Why do women and girls prefer fiction? Is there a difference in the brains of men and women that lead to reading material preferences? I have to think there must be. The most-emailed article in the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/books/01lit.html?pagewanted=2&ref=homepage&src=me describes a new area of study in literature departments: fiction and the brain. Scholars are now mapping how our minds respond to literature and what this love, or hatred, of storytelling can tell us about evolution. I think that the differences between male and female reading habits must also be linked to our brains and evolution.
This has a major impact on my IR program next year. I cannot force students who don't like to read novels to read novels. My ultimate goal is to instill a love of reading because it exposes you to aspects of life and the world you didn't know about before. Reading, in any guise, expands your knowledge. The IR program needs to allow students to read magazines, newspapers, comics, poetry, blogs, and fiction. I hope this is one way to help the boys feel more comfortable with the program and even embrace it.
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