Outcome 3 (Active Reading) – Employ techniques of active reading, critical reading, and informal reading response for inquiry, learning, and thinking.

Word Count: 584

My reading responses and annotations have improved because of each other. Over the course of the semester, I have improved immensely in both areas. Before I came to college, like many students, I really only used a highlighter and forgot why I highlighted the area. So, because of that it didn’t help me understand the text much better. Since being at college my annotations have been more focused and comprehensive. The first article I read for the class “The Limits of Friendship” had very few annotations. I did not really understand the annotations that well because I haven’t used them before college. As you can see from the image, I had only a couple very broad annotations about text to self and text to world and was still mostly highlighting to annotate. As the semester went on I had much more variety of annotations on the article. I had more questions and added in more rhetorical annotations.

For the article “Unfollow” there were more annotations that were more focused, and I made more connections to my own life and my ideas, so I began to understand the text better. I asked more focused questions and asked more pointed questions. When it came to my last articles I had to annotate, I had built up my skills to be able to add connections to other texts I have read in the past more often as opposed to once or twice. One of the final texts we read “Walking While Black” I was able to connect the ideas to the political climate in the U.S. and other texts we have read such as “This is Water” by DFW. I had almost every type of annotation used in the article comprehensively and the questions and points of understanding were extremely focused as opposed to the broad points I made when I first had to annotate. In the image below of the article “Walking While Black” I made connections to the articles “Unfollow”, “The Limitations of Friendship”, and a book I read in the past called “The hate U Give”.

As for my reading responses, I was able to create better responses because the more focused annotations helped me understand the text better. Because of that I was able to add more of my voice instead of relying on summary. My first response to “Unfollow” I did not really introduce the quotes and I didn’t have a deep understanding of the text. I looked on the surface of the text instead of reading between the lines at how the ideas connect with the bigger picture of the text. I did not really look at how the ideas connected back to the big picture of the article. As I progressed through the semester and did more response questions I looked more deeply into the articles and was able to give more in-depth answers using text-to-world connections. In my Chen response questions highlighted in purple is evidence that I relied heavily on summarizing instead of connecting it to either myself or the world to make it more my own voice. In the Cadogan response questions I was able to add a text-to-world connection and more of my own thoughts to reduce my reliance on summary since my annotation skills have improved over the semester and I was able to understand the text better.

Writing Sample from Chen Response Questions:

The style of conversation that got through best to Phelp-Roper was hearing other people’s religious perspectives such as Albitol’s and the other person acknowledging both sides of the argument. When people shut her down, they wouldn’t get through to her. Using a calm tone, whether it is on social media or in person, helped people get through to her. This teaches us that we may not agree with everyone but it does not give an excuse to be aggressive towards others and share our perspectives and to listen to other perspectives, we may learn something new. These methods of getting through to others can be useful in confronting hate speech. Phelps-Roper shifting her beliefs with the influence of outside perspectives is an example of redemption being possible no matter what stage you are in life and how strongly you believe in something. 

Response to Article “Walking While Black”:

Cadigan tells the reader his firsthand experiences in all the different cities with the police and the population in general. He talks about how he felt about the situation, how he felt in the moment, and how it affected him afterwards. He allows readers to put themselves in his shoes and understand the moment through his eyes. His narration adds to the larger discussion of racism because he adds to the many experiences that have been told by members of the black community with his own experiences. His stories tell first-hand how the issue of racism affects him and how it makes him alter his identity just to be safe, which may be the same for many others in the black community. His stories relate to the racism that is shown through the events of racism during the pandemic such as George Floyd and the anti-Asian racism toward Asians. 

I feel like I have come a long way with my active reading and creating well written reading responses, but I still can improve in the future.