How to pick apart a reading

Thank goodness I read this before beginning my rhetorical analysis writing. This reading was definitely helpful in every way. First of all, it gave me great ideas on how to get started as I begin reading what I will be writing my rhetorical analysis on. I best liked the idea of skimming through the text, only reading the beginning and end paragraphs, beginning to middle paragraphs, titles, headings, etc. THEN, going back and reading the actual paper. I also really liked the annotating idea. I often do this when reading chapters for my classes. I make note of things in the margins (very helpful to come back to) and underline important information. I will most definitely do this when I read through my reading for my paper.
This reading also gave many ideas for organizing ideas so that I can best get information out of my reading. The thing that it suggested that I do most often now is an outline. Usually, I use an outline for my paper before I begin writing it, but I liked that this reading suggested to outline the actual reading before writing anything else. This is helpful to not only understand the main idea of what the paper is about, but to also get the smaller ideas throughout each paragraph that are easy to forget once the whole paper is read.

Similar but oh-so-different

I have always thought of editing and proofreading to be the same thing. Apparently, I've been really wrong. Upon reading the assignment for today, I was able to clearly distinguish the difference between editing and proofreading- something I definitely could not have done before.
I found the part on editing (which took up 3/4 of the reading) to be the most helpful. Usually when editing a paper, I simply start at the beginning and go through correcting things as I go. I usually have to do this quite a few times before I notice everything. I liked how this reading narrowed editing down to 3 different sub-categories: editing paragraphs, editing sentences, and editing words. This simiply showed me a new way of doing my editing. I actually used this on my narrative final draft- so hopefully it worked. I went through, editing only the paragraphs the first time. I checked for things like a topic sentence, where my information was positioned, and if there were good transitions. Next, I went through a second time, only looking to edit the sentences. I made sure all of my sentences were complete, and I check to be sure I was using a variety of kinds of sentences. The last time, I went through only editing the words. I checked for spelling, correct word usage, etc. After doing all of this, I knew I was ready to proofread. I went through and read my story... not to pick it apart but to read for content... to make sure everything made sense as a whole. Luckily, it did to me. I thought this reading was very helpful- i've bookmarked it for further use incase I forget later!

Let me edit myself...

For this reading, I left myself a bunch of sticky notes. I think the best way for me to reflect on this reading is to go through and explain each of the notes I left for myself.
Note 1- "DON'T"
I left this note to remind myself that when writing first drafts, don't be constantly trying to organize as I go, because I could miss something really important!
Note 2- "AGAIN- purpose and audience"
I write this to emphasize that these two things are very important to remember. They were mentioned in our first reading, and here again. Purpose is always important in a narrative, so I need to be sure that when reading mine, my purpose is clear.
Note 3- "transitions! beginning/end of paragraph"
I left this because I feel this is one of my week points. I have not been very good with transitioning from one idea to the next so hopefully this note will remind me to go through my drafts and check for this to be sure my thoughts are clear.
Note 4- "TITLE and clear thesis"
I have not yet come up with a title. I don't want a boring title, but I want one that makes sense. I also need to be sure that I define my thesis well within the first few sentences.
Note 5- "Lengthen"
self explanitory. my first draft was not quite 2 pages... but luckily I was able to make it 3 by the end of the 2nd draft.
Note 6- "Rewriting? -chronology"
I actually did this... and it was pretty cool to see my story from different views... in different orders... but I ended up liking my original order, anyway.

Reading, Writing, Education- the Things I Take for Granted

Until I read the literacy narratives assigned for this week, I did not realize how much I don't appreciate the fact that I get a good education. I never even think about how lucky I am, compared to others around the world, and others who lived before me. While reading the "Generating Ideas and Text" area, I also realized just how hard it is to start a narrative piece.
When I read the title to Frederick Douglas's Learning To Read, I thought to myself, "Great... another annoying story about how someone first learned to read when they were little", but it was much different. I liked that this story wasn't your typical "how I learned to read" story. It was about the struggles one had to go through to teach himself to read and write, even as an adult. This was all because he was an African American living in the US before the Civil War. The Malcolm X story, Literacy Behind Bars, also showed me the hardships some had to go through simply to get the things that are just handed to me today.
Of all of the methods for generating ideas, my favorite is the one we exercised in class last week, freewriting. During these 5-10 minutes of nothing but writing, I find myself able to throw all of my ideas on paper, even if they are unorganized. I think this is helpful because if one starts out trying to put organized ideas down, they are likely to forget an important aspect they may have thought to include before but didn't get into an organized idea. In freewriting, I can blabber about any idea I like and write about any aspect of it that comes to mind. This is great for coming up with supporting details for each idea later on. I will definitely bookmark this page for use these next couple weeks when writing my Narrative.

What to Expect with Writing a Narrative

For today, I read chapters 1-6. They focused mainly on writing a narrative, considering the rhetorical situation. I actually really enjoyed the reading- although dry. It helped me outline my objectives when beginning to think about writing a narrative. They mentioned four key topics I need to think about before writing: purpose, audience, stance, and media/design.

They said to ask yourself “why do you want to tell this story”. This is a good question, and if I can’t answer it, I’ve chosen a bad topic. Usually this question can be answered simply by stating the conditions of the assignment, such as with the examples. There was an example narrative about a teacher learning how to read. The purpose for this was to show his own students his experience with learning to read.

I really liked the narrative about the girl who could not seem to pass a high school writing exam. I was able to relate to this well because I experienced a somewhat similar situation in high school. Overall, this reading was really helpful, especially since we’re about to write our own narratives.