TOEFL iBT Wriging for an Academic Discussion Fiction, Rather than Just Books about Facts at School? (Revised)

There is an ongoing debate about the balance between fiction and non-fiction in school curriculums. Some argue that students should spend more time reading fiction to foster skills such as empathy, while others believe that non-fiction is more important to learn essential facts about the world. In your opinion, should schools spend more time allowing students to read fiction rather than just books about facts?

 

 

☆Let’s Think

1.        What other benefits than strengthening empathy does reading fiction provides?

2.        Share your experience of learning from a non-fiction book.

 

 

☆Hints for Points

Fiction

1.       Stories and dramas are necessary to make life rich and enjoyable.

2.       Fiction is good for emotional education. Students get, at least partially, the brain wiring of the author, a great intellect, as well as the author’s vocabulary, world view, attitude, and other good properties.

3.       Good fiction reflects reality and tells the truth in the way non-fiction cannot and better than non-fiction does.

4.       A novel is in itself is a raw data of a period of history.

 

Non-fiction

1.        Non-fiction books have more information than fiction. It is good for students, who need to learn about the real world to make the most out of life, to avoid problems, and to help those who are in trouble.

2.        Students may not read non-fiction after graduation, so while at school they should be assigned to read as many non-fiction books related to their studies as possible.

3.        “In the end, fiction doesn’t go beyond the author’s world, while non-fiction does.” – Takashi Tachibana, an award-winning journalist, who kept reading fiction all day every day for 8 years when he was an undergraduate at Tokyo University

 

 

☆Sample Answer

【Thesis】I agree with Ella in that fiction provides insights into real events and real people. People tend to think that fiction is for emotional education for children, and that teens and young adults, whose mentality and personality are almost established, don’t need it in their curriculum. However, I think reading fiction is even more important in higher grades because of simulated experience it gives to the reader.

【Supporting Details】Students need the power of fiction to maintain their interest in the subjects that become increasingly complicated and layered as grades go up. Fiction helps relive the real events or issues effectively, and thus it makes students assimilate and feel related to them. Stories of victims of war or pollution, for instance, help students experience the tragedies vicariously and this leads them to understandings of and interest in the issue. In other words, students can acquire imagination and insights necessary to learn advanced level subjects by reading fiction.

【Counterargument-treatment】Certainly, fiction has its limits. It cannot beat the value of non-fiction as facts. However, good novels are neither fantasies nor delusions. They have models in the real world. The difference from non-fiction is that authors filter and process the reality into the truth just as artists filter the image a camera lens projects on the film to capture the intrinsic nature of the matter and process it into what is universal and eternal or something new. As a result, although fiction doesn’t have all the information non-fiction has and it contains the author’s imagination, it often comes closer to the reality than non-fiction does.

【Conclusion】Although the risks of confusion between facts and fantasy may exist, the tremendous power of fiction that helps students sympathize with those involved and reach insights of the issue cannot be ignored. If used carefully, it will boost the students’ studies. Therefore, I think fiction should be used more at school, especially in the advanced level. (316 words)