Joel Stein: How I Replaced Shakespeare

In Joel Stein's article "How I Replaced Shakespeare and why our kids may never read a poem as lovely as a tree", he expresses his views on how the new curriculum standards, set by the Federal Reserve of San Francisco, are trying to shift "half the nation's high school English reading lists toward an emphasis on nonfiction." Stein believes that this act is a mistake and would rather have students study fiction more than nonfiction. He believes that fiction helps people express themselves and increase their imagination. Stein says, "Fiction also teaches you how to tell a story, which is how we express and remember nearly everything." To him, fiction not only increases people's imagination, but also helps them understand complicated things by reading things that they find suitable for them. Although Stein did admit that he did use fiction examples to help him write in different formats such as a "travel essay, screenplay, apology e-mail-" he was able to improve his writing skills by looking at different genres of literature such as "a novel, a poem, a George W. Bush speech." Stein believes that rather than students focusing on just nonfiction, they should expose themselves to different types of genres in literature. He believes that this will increase their knowledge and understanding of how to effectively function in society. He says, "If you can't tell a story, you will never, ever get people to wire you the funds you need to pay the fees to get your Nigerian inheritance out of the bank. Lastly, he thinks that the school's purpose is not to train students how to work, but to train "to communicate throughout our lives." He believes nonfiction teaches people how to communicate with other people effectively whereas fiction will only make communication hard to understand. 

As a person who loves to read, I also do believe that reading fiction rather than nonfiction literature does increase one's imagination and helps them to understand complicated situations in simple context. From personal experience, I was able to understand more about the Dust Bowl from John Steinbeck's novel Grapes of Wrath than I did from reading various nonfiction content. However, although I'm not a big fan of nonfiction literature (which explains why I didn't really learn anything from reading nonfiction content about the Dust Bowl), I also do think that nonfiction helps people become more aware of the things that happens in the world around them. An example would be when I read Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dillema. Pollan's book offered me a lot of information on how the food industries work which made me become more aware of what is in my food. To me, I don't think the idea of learning information from nonfiction content prevents one from expressing their opinions and increasing their imagination. In the Omnivore's Dilemma case, I was able to express my feelings and increase my imagination through Pollan's disturbing descriptions. Moreover, although I was able to understand more information about the Dust Bowl through fiction content since the language was simplistic, nonfiction content does provide more information which people can actually learn from and use it to help them learn how to function properly in society. By reading nonfiction , people are able to use their analytic skills and put those skills to use to help guide them through their life. 

At the end, I agree and disagree with Stein's claims. Although fiction does allow people to become creative and help them express their feelings, I believe that nonfiction can serve the same function as well. This also goes with the idea of how fiction helps people increase their knowledge of the world around them. To me, it's not really about what's in the content, but how people choose to use it.