A Writers And Readers Perspective

What makes a good reader and writer? There no such thing as a bad reader and writer; sometimes it only needs improvement. A reader and writer understand the purpose; are intellectual with an open minded imagination. I think writing is like food; you can cut it up and make it into a good or bad dish. Your audience is the one who decides whether it’s good or bad. High School is intended to teach us skills and techniques that will later benefit us in college English. Once in your college English class you come to the point where you realize that high school might not have prepared you for college like you expected it would. However, within English 5A I was introduced to new concepts and furthermore effective reading and writing strategies. These strategies come in a variety of forms but are all effective in strengthening one’s reading, writing, and analysis skills. Some of the strategies include a read/stop, moon landing, and the dialectical journal strategy. The first strategy I was taught was a Read/Stop. A Read/Stop is a helpful strategy to a successful reading understanding.

The procedure starts off by breaking up the content; reading carefully and making sure you have a somewhat understanding of what you have read, stopping to analyze the text, followed by responding the following: how you relate to what you have analyzed, any questions you might have about the text, ask yourself if you agree or disagree with what the text is interpreting, and generate foreshadowing of what may happen next. Evaluate the importance of the section, look for important stand-out quotes that you find interesting including pictures/charts that you can benefit from as an informative tool. It comes to a point where you are assigned articles and when finished we ask ourselves what in the world did I just read. This often happens because we are not fully understanding the context and its purpose. The Read/Stop strategy to a successful understanding of the context is genuinely effective for my reading. With the process of breaking down the text, this method produces it more easy for me understand what I am reading. At first I did not understand what I was reading with the activity reading given, but after I used the method it was easier for me to analyze what the text was discussing. Additionally, this method will further benefit me with my writing. I have used this strategy a lot in my Social Work 20 class.

The professor assigns readings between 30-50 pages, and it is hard to understand that amount of reading. I first used the Read/Stop strategy when reading ”Hidden Intellectualism”. I responded that they speak of those who are “born smart” but turn out to be dreadful in academics. I think that this relates to countries living in poverty who cannot afford to pay for their education, where they do not obtain the same opportunities of education as the wealthy countries. For instance, many countries in South America where education is not affordable; hence the reason many brilliant scholars do not have the opportunity to attend school. However, as quoted in the text “schools and colleges might be at fault for missing the opportunity to tap into such street smarts and channel them into good academic work” (Graff, 1). The quote processes that unfortunately the “smart streets” in many cases are seldom seen beyond their financial status. They are not the given opportunities to outsmart their intelligence and expand their curiosity in professions of their choice; without knowing that there “smart streets” can make a tremendous contribution to society. I responded to this quote because I felt like it related to me in a way. Coming from a poor Mexican heritage, where women in particular are not given opportunities towards education.

After coming to the United States, I now have all the opportunities in the world to attend school and become a successful person without any bias coming from society. I felt the need to talk about this since I know I am not the only one who has gone through this, and being important. The next strategy I was taught was Di-Lectical Journal. Even though it takes time and effort to accomplish, it is very effective to becoming and more knowledgeable reader and writer. A Di-Lectical Journal is helps readers and writers keep records of their observations and reactions made; it depends upon for students to think thoroughly about complicated concepts. This strategy can be used when trying to pull quotes from a text to prove your evidence. On his way home from the war with Troy, Odysseus made a stride trip to the land of the dead. Never a grove sacred to Persephone, he dug a trench, as he had been instructed to do, and let it fill with blood from a sacrificed ram and a black ewe. Attracted by the smell of the blood, many ghosts crowded around the trench, including those of Odysseus’ own mother and several of his friends (Atwood). I think that this quote is important because it is a way of writing from the author. I like the way the author uses imagery as her main techniques, therefore the reader can literally visualize what is going on. The names mentioned in the quote are seen to be Greek gods, having a strong connection to Greek mythology. “Reading is also a process and it also changes you. You aren’t the same person after you’ve read a particular book as you were before, and you will read the next book, unless both are Harlequin Romances, in a slightly different way. When you read a book, it matters how old you are when you read it and whether you are male or female, or come from Canada or India” (Atwood).

Atwood states that the process of reading is part of the process of writing, being the necessary completion without which writing can hardly be said to exist.

Among the variety of strategies I have learned in English 10 thus far, the one I have found the most successful in the Moon Landing strategy. Moon Landing is seen as group work, being a great way of getting to know more about your peers. This is the time when you are able to get out of your comfort zone and express your thoughts and opinions. When talking about writing and the writing process within a group, it can be very helpful. You are then able to share your thoughts on the topic but you also hear different opinions from your peers and what they think about the topic, making it easier for you when writing. Group work can benefit you in many ways. Not only do you get to meet new people, but it generates higher opportunities for critical thinking and can benefit student knowledge and accomplishment. When collaborating in group work, individual students are able to take control of the subject matter. Through group work you expand communication, oral, teamwork, and leadership skills. When in a group comfort is present, students working together, seen as “teaching” one another.

This teaching technique enhances through further analysis and interpretation. On the other hand, group work also has its disadvantages which can turn working against you. During the interval of engaging in a group, conflicts will potentially when one person works less than the others, vise versa. This is when one person does all or most of the work for the group. I think this is extremely unfair, due to past experiences, since that one person does all or most of the work, everyone on the team receives the same amount of credit. Furthermore, if everyone in the group does their part of the work and one does not collaborate, then what ends up happening is that someone else will have to do the work for them in order for the work to be completed. Overall I have used this strategy in pretty much all of my classes when working in a group. The Read/Stop strategy in conjunction with both the Dialectical Journal and the Moon Landing have taught me how to become a better reader and writer. As a writer, I strive myself to understand the purpose and the audience i am writing for. This is a result of not only utilizing these strategies, but also being an artist; meaning to write from the heart soul and brain, because according to Atwood writing is a from of art. Project 2Yancey’s “Reflections in the Writing Classroom”. Yancey examines reflection as an encouraging frame of process and analysis in the writing classroom. Reflection and speaking helps us with thinking. The first step in reflection is to identify the problem. She then expands a boundary of investigation based on concepts of those involving the role of deliberative reflection in classroom contexts. Developing the concepts of reflection-in-action, constructive reflection, and reflection-in-presentation, she offers a structure for discussing how reflection engages as students compose individual examples of writing, as they progress through successive writings.

Throughout the text, Yancey analyzes how reflection can enhance student learning along with the instructor’s feedback from the assessment of student writing. She then introduces three of her colleagues: John Dewey, Lev Vygotsky, and Michael Polanyi. Dewey finds that reflection is a goal driven strike. Vygotsky considers that conversation is the start base of reflection. Lastly, Polanyi affirms that the very first step in reflection is to identify what the problem is. To begin with, Dewey finds that reflection is a goal driven strike. He considers that reflection is sequential, and how it is organized is extremely important. That reflection controls how and what we think about the subject or conversation taking place. The main concept of reflection is to learn about knowledge, not only learn about ourselves but also get to know the people surrounding us. Including the purpose of the text and the thesis being a big part of the conversation. “Reflection, Dewey also says, is habitual and learned. “While we cannot learn or be taught to think, we do have to learn how to think well,” he says, “especially how to acquire the general habits of reflecting” (34) Since language “connects and organizes meanings as well as selects and fixes them” (245), it follows that reflection is language-specific” (Dewey, 3). I agree with the conversation of reflection being learned through habit and dedication. The way that I relate to the conversation is when reflection is being spoken of connecting and establish through language, meaning that we learn about not only ourselves but also our surroundings as well. Dewey handles the uses of language: through influence, conversation, and teaching.

Vygotsky’s Theory argues that emotional improvement concludes from complicated communication between genetics and surroundings. He considers conversation to be the start base of reflection. He strongly believes that reflection is conscious and scientific because of deliberate character and how that establishes the part where reflection is critical. ” The relation of thought to word is not a thing but a process, a continual movement back and forth from thought to word and from word to thought”(Vygotsky, 4). I agree with the conversation in the way that relation and reflection is a process to the better of others and how the benefit from it. “It begins at the moment of birth, as the child engages with -- interplays with-the others of his or her environment, and according to Vygotsky (1978), it is though this communal play and interaction that the child the develops individuality” (Vygotsky, 4). I agree with the conversation concluding that the importance of Vygotsky's theory is that the development of education is in the concept of individuals to expand their knowledge. This process is important because instructors can guide through the child's development of learning. This conversation relates to other conversations we have been having because it speaks of reflection being an important component to entering the conversation.

Lastly, Polonyi and Dewey both share that identifying the is yet another key to conclude to the reflection. Polanyi affirms that the very first step in reflection is to identify what the problem is. “To hit upon a problem, is the first step to any discovery and indeed to any creative act. To see a problem is to see something hidden that may yet to be accessible” (Polanyi, 1). This quote gives us knowledge of how identifying the problem is an important step to a decent reflection where we can find the good side of the problem, I agree with this part of the conversation. He believes reflection to be spontaneous and scientific.

According to the article, individuals control themselves, they control their own problem, and the most effective way to solving it, and are their own motivation through their pathway in life. To conclude, Throughout the text, Yancey analyzes how reflection can enhance student learning along with the instructor’s feedback from the assessment of student writing. She then introduces three of her colleagues: John Dewey, Lev Vygotsky, and Michaele Polanyi. Dewey finds that reflection is a goal driven strike. Vygotsky considers that conversation is the start base of reflection. Lastly, Polanyi affirms that the very first step in reflection is to identify what the problem is. Simultaneously, Dewey, Vygotsky, and Polanyi interpret reflection as a collective arrangement, which then turns into habit that transforms into something much bigger. Summary “Shitty First Drafts”Anne Lamott states the need to let go and write those “shitty first drafts” that lead to accuracy and frequently inspiration in the second and third drafts. She accepts that even well experienced writers who do not write graceful drafts, sit at their desks in glom, in hope that God will hear them and send a signal that will help them to write their next great story.

However, feelings of anxiety and misery is often felt during a writer’s first attempt in writing. To end up with great second drafts and incredible third drafts, strong writers must throw out all their ideas on paper. She states that the only way to get anything written at all is to write really shitty first drafts. According to Anne, the first draft is called the “child’s draft,” this is where you write yours ideas all over the place, where being consistent is unimportant because no one will see this draft, and you can always fix it later. After going back and proofreading your first draft, you must begin to arrange and modify your second draft properly. Your third draft requires that you are well focused on the purpose of your writing, your tone, and the use of correct grammar at the same time examining the audience you are writing for to make sure it connects with the reader. It’s not until you’ve written an awful first draft that you can start adding and taking away non important content in your writing to send your message to your reader both openly and productively.