My approach to active, critical thinking has grown and developed throughout this course, as have many literary skills. As I read a piece of literature for the first time, I first flip through the pages to understand the structure of the work from a global perspective. Once I understand how the work is set up, I begin a close reading of the piece. “Close reading” is something we did in AP English in high school. We would read small amounts at a time, no more than a chapter or two, and really dive into the language of the work. During a close reading, skimming is forbidden. It is important to pay attention to every paragraph, every sentence, every word. By paying such close attention, you can derive meaning from the text in a much more profound way. As I read, I pick apart the text, which is key to the annotation process. When I annotate, I have a few different tools/tactics. I highlight any main points for easy reference. Underlining is for parts of the text that stand out to me, or provoke thought. From many of these underlined parts I draw arrows that may include comments, questions, opinions, or background information. I’ll place an asterisk next to any ideas I am not familiar with so I can look them up and return to the text, filling in the margins with any necessary information I found. These ways in which I interact with the text at hand, my process falls along the lines of Susan Gilroy description of textual annotation: “an ongoing conversation with yourself.” Any of these approaches can be found in my Annotation Pages. Similar to my annotation process, my informal responding approaches involve a mixture of questioning the text and providing my own experience/opinions. My Informal Reading Response, a journal response to a chapter of They Say / I Say, involves consideration of the text, me providing my own experience, and questioning that experience based on what I pulled out of the text. This particular chapter of They Say / I Say revolved around quoting and the incorporation of textual evidence of outside sources. My approach to answering this prompt, and most others, first involves me providing background on what I have grown accustomed to. In this case, I discussed my experience with quoting and evidence throughout high school English courses. I then brought up what I found intriguing about the text at hand, and how it influenced my thinking. The chapter brought forth new perspectives that I had never considered before. Keeping these perspectives in mind, I closed with how the information from the chapter will likely influence my approach to writing in the future. Overall, when I read, annotate, and respond to literary works, I generally include both my pre-existing thoughts as well as new thoughts that the text provokes. Since most of my commentary comes from exploring and questioning ideas, I would conclude that I have a tendency to interrogate the interrogate the texts that I come across, as mentioned by Gilroy.
