I can still remember the movie, “Cool Runnings”, where the Jamaican bobsled team practiced by visualizing and actually acting out the turns on the course while standing in the hotel room. By doing this, the members of the team would be able to “experience bobsledding” before the official event would take place. Athletes are taught early on to visualize and see themselves completing a particular task with a high level of success early on in their careers.
Just like an experienced athlete, a veteran reader knows the importance of seeing the plot unfold. In order for readers to have an opportunity for pure bliss while reading, visualizing needs to be at its peak. Readers can do this by pretending that they are a character in the book, pretending to be an invisible person and climb inside the walls of the novel while having the opportunity to observe everything, or by acting out the words and emotions that are captured on the pages. This strategy allows readers to laugh, cry and feel the shock and horror that the writer intended. Through visualizing, readers are able to experience the enjoyment that goes along with reading and understand literature on a much deeper level.
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