Practice
Deep Reading Practices to Subvert the Vices of Our Distracted, Hostile, and Consumeristic Age Rachel B. Griffis, Julie Ooms, and Rachel M. De Smith Roberts This book helps readers develop practices that will result in deep, formative, and faithful reading so they can contribute to the flour - ishing of their communities and cultivate their own spiritual and intellectual depth. The authors, who all teach English to undergraduates, present reading as a remedy for three prevalent cultural vices—distraction, hostility, and consumerism—that impact the possibility of forma- tive reading. Informed by James K. A. Smith’s work on “the spiritual power of habit,” Deep Reading provides resources for engaging in formative and culturally subversive reading practices that teach readers how to resist vices, love virtue, and desire the good. Rather than emphasizing the spiritual benefits of reading specific texts such as Dante’s Divine Comedy or Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the authors focus on the practice of reading itself. They examine practices many teachers, students, and avid readers employ—such as reading lists, reading logs, and discussion—and demonstrate how such practices can be more effectively and inten- tionally harnessed to result in deep reading. The practices apply to any work that is meant to be read deeply. Undergraduate professors and students in a variety of humanities courses, learning communities seeking to nurture reading (includ- ing classical Christian schools and high schools), readers engaging Christian formation through the lens of historical Christian prac- tices and virtue development, and those interested in cultivating a faithful reading life will all value this work. “This book eloquently joins the other voices calling us to soul-forming kinds of reading that can resist our descent into superficiality and hostility. Importantly, it goes beyond them in de - scribing not just the texts we should read or the virtues we should seek but the actual practices that might get us there. All those who use text to teach others should read it. Anyone else who cares about reading and spiritual growth should join them.” —DAVID I. SMITH, director, Kuyers Institute for Christian Teaching and Learning, Calvin University “ Deep Reading ought to be read and wrestled with by all those who want to read carefully and well, and it’s particularly essential for those tasked with guiding others’ reading in the classroom, the church, or the home.” —JEFFREY BILBRO, Grove City College; editor-in-chief at Front Porch Republic
MAY 2024 • 240 pp. • paper• $24.99 • 9781540966957
Rachel B. Griffis (PhD, Baylor University) is associate professor of English at Spring Arbor University. Julie Ooms (PhD, Baylor University) is associate professor of English at Missouri Baptist University. Rachel M. De Smith Roberts (PhD, Baylor University) is associate professor of English at North Greenville University.
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