In the Ted Talk “What Reading Slowly Taught me about writing” the speaker, Jacqueline Woodson, talks about how important stories are. She discusses what is the purpose of stories and also the reasons why people read. The reason she discussed which appealed to me as to why people read is that people read to understand the past. The past is full of stories that we will never be able to get the chance to experience in person. We often hear about things that happened in our past and often wonder why and how they took place. How then can we learn these stories which our ancestors were a part of? This can be done through oral tradition, visiting museums however the most accurate way to do so is through reading. By reading documents and articles of the past, we gain a full and accurate understanding of what took place, where it happened and why it happened.

This gives us a clear grasp of the events that occurred that caused us to be living the life we are living today. By reading about slavery we gain an understanding of why our ancestors were enslaved and oppressed. By reading about the history of  Muslims we gain an understanding of why they are as they are today as they faced persecution throughout Europe in the 15th century. Reading the past gives us insight as to why things they are today as the past affected the choices of the people before us as they were trying to make society better. Reading the past has always been important to me as I personally believe that if you know where you are coming from you will have a better understanding of where you should go. This motivated me to be fascinated with history in general. I have read about the history of my people, the history of my country, and the history of my family and this has given me a lot of insight as to what I want to achieve and where I want to be in life. It has given me the passion to aim higher than those before me, work harder than those before me, and not make the same mistakes they did.