(Active Reading) Employ techniques of active reading, critical reading, and informal reading response for inquiry, learning, and thinking.
Framing Statement – Using the annotation techniques, specifically challenging what the author is telling me, has helped me understand texts on a deeper level.
Before English 110 I didn’t think annotations were all that important. In fact I thought annotations were unneeded for me. I understood that they were important to others but I thought I understood the text well enough to not need annotations. If I’m being honest, I retain enough knowledge on each text to get by in a class discussion of it but when it came to finding quotes to use later it tended to be a struggle; especially with longer pieces. So for a while if I did make any annotations if was simply highlighting things I thought would make good quotes and that was the extent of it.
After English 110 I’ve realized the importance of annotations. I decided I was going to try to annotate the texts we were being given (on top of the fact I assumed how well we annotated texts may end up being graded but it worked out for the best). I found that annotating not only showed me good quotes but it also made me pay more attention. Questioning the text got me thinking more deeply about it; as did making text to text connections between the texts. I found that challenging the texts either lead me to have a deeper understanding of it or gave me something else to talk about in class or in my essay. I don’t use every annotation type, however, the ones I have been utilizing have greatly helped me understand texts in a deeper and more meaningful way.
These are the two pictures of annotated texts I think are my best. I have a tendency to highlight without adding accompany text to my highlights these were the pages I thought had an appropriate amount of both.
A lot of my annotations may not be the most scholarly but a lot of the time they’re what I’m thinking and feeling in the moment so it’s helpful to look back and see exactly how I was feeling. It helped me a lot when picking quotes to see exactly what I thought when picking quotes I needed for my essays. It was especially good for these two pieces as I got into them emotionally.
When it comes to reading responses I picked my Chen reading response as once again I got emotionally into that piece and I ending up using an idea from that response in my last essay.
This is a great story about how hate being met with love and understanding can change a person’s mind. However I think we have to be careful when considering stories like this. It would’ve been very easy for another person from Phelps-Roper’s church to just dismiss these people with more hurtful comments. And it could be extremely damaging to someone to be called multiple slurs while trying to explain to someone why homophobia and anti-semitism is wrong. Stories like this are very heart warming and I’m glad Phelps-Roper had a turn of heart but I don’t want individuals to make their own mental health suffer trying to make hateful individuals less hateful because of things like this. Some people take the burden of educating others too much to heart and if the person is more hateful than Phelps-Roper and more dangerous something much worse could be an outcome.
Part of my chen reading response
I ending up using this idea as my naysayer response in my essay 3. While I still wholehearted believe this my essay 3 was about educating people. I had to mention this belief in my essay as it’s one I hold however I think people who cannot educate should sit and let others do so. I like the dichotomy I created by starting this semester with this reading response and ending the semester by writing an essay about education. I think it goes to show not everything is so black and white.
Word count – 534
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