Michael J. Seth: A Concise History of Korea: From the Neolithic Period through the Nineteenth Century

Allow me to just say that my Aunt Nell is one of the most thoughtful gift-givers I know.

This book was delivered at the perfect time for it (as you may not know, I moved to South Korea this week). Sadly, although well written, it reminded me why I so rarely read non-fiction books. Invariably, I read and promptly forget all but the basic information, information I could just have easily gotten in thirty seconds on Wikipedia. What hadn't occured to me before this, however, was what cognitive processes are behind my preference for fiction.

As a teacher, I am well attuned to the symptoms of cognitive style in students, but I had never bothered to apply that knowledge to myself. I knew on a cognitive level that I was a kinisthetic learner, but that information did me little good, limited as it was to the cognitive sphere. While reading this book, I finally put two and two together. Me reading non-fiction is a fish out of water. Non-fiction is a very auditory experience, words and only words. It must be, therefore, that this is why Robert only reads non-fiction. From a pedagogical standpoint, this is an amazing discovery. I had never read anywhere of a distinction for genre by cognitive style.

The bad news is that I didn't get a lot out of the book itself--certainly not the hours I invested in it. The good news is that I have had a pedagogical epiphany: I could easily assign a fiction story to visual/kinesthetic students, and a non-fiction one to auditory ones as part of an assignment. It sounds too simple to be true, yet I'm sure there's something to it.