Critical Reading Reflection

When students use their skills to analyze literature, they must annotate to look for the main plot points or literary devices, locate the theme of the novel, and determine if the novel is an allegory. Even though analyzing a book is often confused with summarizing a book, they are entirely different things. While summarizing a book is just writing a few sentences about the most important points in the plot, analyzing a book requires you to look deeper into the story and find what the author’s purpose is. One technique students can use when to analyze literature is annotating. Annotating is a process in which students highlight or make a note of any literary device in the book, important plot points, or connections between the plot/characters to the real world.

I remember the day that critically shaped the person I am today,it started when I was in TH grade. I thought going to school was easy,but it wasn't as the adults think it was, because once I step into that middle school building, I felt the nervous,anxiety rush in my veins. I felt like I was in some kind of place that could eat me out alive, it's like that " first day of school" kind of feeling. My mother who was with me did not expect a thing, she thinks I was alright, but I wasn't. I walked into the main office asking for my schedule and then the lady in the front desk nods her head and ask me for my name. I told her my name and she printed out the schedule and gave it to me. I hugged my mother and walked to my first class. I reached to

Two things stood out to me this week: the first was just how much emphasis was put on the Gomery inquiry, and its impact on Canadian politics and its similarities to current Canadian politics. The second was how larger the concept of neoliberalism loomed in the global community in the two years before the Great Recession, which has come under fierce criticism in contemporary politics both in Canada and internationally.

The two units that I felt I could connect the most to were the mental health and the factors affecting wellbeing unit. I think I was able to connect the most to these units because some of the things that are talked about in the units applied to my life. In mental health and factors affecting wellbeing, we discussed the different factors that can affect our mental health. One example that we talked about was stress, and this is one reason why I was able to relate to the unit. I often have felt stressed therefore, I know the effects it has on our mental health. Another thing that we talked about was how our mental health is affected every day by little things, and, I agree with this statement because I too have experienced

That Bird has My Wings is a book written by Jarvis Masters, an inmate currently on death row in San Quentin. He is on death row for the murder of a prison guard. The court convicted three inmates of being responsible for the guard’s death. However, Masters was the only one sentenced to death. He was not even in the same area of the prison when the guard was killed, but they said he sharpened a piece of metal that was used to kill the guard. This book details Masters life from the time he was born until serving on death row. Masters goal of his book is to show what happens to children who experience a “painful, violent life”(273)

This year, AP English 3 has been my favorite class because of the wide variety of topics that we covered and the essay writing skills that we learned. By providing a large educational basis to students' writing, this class expands the learner's ability to communicate in a profesional, educational manner, a skill with which they will use for the rest of their life. As well as scoring eights (on a nine-point scale) on several English papers, the skills that I have grown and nurtured throughout the semester have helped me score fives or sixes on my AP US History essays (on a six-point scale). Through learning how to go in-depth and synthesize a topic, AP English 3 has taught me how to consistently score high grades on AP essays, as well as communicate

Although, during class, we reviewed it so it was much clearer when we read the story. For my annotations I read the bulleted summary and wrote down questions. Then I went through once and highlighted words that I did not know. Afterwards I went back through with different colors and annotated for thematic topics, epic digression, and figurative language. Then at the very end, I divided the chapter based on the bulleted summary at the beginning. I did have to annotate in seventh and eighth grade, but we did not have to think critically. It was a lot easier to annotate back then because our teacher just looked and how many annotations we had and if the pages were colorful. I have gotten better at annotating things that are important, and not just making the pages look like a rainbow. I still, however, need to think more critically when I explain themes and epic conventions. As I was reading the book, it sometimes got boring and it was intense for me to have to annotate for long periods, so I took breaks in between. It was also somewhat difficult for me to annotate because I did not know what things to look for. I asked friends about scenes in the book and what they thought of it or if it had a deeper meaning. Sometimes, I Googled things such as definitions and an analysis of each book so I can understand the story better. It was very helpful because it pointed things out that I did not catch and made

According to the College Board, “The aim of [the AP Language and Composition course] is to help students develop the ability to read critically and evaluate sources so that they can write from and in response to those sources. Students should learn to interrogate a text, not only to discern what it is saying but also to understand how and why it proposes what it does.” Students are strongly encouraged to take notes on their reading while they are reading (active reading), and read the text more than once. It is highly suggested that students purchase the novel to allow direct annotation in the book (for tips on annotating, click HERE and HERE). Students who are unable to gain access to the book via the library, online, through other means, must contact Mrs. Wright, Mr. Ziebarth, or Ms. LaFramboise no later than May 22, 2015.

The task was to create annotations in order to understand the article and to develop stages of thoughts, where one jots down their ideas on how they apprehend the article as they read along. The annotations were very helpful in processing my thoughts accordingly. I annotated sentences that I believed pertained directly to the main idea. The side notes contained a small sentence that summarizes a paragraph or others which correlated as a whole. Together as a class we reviewed the assignment to determine if the article was comprehended by everyone with similar thoughts. My instructor pin-pointed phrases or words within paragraphs that share a connection to help construct thoughts when having difficulties understanding a passage. Using this new technique than just highlighting sentences allows me to improve my ability to grasp the paragraph's content. My instructor also mentioned the conclusion of each paragraph must signal the reader a foreshadow of the upcoming paragraph. By taking this to mind, it lessens the confusion between concepts and causes the paper to be more organized and

I sat in my fourth grade classroom staring at the bookshelf when suddenly I caught a glimpse of a dark blue book with a heroic being on the front. I lifted the heavy book and began reading Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief. As soon as I started I fell into this mythical world where gods, monsters, and heroes all existed. It was a rollercoaster through my emotions. The thrill. The suspense. The surprising new book had a grasp on me, to stop reading it would be difficult. I felt attached. As soon as I started, I finished. Devastated, my chase of this feeling has never stopped, no other book has given me the same fulfillment as Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief. As a young reader I would love to find the same joy and thrill (as I did back

Within the English III class, my former experience in creative writing and affinity for classical styles of literature shall more than likely provide the ability for growth within the classroom. As a person who values differing perspectives, my ultimate goal is to obtain a variety of perspectives involving those in the course, as well as the literary discussions relating to real world social perspectives and morality. As a student I am aware of the need to make great efforts in not only becoming involved with the material, but learning to understand and analyze various styles of writing and grammar. despite my lack of experience in English college courses, it will be the strides I make both inside and outside of the classroom that leave a

Group work and facilitation are foundational to the profession of social work and require a considerable amount of skill and awareness on behalf of the facilitator. Committed to interdisciplinary collaboration, social workers have become emerging leaders in interprofessional healthcare teams (Jones & Phillips, 2016). “Interprofessional collaboration happens when practitioners, patients, clients, families, and communities develop and sustain interprofessional working relationships that facilitate optimal health outcomes” (CIHC, 2010). With this definition in mind, I was excited to share my previous experience within a clinical interprofessional team as well as collaborate with my group members to gauge their understanding and brainstorm ideas. Meeting multiple times over the semester, our group finalized the details of our fictional task group early on and an overview of this information is provided in the appendices. The first half of this paper will outline a critical commentary of the second team meeting, examining my role and behaviour as a co-facilitator, while the second half of the paper will discuss my experience within the development/implementation of our fictional task group.

When I sit down and reflect on my level of critical reading skills prior to this class, I think automatically back to Ms. Wenzell’s class. In the beginning of my sophomore year, I would say that I was not very experienced when it came to finding symbolism in works or writing proper essays. I was suddenly in a class with hard texts, and difficult essay prompts that I had no idea where to start. However, things started to change eventually. I realized that after each text I read, I started to find myself becoming more comfortable with thinking analytically, and annotating had become more of an automatic thing which in turn helped me to become more comfortable with identifying how a writer portrays their message, not just why. I felt that by the end of the year, I no longer

Throughout the first quarter of American literature we have annotated plenty of texts that have made me a stronger and more thoughtful reader than ever before. The difficulty of the readings we have done created the challenge of understanding the text in a timely manner, while thoroughly annotating it with a clear balance of quality and quantity. Going into the first quarter my previous understanding of what it meant to annotating a text was very minimal; only making short annotations on things that I found notable. I had never before been challenged to think while reading about all the literary devices that were causing me to have these analytical thoughts and perspectives while reading. One of the first pieces of text we read in the course was “The Audacity of Hope” By Barack Obama, now looking back I recognize that I took a sloppy approach in understanding that text. Because it was the start of the year the stamina I

According to (Critical literacy practices, 2011) “critical reading” is a type of literacy practice that is learning practice in which students analyze and critique language and power relationships within written texts. Many college freshmen are not prepared for critical reading, yet a lot of higher education organizations and levels do not require individual critical reading courses. Even though critical reading is an often-cited neutral topic in some different colleges structured reading courses. In many different colleges, at times, there is little to no research that exists that may also describe how composition instructors teach critical reading strategies. No matter the subject or the age of the reader. An overall reading goal for critical readers includes reading an article to comprehend information based on what was stated within the text. While readers read to gain understanding from the text, the readers also use additional information at times such as factual ideas, prior knowledge, and also context clues to understand the difficult text. There are many ways to become a “critical reader” which includes different types of reading strategies.