Joseph’s post (“How to Read Great Literature,” Feb. 15) reminded me of a mini-lecture I used to deliver to students at the beginning of Intro Lit, a course that met the humanities requirement of many students who were not English or Humanities majors. How does one wade through and comprehend literary texts when one hates reading even modern fast-paced thrillers? How does one find a purpose sufficient for motivation when one’s only real purpose is to somehow get through this course with a decent grade? Most of them were science/technology or business majors. I summarized Donald Hall’s classic “Four Ways to Read,” adding a twist by linking it to intellectual development.

First—We learn to read for information. This includes reading directions, recipes, phone books, etc. It also includes newspaper accounts of events. We scan, we read quickly, we appreciate brevity; we are looking for content only. This is the way we first learned to read. We wanted to find out what those letters meant. We had learned our alphabet and now we encountered letters put together to make words and the words meant something. This is reading for information.

Second—We read for recreation. We discovered that the words could take us on imaginary adventures, the same way movies do. Stories allow us to escape our surroundings and experience another reality, perhaps another identity. We are not reading for information, so we don’t think about the fact that our second way of reading is actually built on our first way.

Third—Then, in high school, we learned to analyze. This course irritated those who had learned to love reading for recreation. They were forced to dissect the text, look for metaphors and similes, analyze themes, and criticize, research (read for information) what critics had said about the material and summarize it. (“I used to love reading until I took Literature in high school.”) Our reaction is a consequence of having learned the first and second ways of reading. Analytical reading is where we first encounter ideas. Although it’s distasteful for those who demand subjective pleasure and despise objectivity, it is a critical stage of intellectual maturation, necessary for the next way of reading.

Fourth—This can be likened to a symphony. It’s reading in the totality of experience. We know what the “movements” are, the instruments, etc. This is not informational, recreational, analytical, reading. It’s reading as an experience—yet each stage of our development as readers is a necessary preparation for reading literature.

We get into trouble when we try to apply the wrong purpose to reading. It’s just as nonsensical to attempt reading literature quickly, scanning it for information (like the plot, maybe, in order to pass a test), as it is to attempt to read a phone book for literary pleasure. That is why C.S. Lewis admonishes a young reader in one of his letters always to “read aloud” in her head.

Donald Hall’s famous essay can be easily found online: Four Kinds of Reading.