Contemplative Reading—The Experience, the Idea, the Applications

Abstract

The weight of academic tradition and current trends is powerful. We are inclined to work with conventional and popular terms, categories, and ideas about literature and teaching, even when our personal experience gives us different cues. For example, the term “contemplative reading” is not usually seen in textbooks or discussions of literary genres. But I believe that certain nonfiction works evoke an experience of contemplative response that is familiar to innumerable teachers and other readers.