A Deep Dive on Reading and Writing

 She sits in her bed surrounded by soft pillows wrapped in her favorite blanket. The room is illuminated only by a small lamp on her bedside table. The book lays open on her lap and she stares at the pages. Her eyes become heavy with every line she reads. She looks at the reading as a box to check off not something she is learning from. Shortly after she drifts off to sleep with the book still in her lap. I find whenever I am assigned reading, I don't go about it in the best way. Specifically, I tend to put myself in the wrong environment. I put off the reading because I know it will be hard for me to stay focused. When it comes time to read, I am usually in bed and super tired. I know that I don't retain what I'm reading nor stay focused on the text. I should instead do my reading earlier in the day and at a table. This way I can be fully focused on the assignment and not be distracted and tired.

In the essay "The Slowest Reader" by Benjamin Percy, the author describes his experience with reading and how he changed his approach to it. When Percy was given a list of 100 books to read for a class, he felt extremely overwhelmed. He rushed through the stories and was unable to recall their plots or what he learned from them. He said, "I could not process and benefit from all those wondrous sentences and plots and characters, snarled together as they were in my mind." He discovers the importance of "reading as a writer" after this experience. He realized he wasn't fully experiencing, understanding, or learning from the books he read. I think being "the slowest reader" means that Percy dives headfirst into ever book he reads. He doesn't just pay attention to the story he looks at the structure, punctuation, and even the order of the plot. He wants to improve his own writing from his reading, so he looks at it not as a task but an opportunity for improvement. I can use what I learned in this essay in this class. I will try to look at the structure of the essays we read, and hopefully this will help me improve my own writing.

She sits at her kitchen table with her laptop open to an empty document. She first looks at the page and then her eyes wander to the large window in her living room. She stares off into space thinking. Her brain is twisting and turning trying to find an idea that ignites a flow of words. When she does find it, she starts typing fast and smoothly. Once the idea comes it's just a matter of making the words comprehendible to her readers. I enjoy writing, I think it's easier than reading for me. It can be difficult to find that big idea that sparks the rest of the piece. I think it would benefit me to work on more brainstorming for my writing prior to actually writing the essay. This way I would have more time to craft and manipulate the idea into a cohesive text.

After reading the essay "Writing an Essay: Here are Ten Effective Tips” by Joe Bunting I learned a few tips on how to improve my writing. Specifically, the authors point about our subconscious and external approval, "Because when you focus on external approval, you shut down your subconscious, and the subconscious is the source of your creativity." This idea stood out to me because I find myself in this situation often when I'm trying to write. Similar to how I look at reading I look at writing an essay as a task I have to complete to satisfy my teachers expectations. This is why I struggle with coming up with ideas for my writing, because instead of viewing the essay as a form of personal expression I look at it as an assignment. I also liked the advice the author gave about feeling overwhelmed when writing, "Overwhelmed? Just write five original sentences." I found this section of the essay impactful as it explains a way to look at writing essays that makes them seem less daunting. The five-sentence approach provides an outline and could help me avoid writer's block. In conclusion, this essay provided many helpful tips to improve my work and make writing essays a more enjoyable experience.

Sources

"The Slowest Reader" by Benjamin Percy 

"Writing an Essay: Here are Ten Effective Tips” by Joe Bunting