Summer Reading : My Experience Of Reading In High School

In 1984, by George Orwell violence contributed to the plot by having three stages of reintegration. The stages are learning, understand, and to accept, Winston was forced to learn that 2+2=5 under torture, understanding that the party is good, and seeks power for its own. Winston accepts and understands the Party as he wishes the burden of torture on someone else who he loves, this allowed Winston to accept that the Party’s leader Big Brother is eternal and that 2+2=5, he comes committed and loyal to the Party and its purpose, he then awaits his execution to prove his devotion to the party.

The book that I decided to read over the summer was A Long Walk to Water. To be honest, I chose this book because it had the least amount of pages compared to the other books listed. It’s nearly August and I haven’t finished all of my summer homework, so I thought that I might as well pick the shortest book, making the work quicker and easier for me to do. As I read the book though, I felt myself getting more drawn and interested to the story. The book starts with an eleven year old boy named Salva who had to leave South Sudan due to rebels from the North attacking his village. He flees to Ethiopia and Kenya by foot with others to live in refugee camps. During these years, he encountered many hardships: having to travel without his family,

I have never been as comfortable with people made of flesh and bone than I have been with those made of words. Whatever information I lose in the contours of the human face, I have no trouble locating in the unchanging, permanent text of a book. There is something about literature that felt safe to me; the worlds created within far more welcoming to little girls with problems fitting in than the one outside the pages. For this reason, fiction, from Harry Potter to The Book Thief, has remained my greatest passion ever since I learned to read.

1. Why does Lizet feel like a fish out of water both at Rawlings and at home in Miami?

Before we divulge into the topic of this essay, let me begin by stating that neither the author of the main source, Steven Johnson, nor I intend to devalue books or look down upon them. In his book, Everything Bad Is Good For You, he starts off talking about the importance of books. He says, “We should all encourage our kids to read more, to develop a comfort with and an appetite for reading” (Johnson 21). Reading provides many different benefits, some including “concentration, the ability to make sense of words, to follow narrative threads, to sculpt imagined worlds out of mere sentences on pages” (Johnson 23). As an avid reader myself, I have always had an interest in books.

In elementary school one of my proudest achievements was being a “million dollar reader,” and in middle school I would spend hours reading books online. However, because of the lack of time in high school, and during the summer my reading ceased. I really enjoyed the summer reading book In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, because one of my favorite genre is mystery and this book was exactly that.

I had just started my junior year of high school which in the past I have heard it was the hardest school year. Going back I would say they were correct. I was taking the regular English class throughout the year, but on top of that, a writing class. Usually people take this writing class their senior year to get them ready for college. But no, my parents said “You need to sign up for this class; it will help you greatly.” When the first day came, I went to this writing class with many seniors. I have not been the greatest writer, so I agreed with my parents that this class could help me. But the fact that I was a junior and not going to college the next year like everyone else in my class did not help me. So

Every night my mom would read me a chapter or two of a “Junie B Jones” book. I couldn't wait until I was old enough to read by myself. I enjoyed reading when I first learned how. The first series I really liked was “Diary of a Wimpy Kid”. I’ve read every single book in the series. Whenever a new book from the series would come out, i’d get it first thing the next day. I never really read that often after I finished the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series. Those books really entertained me and anything else I read from the point didn't sway me. In fourth grade, I had a really awesome teacher that was really hard on me, but I really believe she helped me the most. I don't remember everything we did, I really don’t remember most of the stuff we did. I just remember getting to 5th grade and writing was so easy for me. So was math, science, etc.

Why must we read books? How would life be different without them? We find answers to these questions by dwelling far within multiple stories, using investigative skills, and thinking deep. These scrutinizing attributes we, over time, developed and toned during our discussions about our readings. Is it coincidental that reading helped us evolve our thinking processes? I think not.

I viewed reading as a chore, was often unenthused, and would mostly annotate on the overarching themes without gathering any meaning from them. Books were merely a series of words printed on paper. This school year, however, I began to understand the allure reading has to offer. I have grown to appreciate reading and the insights a book can offer. When reading our numerous texts, I was able to live vicariously through the characters of the books and relate aspects of their lives to my own. Because all of the books from English I pertain to coming of age, I was able to not only learn about maturation as a process, but understand how it pertains to my own life. Through protagonists such as Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye or Esperanza from The House on Mango Street, I learned about my “misguided desire to preserve childhood innocence” and to empower feminism similar to Holden and Esperanza respectively (Heart of Gold, Raghuram). Gradually, I have finally developed the ability to relate to novels and its characters amidst writing my own story.Whether it be thematic elements or the details of a case I am working on, I have become more observant to even the most trivial details. Now when I read, I not only look at the themes, motifs, and symbols, but also repeated phrases or situations that parallel each others as well as the symbolic meaning behind some ambiguous phrases or scenes. Reading now, in contrast to last summer, is a

I embraced what it means to be a real reader at a young age. I didn’t merely read books, I LIVED books. My second grade teacher insisted her students write about their favorite books and why we chose that specific book. Easy peasy lemon squeezy Mrs. Laforte! Gazing down at the paper on my beloved cubby desk, the choice was clear: Dinosaurs Days by Joyce Milton. “I love this book because I love dinosaurs. I even have dinosaur toys!” (From an adorable little boy a.k.a. Bradley). It was around this time when I delved into solely fiction novels such as Narnia, which undoubtingly influenced how I viewed the world and its inhabitants. Nearly everyone daydreams when there is a certain lack of stimulation, but I’d bet I spent

The students have read a series of stories and articles that cover a wide breadth of topics and subjects. Students have learned how to interpret nonfiction as well as fiction; each story is accompanied by a series of nonfiction readings for context and enrichment. We have read Daniel Keyes’s “Flowers for Algernon” and Laurie Halse Anderson’s contemporary classic, Speak. Next semester, we will read Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning To Kill a Mockingbird.

Only bound to the category of fiction, herds of twelve and thirteen year olds stampeded through the aisles to find the simplest books. The eight foot book shelves and mile wide aisles of the library seemed towering to a prepubescent seventh grader. The sheer amount of choices staggered a middle schooler when compared to the abysmal elementary school selection. Seventh grade level reading prevailed as the new standard, as it clearly reflected in the book options. The idea of falling back to any of my go-to book report choices from elementary school swiftly tapered away. Not knowing what to pick, I made my decision based purely off of the cover, and wandered haphazardly to the overly eager librarians for check out, gazing over the thousands of books as I passed, wondering what if. As mandatory, the librarians flapped their tongues about my amazing decision and congratulated me on getting my “first book of many” for the year. Little did they know, I dreaded having to read. However, I did not know of the amazing story that awaited

“If you don’t turn in your reading logs on time,” cackled my 2nd grade teacher, who will be addressed as Mrs. N, “You’ll have to turn your sticks, and you will have to stay in from recess and read The Boxcar Children.” This was blasphemy. Was there no safe haven from the evils of reading? This was the third recess of the week destroyed by those vile compositions. My love of reading had been torn to proverbial shreds, until 7th grade, when it was reborn with the help of a creative, inspiring teacher named Mrs. Caudill.

In middle school my love of reading shifted into non-fiction. I spent my free time studying science articles of all kind. Online resources and Science magazine became part of my daily routine. My interest in astronomy had me reading brief news articles, while I read long lab reports to satiate my curiosity in animal science.