Positionality Memo: My Experience As A Passionate Reader

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Positionality Memo I am a passionate reader. I enjoy reading. It has given me the tools I need for my academic success and to have a wider vision of the world and my surroundings. I love to read; it is what I do, I read.
I could not start this Positionality Memo without stating how much important is reading to me. This is not a practice that I have just recently started to develop; rather, it has been with me since I can remember. It has been one of my strengths as a PhD student for whom reading is not just required to be a constant practice, but also a demanded skill to fit in the academia. It is difficult for a foreign female student, married with two children to cope with the intensity of being a PhD student; however, reading has been …show more content…

My role as an instructor was to make my students engage with reading as a constant practice not just in the language they were learning, but also in Spanish. Despite the constraints of a given curriculum, I managed to offer my students an environment where they were exposed to multiple reading strategies and practices. I promoted open discussions about the topics my students were interested to read about. However, through this experience, I was not able to identify struggling readers. I thought that if the reader is struggling, the best way to overcome this difficulty is by reading more. My pre-conceptions of reading at this point did not allow to me to distinguished the importance of reading support for college …show more content…

In this position, I have developed a different relationship with the students I work with than the one I did as a college instructor. I have developed deeper relationships with my students. I know when they have academic, financial, health, and personal problems. These deeper connections made me realized that my students need continuous and effective support, which would allow them to become independent and critical individuals. Reading plays an important role in this matter. I have seen my students trying very hard to make sense what they read and use it to construct their new knowledge. I have seen their frustration for not achieving the demands of reading at a college level. I have also seen them overwhelmed by “big” textbooks which were not meant to be read. The experience I have gained during these years as a case manager has made me realized that the reading challenges of college students are sometimes underestimated. It is my responsibility to enlighten my students’ reading challenges, to reflect on them, and to provide the support and guidance they deserve to overcome their reading

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