Active Reading #3

(Active Reading) – Show techniques of active reading, critical reading, and informal reading response for inquiry, learning, and thinking.

My active, critical, and informal reading skills have never been one of my strengths in the English department. I have always had trouble in high school with reading comprehension, and talking about what I had just read. Prof. Brod put an emphasis on reading and annotating pieces. If I’m being honest I did not take annotating as serious as I should have this semester and it is something that I definitely regret. But for the times that I did annotate, it really helped me understand what the pieces of work were actually saying and it helped me to be able to form an argument more efficiently.

In terms of reading response, I took that seriously this semester and it definitely paid off for me. At the beginning of the semester, I was not confident in my ability to reading and respond to questions. But doing it more and more throughout the semester really improved my skills as well as helped my writing pieces but Prof. Brod would usually make it so that the questions connected to other parts of the class. Attached is an example of my reading response from Konnikova’s “The Limits of Friendship”.

Throughout the semester I became better and better at creating a thorough response. My response to Konnikova quote inspired a paragraph from my first essay. I loved that Prof. Brod did this because it allowed me to get ideas down onto paper before I had to write my rough draft. This allowed me to have more strong ideas and helped my analysis’s in my essay become a lot stronger. The paragraph I added below was inspired by my active reading response.

Overall, the reading responses really helped me get strong thoughts into my essays. The paragraph above, I talk about how social media keeps us connected through our everyday lives and builds stronger relationships because you are able to stay in touch with your friends all day long. In my reading response, I talk about how engaging in regular communication is good for stabilizing any relationship.

Word Count: 373