Nonrequired Reading

Prompt: Sufjan Stevens writes about his acquisition of literacy at a grocery store. What are the hidden meanings and metaphors of his education process? How does this relate to the concept of nonrequired reading?

What I believe are Sufjan Stevens hidden meanings and metaphors of his education process, is that everyone can learn something by looking at the things around them. He talked about how his third grade teacher Mrs. Lubbers assigned him “a simple task: spend your free time at the pharmacy, the video store, or the grocery store, scanning aisles, browsing cereal boxes, examining coupons, prodding price tags and recipes for nouns, verbs, adjectives…” (p. XV The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007 (in the introduction)). He would then go to the “local k” when his dad would get paid to perform his task at hand. By going to the store he found that everything had words and different meanings all over the place. It wasn’t just a simple book that you were required to sit down and have to read, no it was just simple phrases or sentences that you can pretty much just take your time to read and understand. This type of learning was what I would kind of do when I was younger. I remember sitting at the counter with my box of Captain Crunch Berries box and my bowl cereal and just looking at the box and reading all the little jokes or games that were on the back of the box. How this relates to the concept of nonrequired reading is that something that is nonrequired (to me) seems like your just reading something for the fun of it. It doesn’t mean that those things aren’t short stories or novels; it just means that you’re not forced to read it. By reading for fun you are able to expand your vocabulary and also your creative mind, which I believe is what Sufjan Stevens is trying to get across.