Good evening ladies and gentlemen of the Board of Education. Thank you for taking time out of your busy lives to listen to my proposal. I believe it is important to provide personal copies of assigned novels for students to keep. There are many arguments in favor of book ownership.
It is essential to own a book in order to get the full learning experience. According to Dr. Mortimer Adler there are two steps towards full book ownership. The first step is possession through either buying it or in this case receiving a copy from the school. The second step is making the book a part of you by marking in it. You cannot mark in a book that you do not own. Books must be "absorbed", in order to get the full learning experience. This can only be done so through active reading. Active reading means marking up the book by writing in the margins and underlining important material. .
There are many advantages to active reading. Active reading keeps the readers attention. It also preserves the ideas and thoughts of the reader. If you had read a book five years ago and went back to it then you could remember exactly what you had been thinking when you first read the book through your margin notes. Reading a book is like a "conversation between you and the writer". Active reading allows you to pick up this conversation wherever you left off. Also a reader's grasp of the text is better if they mark up the book. Active reading allows a student to emphasize on important themes and ideas in the book. Also, a student will be able to write a better final paper or reading logs if they have actively read the material.
Active reading is needed in order for a student to benefit from reading. Once again I will say that this maximum learning experience is only possible if the Board of Education provides copies of assigned books for students to keep. Once again I thank you for listening to my proposal.