Active critical reading is a very important concept for all college students to engage in. We read textbooks, articles, essays, novels, etc… and the purpose of active and critical reading is to help us better understand the information and interpret it. When I first approach an essay to read, I usually first scan over it to see how long it is and the topic of it. I then begin to read it, paying attention to what seems like the most important details. In Gilroy’s selection, like many other essays that I have annotated, I usually wait for a break in the paragraph, and then I paraphrase parts of the paragraph, which helps me to interpret the information better. The next thing I usually do is highlight important quotes, concepts, or ideas. I usually do this by putting stars in the margins above, or by simply underlining the concept. Another active reading strategy that I use is making text relationships throughout the text. I noticed that if I relate a concept, quote, or idea from an essay to my personal life, I tend to understand it so much better. I demonstrate this by underlining it, then drawing an arrow to the margins of the paper and writing my connections. The most important part of annotating and active reading, as Gilroy writes, is to “Take the information apart, look at its parts, and then try to put it back together again in language that is meaningful to you…” As I said before, connecting ideas to your own life is proven to help you interpret the information and remember it better.
I believe that I have a pretty good grasp on active reading, which I credit towards this class. Before taking this class, I would just underline random bits of information that had no meaning to me, but then I realized that I didn’t understand any of the complex readings. I think that reading Gilroy’s selection in the beginning of the class would’ve been beneficial, considering she puts active reading in very simplistic words. But honestly, I think that the best way to learn active reading is seeing what way works best for you since everyone has very different learning styles. We would watch videos, class discussions, and fill out “Annotation Notes” as we engrossed in the discussions. The essays that have been supplied to us this semester in English 110 have been very complex and sophisticated, and it is almost impossible to understand them without annotating. While reading “Life’s Stories,” by Julie Beck, I noticed that I had a better experience reading the essay for a second time, which is due to active reading. The first time I read this essay, I was really confused and all over the place. The second time I read it through, I made sure to annotate it. My favorite strategies I used was to write down the definitions of words I didn’t know, make text-world connections, and re-writing paragraphs/sentences in my own words. For example, she writes, “Some people write in their diaries and are very introspective…” I didn’t know what the word introspective was, so I looked it up and wrote this definition in the margins, “Observation of one’s mental processes.” I was then able to connect this term to what I was learning in psychology.
