I find this quote to be fully true and I learned this important lesson about writing, reading, and literature when I was a freshman in high school, in one of the most feared classes there, Mr. Monsour 's biology class. Not many people enjoy reading and writing, especially as an assignment to be graded by the “destroyer of dreams and grades.” Being assigned some reading and writing assignment seems like it would not have a large impact on a student, but to me it caused a change in heart to reading and literature and helped me learn and relearn something about myself. A book titled, The Hot Zone was the book I choose to read for the assignment and it was a fantastic book that I have read twice now. After reading and doing the given assignment I learned that literature is an important part of society as information can be learned and collected, but also that literature can teach life lessons and lead to some discovery of self. …show more content…
This was quite different compared to elementary school when accelerated reader encouraged reading and I was in the top five readers in my entire school as I loved to read back then in my early education. But what happened to cause such a sharp drastic decline? The answer was the lack of exterior motivation and encouragement from people around me and the school. Books and reading just seemed to fall to the wayside of math and science as reading class was cut and math and science was placed at the forefront. The library was put to seem as a place for the weird kids, and with the social construct and ladder of schools I didn’t want to fall any lower than I already was. However, despite the typical fear of being a freshman in high school, I managed to learn to embrace reading again which began after reading The Hot
On October 10th, 2017 at Springhurst Elementary School, I conducted a “Reading Interest Survey” and the “Elementary Reading Attitude Survey.” These surveys were conducted on a 1st grade student, Jax, to determine what his feelings are towards reading in different settings, what genres he prefers to read, and interests. It was found that Jax doesn’t mind reading, but prefers a few different topics. This was evident through his raw score of 30 on recreational reading, and a raw score of 31 on academic reading.
The quote I chose was “Reading good literature won't make a reader a better person any more than sitting in a church, synagogue, or mosque will. But reading good books well just might.” The text I chose from this school year is A Raisin In The Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. In this essay I’ll be exploring this quote and text separately and together.
Although the greater picture is that reading is fundamental, the two authors have a few different messages that they seek to communicate to their audiences. “The Joy of Reading and Writing” depicts how reading serves as a mechanism to escape the preconceived notions that constrain several groups of people from establishing themselves and achieving success in their lifetimes. “Reading to Write,” on the other hand, offers a valuable advice to aspiring writers. The author suggests that one has to read, read, and read before he or she can become a writer. Moreover, he holds an interesting opinion concerning mediocre writing. He says, “Every book you pick has its own lesson or lessons, and quite often the bad books have more to teach than the good ones” (p.221). Although these two essays differ in their contents and messages, the authors use the same rhetorical mode to write their essays. Both are process analyses, meaning that they develop their main argument and provide justification for it step by step. By employing this technique, the two authors create essays that are thoughtful, well supported, and easy to understand. In addition, Alexie and King both add a little personal touch to their writings as they include personal anecdotes. This has the effect of providing support for their arguments. Although the two essays have fairly different messages, the authors make use of anecdotes and structure their writing in a somewhat similar
Many summer reading books are just uninteresting; so for me reading then became a chore that I was being forced to do. I already had a negative experience with being embarrassed while reading, so then to get one boring book after the other just solidified that reading was not enjoyable. Other than bad summer reading books I was just a very active child, I enjoyed running around and playing sports. I did not have the patience as a child to read, I always wanted to be on the go.
Throughout this semester I have learned many ways of writing through two main essays literacy narrative and comparison and contrast. These two essays have taught me how to correctly fix my comma splices, thesis statements, and capitalization. I have engaged in numerous learning material during this summer class. Many times when I thought it would be hard to work on those three developments I never gave up. I gain more positive feedback from my teacher because he pointed out most of my mistakes I made on both literacy narrative and comparison and contrast essays to help me understand what is it that I need to work on. My development as a writer became stronger.
My portfolio will demonstrate the skills and writing techniques I have developed and honed while taking the course English 1010 at the University of Memphis. Some of the techniques and skills I have learned include how to write with different persuasive strategies on the audience and how to incorporate critical thinking into my work. As well as these skills I have learned how to apply an effective composing process to my writing and have fine tuned my writing abilities. Writing with different styles on different topics has improved the way I approach writing papers. These styles helped me learn quickly, therefore making me a better writer and student at the same time.
Unit 1 taught me to focus on each step in the writing process. Approaching the task
Writing is something I always struggled with throughout my academic career. Whether it is for the English class or any other liberal arts class, I have a tendency to deviate from the main task of writing. This semester I took a FIQWS Composition class which helped me explore the unexplored areas of my academic writing. There are three main essays Literacy narrative, exploratory essay and Critical Researched analysis each improved my writing tremendously. In the first day of class, I was surprised to see the amount of work is expected from me because there were only three major essays and three reflections. I thought the workload would not be so intense because of the limited assignments. However, as the Semester has progressed, the work required
I never had problems being able to read, I just felt like there was so many other fun things to do besides reading. I was never the kid that had a bunch of action figures and toys. I liked to build things out of Legos, K-nex, and Steel Tec. Then I got into the more skilled of building model cars and planes. Most of all I mainly enjoyed being outside as much as I could or tinkering with something. Aside from school, I have been a gear head for as long as I can remember. Anything that was motorized or had something to do with a motor has always sparked my interests. I have been riding dirt bikes since I was 5 years old, and nothing compared to being on my motorcycle. That is when I really knew I was not partial to reading. My mother worked in the motocross industry and my father rode dirt bikes too. Riding and being in the woods was a big part of my life, as that was what we did every weekend for
Surprisingly I don’t have many memories of my experiences with literacy. Early on I just remember picking up any book and reading, writing without stopping, and all those parent teacher conferences with my English teachers that became a blur. Throughout my years of school, I’ve come to realize that writing has become a bigger part of me than I had previously thought. I didn’t go into elementary or middle school thinking I was skilled at writing so my confidence came from teachers who admired what I wrote. Their compliments and encouragement lead me to have a better view of my capabilities. My improvement seems to be invisible until I finally notice the progress when I get to my last paper at the end of the semester or year. This semester and especially this class have tested me the most so far. Learning more about literacy has made me recognize who I am and what I can do so, I will move ahead through the ever continuing process.
I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude for all the efforts that you have invested in helping me improve my writing throughout this course. The exertions which you devoted in me did not go in vain. Throughout this semester, I have become more insightful in regard to the process of writing as a whole. Who knew that writing can be challenging yet rewarding simultaneously? Through many challenges encountered in this class and many exercises comprised in this course, I was exposed to new writing process, audiences, and I became more inclined to taking risks in the art of writing. As the semester took form, I came to find myself careworn by certain elements of the writing process. Unlike many writers, beginning to write,
Reading and books became a real struggle for me from elementary all the way to high school because I found it hard to comprehend the books that I was made to read. These books were not interesting to me and I found myself starring at pages for hours at a time and would not know or understand what I read.
Reading was never something I fussed about growing up. As a child, I loved genres of realistic fiction. I was hooked on The New Adventures of Mary Kate and Ashley, Goosebumps, The Amazing Days of Abby Hayes, Judy Moody, and especially, Zoobooks and Highlights magazines. My mother was always ready to help build my reading and writing skills. She took me to the library constantly to feed my passion for books and knowledge. I loved exploring the shelfs, organizing the books, and filling up my library cart. I tried keeping a diary in elementary school to keep track of my outings with my parents and grandparents to museums, zoos, movies, and libraries. This flash of writing enthusiasm was spun from books I read in the 4th and 5th grade that were
Critical Reading and Writing in the Discipline (FOUN1019) is a yearlong course designed to improve and develop students’ cognitive, analytical and rhetorical skills. It thereby provides students with the requisite skills to truly join the scholarly arena and become academic writers. I enrolled in the FOUN1019 course with the assumption that I would become more proficient in English Language and a more eloquent communicator. I anticipated that this course would be challenging like many other courses ascribe to a first degree in Marketing; however, nothing could have truly prepared me for the arduous work load that it entails. I had to work assidously throughout the duration of FOUN109 to prepare coursework and conduct research which required
Taking a creative writing class was a good way for me to express my thoughts and feelings onto paper, as well as read my other classmates stories. Reading stories created by other people lead me into their mind brain to experience what type of writer they were, it was an overall exquisite class. I believe that every person has a way of expressing who they are through writing stories of their own, fiction is the best way to express your creative imagination. This class that I took for two years helped me become a better writer and helped me understand the types of writers we have.