CONTROLLING YOUR BIASES
One of the main impediments to improving your skills is to think that you already know everything you
need to know. It is far better to keep an open mind and to engage with a critical eye your own reading and
writing processes, knowing that you can get better rather than to rely on what you’ve known in the past.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle for teens who are struggling to understand complex literary texts is their
lack of life and world experience. There is only so much one can know at age 17 or 18!
We all have biases. They come from particular aspects of our lives that influence how we think. Biases
are not wrong, but they can limit our ability to think with an open mind. This section is simply asking that
you consider this important part of your thinking process and understand how biases can limit your ability
to not only read and understand a poem or prose passage, but also limit your ability to write about it.
To avoid problems with biases, consider the following:
1. Watch for undue sympathy, which tends to emerge from immature readers. For example, Wilbur’s
poem “Death of a Toad,” presents the last stages of a toad’s life. Students who can’t get past the
gross-out factor will be stuck there and will not be able to see the toad as an important actor in life’s
great pageant. Similarly, those who focus on the blood-stained sheet and feel only sympathy for the
dead wolf in McCarthy’s passage from The Crossing might miss the fact that it is the young man we
need to understand, not the wolf. To stay on track in a situation like this, focus on the prompt and the
task it presents. Do not stray into emotional realms that are unrelated to your task.
2. Accept that you have values and views that might be particular and not universal. One’s religious
faith, ethnic heritage, political persuasion, or local social values, for example, sometimes limit one’s
ability to understand a text. It is not fair to expect a literary text to conform to your standards. The
text is as it is. It is not wrong. It is not right. It is a text. To simplify: Do not judge the morality of a
character unless that is the intent of the passage and indicated in the prompt.
3. Our place in time can be an impediment to our understanding. While it may be true that people of all
times are more alike than different, social and cultural aspects do impact people. People who live in
the age of technology have different concerns than those who lived prior to the industrial revolution.
Applying the parameters of one’s own time to all time is not wise. For example, never make
uniformed blanket statements about the past, such as, “In the old days, people’s lives were simpler.”
A good understanding of history will help you avoid such misstatements.
4. One limitation of immature readers is that they tend to see everything only through their own
experience. If you’ve ever had a conversation with anyone who, instead of listening to what you
have to say, jumps in with, “Oh, I know. That happened to me, too.” and turns the focus to him or
herself, you know what I mean. The experience or situation revealed in the poem or prose passage
may indeed make you think about your own experience. And that is good because we don’t really
understand things we can’t connect with. However, once you start formulating your thesis and
working through your analysis, you must focus on the text. Your deep understanding of a passage or