0109

Today’s lecture and readings got me thinking about how I treat the reading that I do. I’ll admit I felt a little out of place sitting silent in lecture as everyone pontificated on the proper methods of critical reading. Critical reading has always been difficult for me. My mom writes a lot and I was typically the one who proofed her manuscripts but doing that just trained me to focus on writing techniques, word choice and grammar without paying much attention to themes or biases which were rooted beneath the readily seen layer of the writing. As a result of this (and I’m sure there are some personality elements contributing to this as well) when I read I typically do so envisioning a red pen in my hand. Sometimes I’m able to get past this mind set and actually glean ideas and feel the emotion of different pieces of literature but most of the time I simply read for errors or particularly well formulated sentences and then put the piece down. Delving further into the meaning of someone’s writing is something that has always been a challenge for me. The thing I learned in lecture today was how important the ability to find meaning in writing is.