Stevens Dejesus
Reflection
How writers Read
Prof.Kopp
Where I stand now as a writer, after the course has come to an end, is far from who I was at the beginning. Analyzing the text was a vital part of this course but what really impacted me the most was the process of become a better writer. In this process I gained experience in how to read for many elements in the text that produce for example a book like A Thousand Splendid Suns. A book where I was able to analyze the authors intended message or messages that he/she would like to relay. The author in A Thousand Splendid Suns addresses a number or themes and topics that the reader had to uncover. I use uncover because the process for me was one where I began peeling back layers and addressing myself and my reaction to the text. In reality I was finding myself tending to two “onions”, one onion being myself and the other the text. Of course it caused me to grow frustrated with myself and my resistance to many parts of different texts but I learned much through the exercise. To clear this up I will use for example my first blog of our third book that I read with my group The Color of Magic. My first blog of this book was the first one of the course where I truly expressed my strong resistance to a text. I encountered the text and was not able to exercise what we were learning to do with the text in class. In the course we were challenged to become the submissive reader in order to later arrive at also becoming an authorative reader. Both of the terms such as the submissive and authoritive reader are to describe a reader who is non resistant to a book or a reader who has understood the text and has discovered other dynamics of the book/text.
The writing core values of the writing department presents the first core value which is to demonstrate understanding of a variety of genre conventions and exhibit rhetorical adaptability in applying those conventions. This is a core value that was inevitable to learn and apply in the classroom. We were constantly learning to look at a text that we were not accustomed to reading. We read articles from authorities in the field to authors of books such as The color of magic. I learned to understand these genres and dissect dense content like for example the essay written by Jane Gallop. The author of this text discussed difficult ideas that challenged me to move toward a place of discomfort. I say discomfort because I was hesitant to move away from how I had learned to read all of my life. I’ve been used to reading text and interpreting while being resistant to anything other than what I thought a text was. Jane Gallops essay ask the reader to jump through hoop and make an effort to become a reader that read without preconceptions. A reader that would drop all of the languages and practices that had been previously learned. My biggest issue with this process was learning the new language for example with our third book which feature many different terms that belonged to the world in which the text was written in. I learned in this text to actually learn the language and then look for different themes that the language and situations presented.
Another core value that I learned was the value of understanding theories of writing and reading and be able to apply them to their own writing. One of the important goals of the course was to learn a different way of reading to improve is writing. My writing now has a different process with which it is developed. Stories, blogs or ideas now are written with a different mindset like for example with an essay that I wrote for my social deviance course. I wrote an essay on a book called Dreamland where I applied the theory of understanding the language of the text and than using it to present an interpretation of that language. I became a submissive reader to a text that contained a language and situation I had no knowledge of. I first read the text and then wrote an essay analyzing the text which I was able to do using the theories learned by authors such as Jane Gallop.
Demonstrating the ability to critically read complex and sophisticated texts in a variety of subjects is the third value I learned in the course. The different subjects I encountered I not only encountered in the course but other classes as well. Before, I explained that was presented with the task of writing an essay the book Dreamland. With what I learned in How Writers Read such as experiencing the text and then looking to become an authority of the text I wrote this essay. I did well on the essay because I found what the author did not reveal to the reader who was resistant and standoffish to the text.
The course prepared me to become a dynamic writer and reader when doing any curse work in any text. Jumping through hoops that the text present to me are still a struggle but have begun to master small task that the course taught me.
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