Evaluate My Reading Process

What goes through your mind when you read? Do you read deliberately, looking for certain aspects, or do you read as a blank slate? When reading, professors expect a deliberateness that will help you to uncover meanings that are not readily apparent. Thomas C. Foster in his book “How to Read Literature Like a Professor” expands on this concept. He endeavors to instruct his readers in the way he believes they should read, in order to get the most out of each book. He concedes that, “When lay readers encounter a fictive text, they focus, as they should, on the story and the characters” but to truly read like a professor you must also divert a portion of your attention on

At this point in my life I find myself in an interesting predicament regarding my attitudes toward reading and writing; more so towards reading. Years ago I used to love reading books for pleasure but nowadays I find myself reading things that little to no effort to digest. This includes the very basic posts on facebook expressing one’s opinion on something or articles and threads on reddit discussing topics I find intriguing. Perhaps it’s the severe senioritis that has overcome me as I enter my last semester at Chapman University. As I’ve gotten lazier I can see it start to reflect in my everyday life. Deep down I still love to read but I rarely find myself getting truly invested into the action unless it relates to something I am very

Reading is a journey. Some stories span four pages, others run thousands of pages, but each type has the possibility to inform a person in any variety of ways. As a reader I have read many text, from George Orwell, Stephen King, Hayek Friedman, to even Donald Trump, I have dabbled into a bit of everything. However, to help expand my reading wanted to read text out of my norm, out of the style that I am usually familiar with, because I feel that in college, am not going to receive the same types of books, same styles, same vocabulary level. This is where my journey began.

“I am not a speed reader. I am a speed understander,” wrote by Isaac Asimov. The majority of people who read daily understand quickly and better than those do not read. The more they read, the more of a perfect reader they will become. For me, reading has been indispensable because it is the fundamental imperative and the key of success. Over my life, I realize my reading experiences have become challenging, creating an impact on my personality.

As elementary school students, we all had that one book or series that we absolutely adored, and we never stopped until we completed it. When a new sequel was heard of, we would be the first ones to make sure we could read it the day it came out. Everything was perfect, and everybody was encouraged to read whatever they wanted. I especially loved to read fictional books- but not just any fictional books. I was, and still am, most excited by science-fiction and “Dystopian Future” books. Over time, teachers began to assign readings with books I personally did not enjoy or prefer to read within that certain genre. Before long, the majority of my reading became for school, with books I did not enjoy. This led to my huge disliking of any class readings with some minor exceptions.

When I started to really study on how my reading patterns and strategies were working out for me, I realized that I have certain strategies that don’t work for me. My pattern was exactly set on good times for me to really focus on what I was reading. I would read more later into the night than earlier to actually be able to understand what I was reading. Looking at the way I read, I want to change a few things in the future.

My writing professor’s words stuck with me like superglue. I suddenly realized that I had been approaching reading the wrong way. As an English major, reading consumed my entire life, and I wholly welcomed the flood of books; however, my book enthusiasm sometimes wore out. I would read so fast in order to keep up with my classes, and by the end, I would only obtain half of the storyline and a few random quotes and details. For my personal, recreational reading, I usually read as fast as I could and solely focused on the plot and characters. I would often miss out on so many profound phrases and sentences because of my fast reading tendencies.

As printed text becomes more difficult to read, reading as a hobby has gotten a lot less attractive to some people. UCLA psychology professor Patricia Greenfield points out in her studies, “reading develops imagination, induction,

Writing has always been something I dread. It’s weird because I love talking and telling stories, but the moment I have to write it all down on paper, I become frantic. It’s almost as if a horse race just begun in my mind, with hundreds of horses, or words, running through my mind, unable to place them in chronological order. Because I struggle to form satisfying sentence structure, it takes me hours, sometimes even days, to write one paper. It’s not that I think I’m a “bad writer,” I just get discouraged easily. Needless to say, I don’t think highly of my writing skills. When I was little I loved to both read and write. I read just about any book I could get my hands on, and my journal was my go to for my daily adventures. Although it’s

I am not gluttonous reader, but a passive English student who finds the process of reading and writing to be a pain.Weeks at a stretch where I don’t flip a page is uncommon. Insufficient amounts of reading aggravates my writing ability, making me incompetent, and taking a toll on my confidence. Thus, I credit myself as an intermediate level English student because of how much interest I have and the content I choose to read. After all, interest sparks motivation, and without any motivation hinders me from paying attention to the book, hence I’m unable to follow the storyline. When deficient in inspiration, I’m restrained from writing passionately. Furthermore, my interest plays a role into choosing a content I enjoy reading. Not all texts are equally challenging so the content of my choice can pose as a barrier to growth.

As I was growing up as a child I was the kid who really had a difficult time reading and writing. I didn’t like school that much I chose to play around majority of the class time. I honestly thought a child that I didn’t need it but that just being a kid. As I grew up more through elementary, middle school, and high school I really took a big step in my reading and writing. Reading was something I had to learn fast because I do have to read something every day. Growing up being who I am I always had very bad speech problems. Nobody could really understand everything I was saying, they always use to say speak slowly but being me, I speak very fast and still do till this day. I always got frustrated when someone would take notice of my wrongs. Always felt I was different but really, I just had to settle and relax. Just like a mellow soft pillow. Overtime I got better like riding a bike you never start off just riding you need training wheels starting off and you even go fall a couple time but you must get up and keep on moving. Of course, that was my hardest accomplishment because Jeremiah is still struggling with my speech and my reading & writing till this day. You can never get enough learning what my grandma always said. The best of best still being taught something new every day.

The process of reading is made up of continuous rapid eye movements, called saccades intermingled with brief pauses, called fixations, during which the eyes remain relatively still (Rayner, 1998). During saccades, sensitivity to visual stimuli is reduced to allow the feeling of smooth reading; this phenomenon is called saccadic suppression (Matin, 1974). This means that visual information is only encoded during fixations, that usually occur once for each word (Holmqvist et al., 2011).

The second half of this course has allowed me to view education more deeply in the art of literature. How literature does play part in education curriculum and how literature is vital to democracy. Literature is writing that considered to be the form of piece art. Almost all the culture, tradition of a language or a people we know in today’s world represents by works of literature. The word literature suggests a higher art form. It provides a kind of blueprint of human civilization. It gives insight and context to the world’s societies. It is more just than historical or cultural, but it can serve as an introduction to a new world of experience.

I understand that people nowadays are more comfortable engaging in an aesthetic experience rather than processing information by reading. Reading long text is more tedious than ever, things have to be concise and relatively shallow. However, when humanity reaches a stage where people are constantly struggling with “information overload”, we must have some serious reflecting to do. I think this challenge needs to be addressed first from homes; kids can’t be watching so much TV as they do now and reading needs to be made cooler and not just a “pretentious” habit.

I am a new, better reader; In school I have always struggle in English whether it was reading or finding the right thing to say and always having the fear that it would keep repeating. When I came into this english 10 class I learned certain skill I have never been taught before that helped me grow as a student and a reader. These strategies that I was taught in this class gave me a new way at viewing books, short stories or movies. Recently in class we read the book The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier by these skill I have been taught in class influenced the way I experienced the book The Chocolate War.