My Progress as a Reader and Writer Essay

In the past two months i fell like i have accomplished a great deal. As i focus on it more i realize i have become a better reader. I did this by concentrating on my readings and take my time to read them. With the help of my professor and classmates i began to analyze what i read.

Each week, I was given reading assignments in which I had to prepare for the following class. This allowed for the exposure to different styles, genres and form of writings. I had to critically analyze and evaluate numerous passages and make logical sense of the text. This in turn taught me how to cite evidence from text, have a good sense of judgment thus maintaining objectivity, recognize different arguments and form my own opinions. Along with this accompanied summary writing and paraphrasing activities. This was a real challenge for me as I struggled immensely week after week until I believed I had grasped how to do it properly. These critical reading activities has enhanced my critical writing skills in allowing me to learn how to write for different audiences, expand my vocabulary and improve my diction.

A semester has passed since I started college and my journey of becoming a better writer. It has been a very important semester for my future college career, and I would not be here without the things I have accomplished. The composition program has really helped me to prepare for what college writing is all about. Now standing here and looking back I could not imagine how it would be without that class. I believe my English, and my writing is better than it has ever been, and all thanks to the composition program.

Teaching students to think while reading--critical reading--should be central to any discussion of thinking skills. This is in part because the reading of textbooks has such an important role in the content fields. Critical reading is defined as learning to assess, draw inferences and arrive at conclusions based on the evidence.

     Another weakness that I had coming into English 101 was my way of reading. I remember having to read an essay or book 3 or 4 times before I could ever sit down and write about it. I was looking and at the words all wrong. However, my professor introduced a technique of reading critically. “A critical analysis, on the other hand, takes a viewpoint and attempts to its validity;” (Trimble, 95) In Trimble’s quote he is trying say that a critical analysis helps a reader understand what the author is really trying to point out. This was the same approach that was taught to me by my professor. This type of analysis helped me understand better what the author was trying to convey and it also helped me explain it better in my essays.

For some people reading can be a difficult experience. For me it became difficult at the age of five years old. I really wasn’t an educational kid I was more of a kid that like to play with my toys and four brothers, whenever they came home from school. As I grew up reading became a little more difficult for me to master, at times in my middle school my teacher Mr.G would test us on how well and skilled we were at reading. Every day when it was time for him to test me I would get nervous and started to stubble on words and fail my test. By the time I was in high school I learned how to take my time and read, which has help me to progress my reading skills over the years.

I also look forward to improving my academic reading skills. I currently dislike reading academic readings as I find them incredibly boring and time consuming. I know they are for my own good, but if it is assigned for a class that isn’t directly related to my career aspirations, I often don’t read them, but rather use that time to read something that is essential for my career. As I move forward, I wish to be more like the character Seth in Haas and Flowers’ Rhetorical Reading Strategies and the Construction of Meaning. Seth is a rhetorical reader who searches for the deeper meanings within academic readings all while connecting prior reading experience to the text he is currently reading. In assignment 3 we were required to create a metaphor

At 11:15 on Monday, August 17, 2015, my first official college class, English 1101, began. In general, I had no idea what college classes would be like let alone how college English would be. Even though this class taught me a great deal in one semester, it took a large amount of time and effort to make the adjustment from high school. The simplistic writing style of high school was put to rest the moment the first college English class began. As a result, I learned quickly that college writing is complex and less systematic than high school writing. Five paragraph essays with three strict body paragraphs were no longer the norm for writing. Even though my professor helped guide my writing, I was no longer coddled through the whole writing

Despite me disliking reading and writing, these past 3 semesters of college I have done more reading than I did my entire high school career. At times when reading, I will find myself reading the same paragraph five times because I keep distracting myself while reading. This also led to me not understanding the text. I had to find ways to read more efficiently. I researched ways to improve reading skills. While researching, the technique that helped most was highlighting important points in my readings. I have not reread a single paragraph out of being distracted since. I also find it much easy to understand and follow text by reading summaries prior. I may not excel in reading and writing but I am much more proficient in it. Being literate in reading and writing has helped me become more literate in many other areas in

The most interesting aspect I discovered about my writing this semester is my ability to read, appreciate, and interpret a piece of literature and write analytically about it. In this course I’ve grown to change my reading process completely. I had a tendency to read

Once the basic skills of reading are learned, like vocabulary, comprehension, and fluency, there is rarely any more practice being done and most of the time is dedicated to the writing process. At the college level, professors have limited time to talk about everything, therefore reading instruction unintentionally yet easily gets ignored when professors want to move on and talk about other material. The article “Not Just for Writing Anymore: What WAC Can Teach Us About Reading to Learn” by Mary Lou Odom discusses the importance of reading to learn and how many students and faculty struggle with this concept. Odom emphasizes that students receive little to no additional instruction in reading once they have mastered the skills taught at

At the beginning of the semester I entered General Studies Writing 1110, not knowing what to expect. I knew the class was solely based on writing and perfecting personal style, but I never anticipated the valuable information I would learn throughout the course of the year. The only advanced English class I have taken in high school was English Honors in eighth grade. That class gave me the base knowledge of writing, grammar and form that has helped me through my four essays in this class. Starting out, I was not sure what the standard for passing was; even though it was unclear to me what passing was, I strove for perfection. By the time the second essay came around I realized my writing was never perfect. Peer editors and family played a

After reading Susan D. Blum I do very much believe that reading is being valued less and less and that students are not using reading as a daily tool. Even for me I believe reading is getting rare as I skim a lot of my reading instead of actually reading it. The idea of assigned reading, as the core activity of college students, is old. Students these days don’t value reading as much as they don’t believe it’s a necessity in class. However, I’ve thought that about this many times and I believe if you don’t read then you won’t be able to do well in the class and won’t ever grasp the full knowledge that might be necessary.

All throughout my years of schooling, I’ve had just about, one paper that was about one page long, due every year. My papers never had to be more than one page in length. Therefore, I did not have to do much writing or do many essays. Surely not enough to remember any of the assignments. Writing has never been something I enjoyed doing, so I never bothered to many any memories of my writing experiences. I did not think it was necessary to remember any of them since I only had to do them to get a grade. The only writing experience I remember was the first assignment I had in this English 100 class about a writing experience. All week long, I sat there thinking about what to write about, but nothing came to mind as a topic. Then, one thing came to mind, but it was so very vague, I could not write the length that was needed for the assignment. I could only think of a few sentences to write for it. After sitting for a few moments longer, I thought, how about I write about how difficult it was for me to write this essay before it was due.

There are a few different reading strategies that can help a person become a critical reader. A reading strategy that could lead upcoming undergraduate students to become critical readers is a strategy that is called “Crap Analysis”. There are more strategies used to become a critical reader that includes increasing