Learning Outcome #3:
At the beginning of the year my knowledge on active and critical reading was slim to none. But as the semester progressed on I grasped a better understanding and improved these skills. Now when reading a text I am fully engaged. I have a pen, pencil highlighter, really any writing utensil and read completely through. My annotation skills have improved. I am constantly underlining, highlighting, asking questions in the margins or leaving little comments with reactions like “wow”, “interesting”, and many more. Learning this has made it so much easier to go back to the text and look for something specific. By the end of the reading my page is all marked up with lines, colors, circles, etc. Reading essays and articles is very common in an English classroom and when I was in especially high school getting me to sit and just read through a writing piece was nearly impossible. Now that I am forced to actually sit, read and annotate I have grasped a better understanding of the reading. This has been very beneficial because we incorporated most of these articles and essays into our own writing and fully understanding them makes it easier for me to integrate my own ideas. Another great skill I learned is outlining. Susan Gilroy states briefly “take the information apart, look at all of its parts, and then try to put it back together again in language that is meaningful to you…. Outlining enables you to see the skeleton of an argument: the thesis, the first point and evidence (and so on), through the conclusion.” I found this quote to be true. When I created my outlines I would just write out all the ideas I defiantly wanted to use on a piece of paper and then move things around to create flow. This is where you put it into a language that she said is meaningful to you meaning you rearrange your essay in the way you feel makes the most sense.
