Throughout the semester in English 110, I feel like I have advanced quite a bit in terms of active reading, critical reading, and informal reading responses. English 110 helped me achieve Susan Gilroy and the English Department’s Learning Outcome 3 in many different ways.
When I begin my active reading process I always begin by reading the text one time through without annotating to see what I can decipher from the text. Once I do that and have a base of what I think the text is about then I will read the text and annotate. When I am annotating I usually highlight and underline keywords or phrases, circle possible themes, draw arrows to connections and write comments in the margins. These comments could be questions, phrases, or definitions of words.
One major lesson I learned during the semester in terms of annotation was to go back and reread the text again after you had already annotated. By doing this, you may see things that you missed during your initial reading. It also helps once you have received the essay prompts because then you are able to keep an eye out for quotes or ideas that will strengthen and support your essay.
Most of my annotations are out of instincts like natural reactions to the text. During class, we were taught to have a conversation with the text so throughout the semesters I tried to bring that tool to my annotations. This was a new skill for me so there is definitely still some room for improvement. However, instead of just writing expressive notes like “Interesting!” or “Wow!”, I tried to interrogate the text with questions. In the past, I may have assumed trust with the author of the article but now I am encouraged to be critical and question their opinions and statements. In my “In Class Reading Example”, my group answered questions about the essay, “Necessary Edges: Arts, Empathy, and Education” by Yo-Yo Ma. Before we read this essay, there was a blurb about the author that gave him credibility to be discussing art due to his many accomplishments and education. This credibility allowed us to trust a lot of what he was saying. However, one question about the essay asked us to critique his introduction paragraph. This allowed my group to not assume that the author did the best job possible but to question if it was an effective paragraph or not. English 110 helped me learn to have conversations with the text and to be a captious reader.
