Michael Bunn How To Read Like A Writer Summary

Immediately after we are born, we start picking up sounds; the sound of our mother’s voice, the music playing in the elevator on the way to the car, and the happy cheers from a small child seeing their new sibling for the first time. We are always listening–picking up on conversations not meant for our ears, eavesdropping on the gossip of the adult world, and finding the meaning in the portentous silence. From all these auditory stimuli, we piece together the world around us to better understand what is happening to us, around us, and the secret happenings that were not for us to know. Great writers are the ones who listen and say nothing–who take it all in and save their classified information for a day when all the right words flow and form one epic story of the wondrous world we live in.

This chapter is important in a beginning writer’s process because it helps them to understand the basis of writing, connecting with the reader.

Some of the top advice given to writers is to read prolifically. The more well-read a person is, the more they will intuitively understand what good, effective writing is. Moreover, good writing begins with critical thinking and careful consideration. Curiosity and open-mindedness aid in the endeavor and allow an author to think broadly about a subject. Careful reasoning allows a writer to logically organize information and thoughts and relay them in a compellingly clear way. In “College Writing and Beyond,” Anne Beaufort talks about how strong writers draw on five knowledge domains to produce good work. These five domains are: discourse community knowledge, writing process knowledge, subject matter knowledge, genre knowledge, and rhetorical knowledge. It is important to understand and consider what discipline and discourse community you will be speaking within in order to fashion your ideas into a well-received written contribution. Understanding effective writing processes and critical revising methods grants a writer greater ability to create succinct, effective, and enticing text. Understanding genres enables a writer to know what conventions of writing are expected of them and which best suit their purposes. Rhetorical knowledge facilitates the clarification of a text’s purpose and supports reader

Bunn, M. (2011). How to read like a writer: Readings on writing. Writing spaces (Vol. 2, pp.71-85). WAC Clearinghouse. http://wac.colostate.edu/books

Nearly everybody has thought about writing as a career or a hobby, and it’s simple when you really put the time into it because these skills, like creativity are easy improving skills. Most successful journalists have great creativity and writing skills, especially in the current age when journalists are actually writing award-winning novels, like John Sandford, my father’s favorite author and more famously Mark Twain.

In the short essay, “Becoming a Writer,” penned by Russell Baker, he spoke of a memory from his past that later changed his perception of writing. After reading his piece, I reviewed the response questions listed below the essay to further my understanding of the piece. Almost like looking through a list of prompts as Russell did.

It is essential to understand that classes taken in grade school do not give students a full understanding of each subject. With the topic of writing, there will always be a new lesson to learn, an aspect to improve, or a differing way to explain. Author Craig Vetter states in Bonehead Writing, “This is your enemy: a perfectly empty sheet of paper. Nothing will ever happen here except what you make happen.” Each story, essay, or response comes from a writer’s experiences. With each attempt at a new piece comes an underlying story of emotions the writer is facing. Each person’s writing is unique and the ideas people have are related to their past experiences and what they believe to be familiar with when deciding which writing style to use. As a high school student, I have learned many things about writing that helped me become the improved writer I am today, but the most essential advice I have received is practice makes perfect. Although there is no actual perfect way of writing, I have discovered that each essay I write, my writing improves. It is easier to spot mistakes, find areas to improve, and ponder elevated word choice to use.

Mike Bunn’s article, “How To Read Like a Writer”, simply does what the name implies: it is trying to encourage readers, students for the most part, to ‘read like a writer’. Bunn briefly reveals how he came acquainted with ‘reading like a writer’, and then goes on to explain to his audience how to ‘read like a writer’ themselves. From the opening sentence, to the closing statement, Bunn is encouraging students to analyze how a certain texts were written and why they were written that way. Bunn claims that by using this way of reading, you not only understand the text better, but you also become a better writer as you learn and develop the skills you analyze. Bunn is hoping that, after reading his article and adopting his methods, students will

I believe a good reader is what makes a good writer. But because I lost my interest in reading, I’ve struggled with writing throughout the years. It wasn’t that I had trouble learning new skills but because I was pushed away from what I wanted to learn, so I decided to pursue other interests. Despite being eager to learn, my writing suffered due to my lack of interest in reading, however my skills in writing have increased as my drive to read has rekindled.

My relationship with writing could have culminated into three words; fear, quality, and of course no relationship is complete without excitement. Like any new relationship, emotions can determine the success or demise of the relationship. These emotions all work to the betterment of the writer and the writing relationship, each emotion feeding ever so slightly off one another. Exploring these writing relations reveal the truth where my writing relationship is concerned.

Everyone knows what writing is to one extent or another, but we all have different definitions of how it should be done and varying degrees of seriousness about the art. We all have a process of writing, but each is unique to ourselves and our own experiences. Annie Dillard and Stephen King are two well known authors who have published many pieces, two of which describe how they view the writing process and let their readers get a peek of what goes on through their minds when they write. These two pieces are Dillard’s The Writing Life and King’s “What Writing Is.”

In “To Read like a Writer” Mike Bunns introduces how writing is “a series of choices” with an account of his past as an employee at a theatre. As he was trying to concentrate on his reading, he had an epiphany that literary works are all “a series of choices”(Bunns 72). He then transitions to his main claim of how reading like a writer allows for the reader to determine whether or not to adopt the same style as the piece that the text may have. He breaks this down into subsections that readers need to observe before they tackle the writing, such as context, genre, and publication. Additionally, he points out the necessity to makes notes while reading the

In the first chapter, Prose already addresses the central hypothesis of the book - to be become a good writer, you must be a good reader. She recalls, of how she too remedied her own obstacles and monsters in her writing through close reading.

In our society, people communicate through various ways. One of the most essential way is writing. Through writing, people convey their thoughts and ideas, connect to others, and pass on wisdom generations by generations. More importantly, writing effectively promotes the advancement of society. Though some people have not realized the how writing benefits from writing, the author of the article “How to Read Like A Writer”, Mike Bunn illustrates that focusing more on the rhetorical “strategies” and structure rather than the content can improve our own writing.

Naturally, the limitation placed upon me by my circumstances condemned me to absolute mediocrity. Yet I refuse to conform to just simply being ordinary, unremarkable, not above the common wants. I refuse to let any disadvantage hinder my purpose. Thus, I began to undertake a journey to improve intellectually through the most practical and available way, extensive reading and writing. Not only because I sought to educate myself beyond the pragmatic instruction I received every day at a public institution, but also because I had dreamt from a tender age of becoming a distinguished writer who one day will immortalize great pieces of art. As well as becoming a great artist whose name will be known in theatre and on the silver screens of Hollywood . Through my diligence I have begun to hone my abilities as a writer which have consequently afforded me a chance to distinguish myself but not on a worldwide level, not