Disliking Books In Other Voices, Other Rooms By Gerald Graff

Gerald Graff is a professor of English and Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago and is highly involved in debates about the current direction of college education. In his essay “Disliking Books,” Graff focuses on using his personal story in order to make a statement about the importance of introducing the arguments over pieces of literature in school. On the other hand, in his essay “Many Voices, Many Rooms,” he uses studies, outside references, and some personal experience in order to express his views about education. In “Other Voices, Other Rooms,” he outlines the need for teachers to connect their topics with other subjects and the outside world so that students not only retain information, but also understand the subject

In his essay “Disliking Books,” he examines the standard that many teachers hold. The author believes that the view of other teachers is that “leaving me alone with literary texts themselves, uncontaminated by the interpretations and theories of professional critics would enable me to get on the closest possible terms with those texts” (Graff 26). Teachers, as Graff believes, leave their students with only their own interpretations and perspectives on a text. This does not encourage learning or critical thinking, but hinders students’ abilities to improve and develop ideas their own. Without guidance, students cannot delve deeper into the subjects in which they are learning. Alternatively, in his “Other Voices, Other Rooms,” Graff reveals isolation in perspective of teachers through his own experience with teachers holding opposing viewpoints and theorizes “teachers in modern periods need nonmodernists (and vice versa) in order to make their subjects intelligible to their students” Graff 340). Hence, without elaborating on a subject from all possible viewpoints, a student will have a limited understanding of what it is and how to apply it in their life. Each student will take a different standpoint on what is said, and if they disagree, it will slip through their