Employ techniques of active reading, critical reading, and informal reading response for inquiry, learning, and thinking.
Active reading while reading the material is valuable to your writing because it allows for you to better understand and be active with the reading. When you are more active with the reading it helps enhance your writing because you are able to make connection with the source and actually explore the concepts the author is trying to bring about. When you engage with reading it also helps you keep a more open view if you feel like you counter any of the ideas you are able to bring the up within your writing and use the quote that sparked you reaction into your writing. There are different types of active reading and connections to be made in readings such as: understanding, like words or phrases in the readings, questioning concepts in the reading, making connections can be text to self and personal connections, text to text relating with other sources, or text to world relating issues to the world. You can use different ways of annotating like challenging the readings which can be fun to go against the authors view or extend on some of the author concepts also looking rhetorically at the authors work like the way they structure there writing or sentence structure. I have always been active while reading in my English classes even back in high school. I enjoyed looking for the secret meaning the author tries to hide behind their words or challenging their views. It can be quite appealing to also see when the author helps change some of my views or helps ignite my journey of thinking about the topic they are writing about. Being active with our reading helps become better connected to it. Down below is two work samples of my annotated work from Paul Bloom’s work Is Empathy Overrated.
In this work sample in the green highlighted box area Bloom had said that empathy reflects are biases and ow it is easier to empathize with those close to us. This sparked a reaction from me which can be seen from the yellow highlighted chunk next to the paragraph. I felt different to Bloom’s idea that we can empathize with people close to us I found it opposite that it is easier to empathize with those we don’t know since we don’t know their background or there history so were more acceptable to empathize with those we don’t quite understand.
The paragraph above comes from my second essay answering Bloom’s question on if Empathy is Overrated. In the green highlighted chunk is the quote Bloom had used in the article that I highlighted. I used the annotation back into my writing since it had sparked a reaction from me I felt it would spark a reaction from the readers as well. I also wanted to call attention to the fact that I had disagreed with Blooms claim that we can empathize more with those closest to us.
In this sample if we look at the bottom of page at the red highlighted, these are my annotated definitions for the two red highlighted words in the first work sample the two words were innumerate and myopic. these two words while reading the article had original tripped me up and I didn’t really know what they meant and their relation to the sentence. Once I looked up the definitions, I was able to better comprehend the sentence. As you look up the yellow highlighted annotations were questioning the highlighted reading portion on the fact that sandy hook was broadcasted compared to Chicago shootings. As you look at the green highlighted portion you can see I make a comment towards the people in Sandy Hook who sent over toys and the solution they used to handle the explosion of stuffies.
While writing my essay answering Bloom’s question you see how my annotations come back into my writing in the green highlighted portion I argue the people solutions to sending prayers to family and suggested other solutions that could have possibly helped the families. You also see in my yellow highlighted portion how I bring back up the fact that Sand Hook was broadcasted compared to Chicago shootings and the impact that the media brings when spreading empathy.
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