“The difference between good and poor learners is not the sheer quantity of what the good learner learns, but rather the good learner's ability to organize and use information." Frank Smith
It was my first year teaching the Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, and we were well in to the book and had already gone through class period after class period trying to move beyond summary and even identification of themes in to discovering how the author uses language and images to create an intended effect. It was at this point when a quiet student in the back slowly raised his hand, then put his hand back on his lap, only to raise it again with a little more courage the second time. He had noticed that the end table next to one of the characters’ bed was made of drift wood and wondered if it connected to the death earlier in the book which happened on the shore of the ocean. All the other hands in the room went down as every student looked back at their book with silent respect, wondering both why they hadn’t noticed it and what this could mean about the character. After a fascinating and rather lengthy discussion on the motif of the ocean, another student, more brazen than the first, raised her hand and challenged the entire discussion. “Did Amy Tan really do all of this on purpose or are we simply overanalyzing?”
We discussed that question that day but I still think about it frequently and the conclusion that I have comfortably settled on is that finding connections between things is important as readers and even if Amy Tan, or any good writer, did not intentionally create the connection, because of the nature of being a good thinker she had been unconsciously creating connections between everything in her life and mind as a matter of routine and this manifested itself in her writing. I have also settled on the importance of our own efforts to create connections between the things that are important in our life. How does the lesson in Sunday School connect to the difficulties I am having with a teenage child? How does a scripture I just read inform my ability to achieve a goal I just set? What do the instructions in the temple have to do with the areas my marriage needs improving? How does a conversation with a stranger connect to a prayer recently offered?
To get the most out of our experiences with the gospel texts and religious practices we should be fostering an intellectual process in which we can connect those things with the experiences in our day to day life. When we find these connections we will find answers, solutions, and richness to many of the things that had previously left a feeling of isolation. Heavenly Father will help us to see more and be more as we turn to him for guidance putting the pieces of our experiences together to create something that teaches and enriches, not unlike a good book.
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