Over the course of this semester I feel as an all around English student I have grown tremendously. In others words now when I read it is just different, It’s almost like looking at things with a whole new understanding. I analyze text a higher level than I did in high school and it helps me understand what I am reading. This year when I would approach a piece of reading I knew I had to go in with an open mind because you never know what an articles main idea is going to be. For example, some strategies that I like to use when I am reading are typically re-reading after the first time obviously to get a better understanding. The first time I read through I underline things that I think are important and I ask myself questions in the margins to help me grasp the concept better. Then to brainstorm ideas for the writing process I like to use clustering to get my ideas out on paper. Like Gilroy says, it’s important to “Make your reading thinking-intensive from start to finish.” It’s the best way to do it. He also mentions taking the information apart and figuring out what is meaningful to you in the second paragraph. I agree, I did this also and it helped my writing a lot. If we did not spend as much time on annotating I definitely would not of been as good at it and would of possibly struggled in the future. Now since we spent such a great amount of time on it I feel comfortable with my annotating and active reading abilities.
