holding.
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And perhaps you will read that book in a favorite chair or a favorite place in a park.
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While reading, making notes, flipping through the pages,
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the mind naturally constructs a physical visual geography of words in your brain.
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This mental map frees your working memory for a higher level engagement with what's going on.
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And then fast forward weeks or years later, when you pass by that book on your shelf, you're adding yet a second layer of memory that extends the original experience of reading to time.
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And the book becomes, you might say, literally a part of the furniture of your mind.
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I'd like to point to one last insight from the science of reading.
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For years, researchers have used eye -tracking technologies to watch what happens when people read a text. And interestingly,
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what they found is that something like 15 % of all reading consists in split -second backward eye jumps across the text.
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Now, especially when you're reading something that's difficult or hard, our eyes are continually rolling backwards.
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Without even thinking about it, these quick movements verify the syntax, they review unfamiliar terms, and they confirm the logical sequences
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that you're being presented with watching something on YouTube like you are now
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or hearing it on a podcast unfortunately disrupts these automatic micro corrections and confirmations that your mind is engaging in.
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So let's accept for the moment
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that how -to videos like audiobooks like YouTube can have a place
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and yet when it comes to engaging with the most difficult concepts reading a book is superior
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because it gives us a better chance at entering into deeper patterns of reflection and thought.
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But is all reading equally valuable?
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A second myth is that all reading is created equal.
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And I don't think that can be true.
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People read for all kinds of occasions and reasons, like reading for utility, pleasure, or self -improvement.
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So I think we can draw another distinction here.
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In the early 20th century, a French priest philosopher named A .G.
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Certelange wrote a little book called on the intellectual life, and soon after its publication became a minor classic,
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one of the great guides to learning on how to be a thoughtful human being.
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I've assigned it myself many times to students, and they've always loved it.
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In that work, Sir Delange draws a distinction between two basic kinds of reading.
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One he calls informational reading, and the other he calls formational reading.
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Now, informational reading is the kind that most of us are engaged in most at the time, interpreting signs while driving, glancing at a newspaper, scrolling on your social media account.
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These are all circumstances where we're reading not so much to be moved or challenged in our thinking, but simply to get a sense of what's going on, and that's fine.
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When driving, for example, it's crucial to be able to scan the horizon
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and quickly grasp from highway signs whether this is the exit you need
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or whether your exit is coming up the next mile later.
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So informational reading is not bad.
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But reading in this mode can be harmful to us if it's the only sort of reading that we regularly practice.
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As Surtillange suggests, if that is the only kind of reading we know, we simply miss out a great deal on life
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and we end up living like men and women who see a colorful world only in black and white.
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The other sort of reading he calls formational reading.
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And this is the sort of reading that we want to utilize
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when we wish to engage with great ideas and harder texts.
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Reading a Dostoevsky novel, say, or a dialogue by Plato, maybe a physics textbook, or perhaps some classical spiritual writer,
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is going to require a different quality of attention than what you need when you're scrolling through X.
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Serge Elange was not the first to recognize this difference among books.
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One of the fathers of early modern science, Francis Bacon, for example, wrote, history gives fullness, moral philosophy strength, and poetry elevation to the understanding.
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By which he meant that different books offer different benefits.
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And before him, the Roman philosopher Seneca's advice was non multa sed multum, better to read not many books, but a few well.
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So not all kinds of reading are equal.
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How should we read?
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This leads to the third myth.
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The third myth is that reading is a merely passive activity.
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Over the years, I've encountered many students in high school
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and college to assume
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that reading a book requires no more skill than does standing under a shower as
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if having a wash of words wash over you will somehow make you better or improve you.
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Nothing can be further from the truth.
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When I was younger I loved riding motorcycles
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and it was a joy to sit upon all that rushing power
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but without practice bikes are easy to crash as I have.
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According to Aristotle learning to use your intellect is like learning to ride a powerful bike.
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It has power but you need discipline to steer it well
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so to move from passive to active
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and deep virtuous reading i'd like to suggest you four very practical tactical skills practice these
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and you will be on your way to building up your habit of attention
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which is helpful to us for happiness here's the first read
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from the outside in the idea behind this strategy is simple
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just like you would never begin baking bread without preparing the ingredients pulling up pots and pans measuring cups.
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So you never want to begin reading something hard without taking a moment to scope the terrain.
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Reading from the outside in means approaching the author and his
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or her book with the courtesy might extend to a new friend.
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And you need to have some patience.
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Specifically, it means you want to look out for four things.
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You want to note what you can about the author's life and context, reflect a little bit on the title, note the specific genre or type of writing,
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and then finally call to mind what devices or cues are likely to be used within this book.
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The process does not need to be onerous and you certainly do not need to a degree to engage in this, but a few minutes of preparation can help.
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Before diving into the text and even as you go along reading, you might want to do some exploratory work beforehand or at least pay attention to these items as you move along.
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Let me give you an example for why this work is helpful.
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In the year 2000, the BBC ran a survey polling people's opinions as to the most influential writer of the last millennium.
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And unsurprisingly, Shakespeare won top spot, but right behind him was Jane Austen.
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Austen's Pride and Prejudice often ranks among the most popular novels of all time, and this is for good reason.
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The story is about two young lovers finding their way to marriage, and hence happiness.
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But the title here is what gives a wonderful clue into Austen's argument and where the story is going to lead.
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Now the main contribution of this book is to show how it is
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that true happiness in love can only be attained by those who have acquired genuine virtues.
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The claim here is no virtue, no genuine love, no genuine love, no lasting happiness.
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Each of these young lovers, Miss Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, is afflicted with a vice particularly their own that they need to overcome.
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Elizabeth is too quick with her judgments, and hence she's damaged by prejudice.
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Mr. Darcy, on the other hand, is good, but uncharitably separates himself from other people, and hence he's stunted by his pride.
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The drama of the novel is to show how each of these two young people are brought together by overcoming their vices.
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Only by becoming more virtuous in the ways that they need to, are they worthy for each other's love, and hence the title Pride and Prejudice.
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Similarly, keep an eye on the genre.
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You read a biology textbook for its clear definitions and illustrations, but you're going to read a poem for its metaphor and allegory.
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Knowing the genre identifies which keys you need to unlock this or that text.
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The next habit, if you forget all the others is probably the most helpful
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it's the habit of identifying the core trinity within each text the question the answer
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and the steps they use to get to the answer now every good
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and great author is going to be answering or tackling some problem question
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or circulating around a theme and so
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if you want to stay with the author you're going to
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need like a detective to find out these three things what is the question the answer
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and the structure for almost a decade i've belonged to a men's reading group where we tackle dense philosophical
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and theological essays
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and though the men are all successful in the world in various ways the single hardest skill
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that we practice is identifying this core trinity what is the question what is the answer what are the steps
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identifying this core is the difference really between being a bystander to a great conversation
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and being one of the club being an active participant who knows what's going on and so can Contribute.
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and one who has no idea about what's being said.
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This leads to the third tactical habit, write in the margins.
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So when you're looking for this core trinity, the question, the answer, and the structure, the best way to go about finding it is with a pencil in hand.
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There's no strict formula for how to do this.
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As you practice, you're going to come up with your own systems, but the basic idea is
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that you want to draw attention somehow to what is most important
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so that you can recall it later and understand it at the time.
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so for example you might underline keywords you might circle a
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conclusion you might put brackets around sentences you know are important
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or even draw little pictures
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and people have been doing this sort of thing for centuries
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in the west medieval monastic copyists for example sometimes would write
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comments in the margin telling you what they thought about this or
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that passage that's called marginalia during the renaissance something called florilegia
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became popular these are little notebooks where readers would write down long passages
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that they've been reading in their books so that they could come back to it later and recall what they had read.
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And in the 18th century, those who published books often would publish in the columns short little summaries
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so that readers could keep abreast with the argument as it was moving along.
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Another technique is to write a word or phrase at the top
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or bottom of the page to help you recognize what's happening.
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For very difficult books, you can even make quick logical summaries at the back, noting key quotations there for you to return to later.
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The point is, deep reading is active reading.
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This leads to the last habit.
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Read with your eyes, ears, and your friends.
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Great books, those written by Confucius or Augustine or Shakespeare, were meant to be read aloud and discussed and sometimes performed with friends.
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I know I'm constantly surprised that the sorts of wonderful and original insights that come to people in conversation,
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simply through the act of talking about something that you've been able to spend some time reading together.
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And if you're not in this habit yet of belonging to reading groups, join one, get friends together,
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read your favorite book or your favorite essay by Lewis or texts of scripture, and then bribe them with the promise of gourmet coffee or perhaps a bottle of wine.
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I'd like to end with a practical challenge, not so much about reading, but about reclaiming control of our waking hours.
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Our days are divided into three segments of eight hours.
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We all need eight hours to sleep, eight to work, and that leaves eight hours for the rest of time, for a life of play,
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conversation, music, crafts, prayer, exercise, and also the life of reading.
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Practice the four techniques for improving your deep reading.
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Consider committing five to ten minutes for formational reading every day and watch your life and service to others improve.
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And if you want to try to implement some of the techniques I discussed, we made an attractive little handout for you that you can use and find under the resources section in this video.
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Thanks for listening and happy reading.
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See you next time.
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About This Lesson
You're practicing English with "Why You Need to Read Hard Books" using the Shadowing technique — a method originally developed for professional interpreter training.
Focus on sounding like the speaker — not just repeating words. With 15–30 minutes of daily practice, you'll build real-world speaking confidence.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.