Close Reading By Corrie Goldman

Throughout "Our Secret" Griffin explores the different characters' fears and secrets and she gives specific insights into these "secrets". Through examining others Griffin comes to terms with her own feelings, secrets, and fears. She relates to Himmler, Leo, Helene, and everyone else even though she is different than all of them. One fact that can be made about all of these characters is that they all represent humans and human emotion

Michele Alexander writes a Foreword in Becoming Ms. Burton, where she makes a bold comparison after explaining an unidentified woman: “Some people know this woman by the name Harriet Tubman. I know her as Susan” (xi). Alexander compares Susan Burton to Underground Railroad heroine, Harriet Tubman. Over the course of the Foreword, it covers what Susan Burton does, how she is helping many individuals, and essentially saving lives of those in need, much like Harriet Tubman did. This comparison is crucial in setting up the idea of how special Susan Burton is, before revealing any major information about her life. Alexander, by putting Ms. Burton next to such an important and inspirational historical figure, gives the readers’ and idea of how incredible Susan is. Throughout the book, the reader can go back to the comparison made by Alexander, and see how accurate it truly is.

In “Sharon Cho” from Speaking of Reading, Cho explains what effects reading had on her. Because it broadened her vocabulary, reading gave Cho a higher intelligence than most kids her age. She loved comic books. As a result, they changed her life by giving her a sense of justice, and she learned right from wrong. Not only did she read comic books, but she also read Myths and Biblical stories as if they were comic books. She saw figures such as Jesus as superheroes because he died for the good of mankind. For this reason, she became a better person by applying these teachings to her life, even though her parents didn't understand it

Assisted suicide is an ethical topic that has sparked up many controversies. Individuals have heated disputes on whether or not patients who are suffering should have the right to die. Some worry that legalizing euthanasia is irrational and would violate some religions, while others argue that it provides a peaceful death towards terminally ill patients who are suffering from pain. Physician-assisted suicide is a contentious matter, in which there are many positive and negative aspects, whether or not it should be committed is a complex decision.

• Reading now means skipping and skimming; five minutes on the same Web page is considered an eternity. This is not reading as Marilynne Robinson described it: the encounter with a second self in the silence of mental solitude. (The end of solitude, pg. 4)

Taking the Smarter Measure assessment allowed me to learn so many interesting things about myself, stuff I didn't even know. A fact that took me by surprise was the fact that i’m an aural learner, which means that I learn through listening. I always thought of myself as a visual learner, but being an aural learner makes sense since I have always correlated memories with music. One result that didn’t really surprise me was that I can read 307 words per minute, as a kid I have always loved to read. In elementary school, I used to read in a fifth grade level while being in third grade! Now when I read a book, I can finish it in either a day or two. My reading recall was at 70%, which to me, I think its bad. I need to improve on reading and remembering what I read, a way that helps me remember stuff better is if I read out loud a part of the passage that I think is important, which makes sense since I am an aural learner.

　　In the essay “Reading and Thought”, Dwight MacDonlad talked about the kind of poor reading people are attached to in modern society. MacDonald believed reading materials such as Times and New York Times are too overwhelming for the readers. Readers tend to skim through the reading materials because most of the reading do not have any connections with their daily lives. Moreover, MacDoanld claimed that the readings people do these days are not thoughtful. The readings are rather irrelevant toward the readers. It is because the journalists to produce dull pieces of readings which are meant to be skimmed through without having too much thoughts involved. As the journalists do not have much consideration of the materials they produced. To the journalists the readings they produce are just a series of news that should be read driftly and left behind with no thoughful idea needed to be informed. These effects caused modern society to have a poor reading habits because people do not reflect and give time to think about the readings they did. Readers casually accept the readings even though they do not have provide any resourceful information for the readers.

As a child, I read non-stop. I used to spend entire nights reading, so much so that by the age of 9, I had developed grey circles under my eyes, which I wore like a badge. In school, I would use every free second I had to get just a little closer to finishing whatever book I had on hand. Ms. Carpenter, who always seemed as though she didn’t like teaching very much, frequently yelled at me for keeping my books on my desk so I could get to them quicker whenever I finished my classwork. She insisted that they were a distraction. But I always had a book to read, because every Friday each class walked in a neat line

Carr makes use of this indication to show that although people have the opportunity to read through long texts to research properly, they are more likely to skim through texts, which may be obvious of a short attention span.

Susan McClary’s scholarly article, A Musical Dialect from the Enlightenment: Mozart’s Piano Concerto in G Major, K. 453, Mvt. 2, starts off with her recalling a time after watching a performance of the concerto with a colleague and the two of them confessing different opinions about the soloist’s performance. McClary, who liked the performance, notes that soloist articulates “unusual compositional strategies indicated in Mozart’s texts”. The argument ends with the two not only about the piece and Mozart, but also about the significance of the eighteenth-century. McClary’s article attempts to critique the perfection of Mozart’s works.

Reading Comprehension: Answer questions after reading a variety if stimuli, e.g., note, public sign, poster, e-mail, letter, story, advertisement, article, brochure.

“Marks” by Linda Pastan is a poem about a mother/wife that is being evaluated by her family using the grading scale of a student that would get in a school. The poem is a bit harsh if taken literally but if it is viewed as a poem, it could be interpreted that the grading system that was mentioned is a metaphor that the author uses to communicate with the readers to clearly understand how she is doing regarding activity or chores that she has to do as a “mother/wife.”

Nicholas Carr begins his argument by acknowledging our brain’s plasticity - the ability for our brain to readily adapt to the environment we live in (supported by the Scientific American). In the world of new innovations and enhanced technology, the internet is the primary medium through which we learn and communicate. Earlier, however, reading books was the dominant form to obtain knowledge. Carr explains how early reading was “an extra cognitive burden”, as our eyes moved across the text in a constant motion of pausing and restarting to absorb the beginning and end of each syntax and word as if were like “working out a puzzle”. The neurons in our cortexes were

McDaniel, Mark A., Daniel C. Howard, and Gilles O. Einstein. "The Read-Recite-Review Study Strategy: Effective And Portable." Psychological Science 20.4 (2009): 516-522. Print.

Reading is one of my favorite pastimes. I am a tuned-in Reader, and I appreciate well written biographies. Enjoyable reading takes my mind off school work and relaxes me. I enjoy academic reading as well, but sometimes it is intense and requires much concentration. Moreover, I am a tuned in reader when it comes to academic subject’s such as; psychology, nutrition, health and history.