Expanding Your Brain through Reading

(T) In addition, accepting new and difficult things by using the correct strategies can strengthen the brain. (E) In a new research, You Can Grow Your Brain by Health & Science, it reports that, "...when they practice and learn new things, parts of their brain change and get larger, a lot like the muscles do. You can improve your abilities a lot, as long as you practice and use good strategies." (A) We are training our brain as we learn new things and struggle from it. When we struggle with something, we seek for different methods to try and this helps the brain to change for the better. (E) During my senior year of high school, I was envious of my friends driving to school. I decided to study during summer and I easily passed the written test.

Practice makes perfect. This statement directly relates to chapter 1 and 2 in “What the Best College Students Do,” by Ken Bain. Throughout the chapters, Bain provides examples of successful people, studies, and tools to support his idea that learning surpasses grades and other awards in the scheme of life. To accomplish the skill of learning, students must possess determination, intrinsic motivation, and a passion.

If you couldn’t read or write, how would you tackle your daily life? Being literate is a crucial part of everyone’s life; reading and writing are essential for a person’s success. Every single day, it’s used, whether it’s for an Advanced Placement Language class or reading a billboard as you’re driving past. As a child, I grew up reading on a daily basis and I believe that I am as successful as I am on behalf of it. Countless memories have been created, thanks to the multiple books that have been read and the umpteen amount of papers that I’ve written. Throughout the numerous years of my education, my teachers and parents left a long lasting impact on my reading and writing skills.

Critical reading for this class comes easily. Reading the chapter, highlighting certain points and writing notes helps to understand the content. The topics mentioned thus far have all been fairly easy to grasp, especially since they are familiar topics but as time progresses and the reading become more in depth, this strategy will be increasingly more helpful. Critical reading is always a struggle but hopefully this class, with all of the assigned reading, will help teach how to properly read a textbook, fully understanding each and every phrase mentioned. While reading a textbook, it is easy to get distracted and forget everything that was just read, by taking notes and highlighting while reading, it is easier to grasp the information given. Being able to stay focused and be more insightful throughout this class is a definite growing

This quote has always been inspiring in my life. I believe learning is not limited to just the classroom but takes places through out our life. Right education not only enhances personal development and social inclusion, but also increases competitiveness.

The more effort we use in studying the better results we will get. Certain people have a hard time comprehending school work from the first grade to throughout high school. For example, in the article “Saved,” the life of Malcolm X, the reader is told about Malcolm’s struggle with learning .One problem he had was he couldn’t write or read his own hand writing. The way he began to overcome his handicap was that he would copy and memorize words from the dictionary. When he entered prison he was illiterate. He could neither read nor write. Later on, to help his reading comprehension, he would spend time in the prison library. Spending an hour every day in the library helped to increase his comprehension.

Moreover, I have learned from this class that while reading a book to write out the meaning of major events on the side of the book. So, when I need to refer to the book over something, I would not have to reread the whole book or essay, over again. Moreover, I have also learned to use a dictionary while reading in case I don’t understand the meaning of a certain word. In addition, I have learned that while reading a book that have questions, it might help to read the questions first before reading the essay. This will help you read a little bit faster and you will have an idea of the main points in the

I always struggle with making my paragraphs flow; I jump from idea to idea without transition. However this course was more than just writing, it was discussions, opinions, and relating to world connections. It helped me with my thinking, improving my skills and taking different approaches to making connections. As a reader, I always read text as if they were just words. The book club that we did in class made me realize that they were much more than that.

“Once a student has reached the point of knowledge transformation they are using critical thinking skills.” Hodges (2015). Looking back to when I was in grade school as long as we could score a good grade on the test, it didn’t matter if we remembered the material or not. Very rarely did the teachers ever make a big deal about applying the knowledge that we were getting. I believe that students retain the knowledge better by applying it and committing it to their long term memory. I wish that there was more emphasis on applying knowledge when I was growing up as there is now. It will be my goal when I become a teacher to do my very best to encourage my students and give them the tools to apply the knowledge they are learning throughout the school

When most people read articles or stories online or on social media they don't exactly "read" the entire thing. Our eyes skip around and only read what we see as important. Deep reading into something would give a much better understanding on the topic. When you jump around and only read what you see as important the "rich mental connections" that Nicolas Carr talks about are not engaged into what we are reading.

“It’s simple. You read books—to learn facts—to get grades—to pass the course—to get a degree. It has nothing to do with thoughts.”

Before reading this chapter, I was unaware of the different types of reading. Annotate is a new way I’m learning to read. This seems like an important way to learn. By making notes on the pages you can easily go back and get some references. By being more of a visual person I feel this is going to help. Also if I learn the correct way of highlighting I could incorporate the two. If I learn to only highlight key words or phrases instead of the whole paragraph that will help when studying for tests.

Disillusioned Latin students, who cringe at the thought of repeatedly scribbling their grammar, are often told by their teachers, "Per repitio nos studiare," which translates to "through repetition we learn." Though this may seem hard to believe as their hands begin to cramp, it bears a certain amount of truth. As my grandfather once told me, "Experience is often the best teacher." Truly gaining an understanding of something often comes from repeated involvement.

As Daniel J. Boorstin said, “Education is learning what you didn 't even know you didn 't know.”

Throughout my reading of Michel Foucault's The Care of the Self, I used a number of different strategies to comprehend this text. First, I made sure that I would have optimal concentration so I could understand the text the best I could by doing my reading in a quiet environment, which happened to be my apartment. Aside from having a peaceful space, I utilized a couple of the reading strategies from Hacker & Sommers' A Writers Reference. One of the techniques I used was previewing through the text. I found that skimming through the entire text initially was actually really valuable as well because I could get a basis of what his key arguing points were. After doing that, I annotated as I read the material, highlighting sections that I thought were of importance or that had ideas or topics that stood out. The cluster diagram that we created was also extremely helpful as well because it helped me transform the points I had written down into a visual diagram that made my thoughts far easier to comprehend. The diagram we did in class as a group was also super useful because hearing other peoples' understanding of the text brought new ideas and arguments into perspective that I didn’t pick up on my own, as well as helped me form a more in-depth understanding of what the text was trying to argue. In addition, presenting each group’s figures to the room helped me understand more what the overall opinion of the class was about the subject.