Active and critical reading is a very important of how I understand each piece we read and has a great impact on how I determine the angle I choose while writing a paper. In regards to active reading, it is important to engage the work in conversation. Ask it questions, wonder why it was written, what is the purpose of each word? This is similar to Gilroy’s idea of “in a ‘dialogue’ with an author and the issues and ideas you encounter in a written text”. Once you figure out what the text means to yourself you are able to formulate your opinion on it and how it relates to a prompt you are given. Not only is it important to ask questions, but label what is important to whatever you are arguing. This leads into critical reading. Choosing the most important points any author makes is key to your success. The informal reading responses help me to formulate new ideas and “digest” what I have read with prompts from my instructor and also new ideas presented by my fellow peers. I tend to mark what I feel is important and sometimes neglect the smaller things, to combat this I usually read through the readings twice ensuring I do not miss anything. This increases my ability to “interrogate” the text and get the most out of each reading. To me, it is always most important to make text to self connections first. Once you are able to relate a text to yourself it makes it much easier to relate it to other works. 

 

Informal Reading Response

 

Gilroy Annotations