Reflection – Reading Process

Please read the entire post before responding.

Write a reflective essay that assesses your current reading process by comparing what strategies you have actually used so far this semester to make sense of the readings to the standards set out in the Active Reading Learning Outcome below. To what degree does your reading process enable you to write effectively in response to complex readings?

Consider how often you read the entire piece as assigned, how often you re-read select parts of a reading in informal writings, and how effectively you incorporated “material to think with” from readings into your papers. Also, consider the number, quality, variety, and usefulness (for writing and comprehension) of your annotations, as well as the word count, depth, and usefulness of your informal writing in response to readings.

400 words or more. Categorize your post as Homework and also as Reflection (you’ll probably need to create that category)

Further instructions: Be sure to include a full description of your reading process from beginning to end. Include descriptions of any pre-reading strategies you use, during-reading annotation strategies, and the informal writing strategies you use to make sense of your readings post-reading.

In your reflective essay, include context-sensitive links to reading log images and homework posts that provide samples of your active, critical reading process. Include properly-rotated and enlargeable images of your annotations in your reflective essay. Be sure to explain how the evidence in those links support your claims about the quality of your reading process.

At the end of the essay, use our NY | NTG | OK | G | EX scale to rate your annotation practices and your use of informal writing to make sense of your readings. I’m expecting to see two scores – one for annotation and one for informal writing.

Annotation photos should look something like this:

Active Critical Reading Learning Outcome: Experienced Writers have Flexible, Adaptable, Active Reading Processes that Enable Them to Write Effectively in a Range of Situations

Experienced writers understand that reading is inseparable from writing.

• Experienced writers read widely in a variety of fields and deeply in fields of interest, seeking out information, viewpoints, and experiences with which to engage the world, solve problems, and get work done
• Experienced writers see texts as connected to one another in a network of conversation
• Experienced writers read to study how other writers have approached particular writing situations and to learn how to solve them

Experienced writers read texts actively to understand them and critically to be in conversation with them by

1. Annotating texts – making marks on a reading that:
   1. Segment a text into chunks
   2. Keep a running summary of the gist of the reading
   3. Track a writer’s argument by identifying claims, supporting and complicating evidence, and the underlying rationale
   4. Mark keywords and concepts and their examples
   5. Record reader reaction/responses
   6. Ask questions
   7. Make text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections
   8. Complicate or challenge facts, interpretations, assumptions or viewpoints
   9. Uncover and evaluate assumptions
   10. Consider implications
       
       
2. Writing informally in response to readings to improve their understanding, see the reading in a context, and develop responses to the text. Informal writing includes:
   1. Consolidating notes
   2. Writing to understand the text
   3. Writing and responding to discussion questions
   4. Making connections between the text and self, world, and other texts
   5. Exploring or testing ideas
   6. Complicating or challenging ideas
   7. Considering the issue, problem or question from another viewpoint, or through the lens of another reading