When reading chapter 1 I noticed a new importance on the art of reading. College reading is a whole new world compared to highschool level reading. This is due to the fact that college reading requires not only textbooks but historical documents, Platonic dialogs, Supreme Court decisions, scholarly journals, reports of scientific experiments, magazine articles, newspapers, opinion pieces, blogs, Web materials, zines, and more. Although all those examples are relevant, textbooks are the main reason students get overwhelmed. The reason for the textbooks is to introduce someone to the topic and give them as much information as they can. Obviously the information is important and relevant to the topic, but that's why there is so much information given.
As I continued to read I found out the meaning of an advanced/experienced college reader. College readers go beyond just reading the text, they use the text as a way to begin critical thinking. This leads to more research and critical thinking towards a subject, making the text a good building block of information. Along with that as a higher leveled reader you must make sure you understand the text. Read the text more than once, make footnotes, be sure that you can understand and break down the text in front of you. The author is trying to teach the reader, so interact with the text, ask questions, write thoughts down. If you interact with the text it not only makes you more engaged, but it helps you comprehend the text as well.
This connects to the real world because you read information everyday. Whether you are reading the news or twitter, you want to make sure you understand the full story. You do extra research on trending topics, or breaking news. You go beyond what you are told to try and fully understand what's going on. We can take this action and translate to reading just how the book suggests. We read the information and then make sure we research and fully understand the topic, that's how to become an experienced reader.
Hi Matt. I agree with your viewpoint on how important it is to read between the lines and think critically when deciding how to interpret a piece. This is a lot different than in high school where we only argued the author's purpose rather than developing our own opinion.
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