At the beginning of the semester, I thought I was a strong reader and annotating essays and other readings in English 110 would be easy. But I was wrong, I learned that I had so much I could improve on to help myself develop more as a reader. When I was assigned the first reading, at the time I thought I annotated things well, but I soon learned that I could use annotating skills to help me understand the texts on a whole new level. Now when I annotate, it’s very different. It does take me a while, but it’s worth it because I understand everything in the text. I always read through the text first and then I go through and highlight the key points, and then lastly I will read through again and add notes, comments, or reactions to the highlighted parts. This technique is very important to me and it allows me to focus on the text more.
Susan Gilroy stated in her piece of writing “Interrogating Texts: 6 Reading Habits to Develop in Your First Year at Harvard,” “Annotating puts you actively and immediately in ‘dialogue’ with an author and the issues and ideas you encounter in a written text,” which I agree with fully. When I developed a stronger understanding of annotating texts, I was able to connect with the author and their writings much more. For the first text, I annotated, I only underlined and stared important parts, I didn’t add any comments or reactions to the text as I do now. When reading “Life’s Stories” by Julie Beck I added many comments and highlighted much more.
I also included group discussion questions from Julie Beck’s “Life’s Stories.” These group discussions were very helpful in developing my knowledge of the texts. It also showed how I was able to understand a text and use it to answer specific questions that are important. These discussions also helped me build connections and gave me more ideas on how to use the text in my papers.
