In English 110, offered at the University of New England, there were many different learning outcomes that students were supposed to meet by the end of the semester. One such outcome, the 3rd one specifically, states that one must, “Employ techniques of active reading, critical reading, and informal reading response for inquiry, learning, and thinking.”. Based on this outcome, it should be obvious that a student must be able to engage in a conversation with the author, asking questions and making comments about what you’ve read so far, in order to fully understand what you’re reading. I believe, since before taking this class, I have been fairly adept at reading and engaging in discussion with the author while reading, which has helped so much in this class. While I may have been good at reading, I wasn’t an expert. One thing that I learned to do was, “Get in the habit of hearing yourself ask question: ‘What does this mean?’’Why is the writer drawing that conclusion’… They are reminders of the unfinished business you still have with a text”(Gilroy 6). Doing this has greatly improved my understanding of different passages because it really gets me to start thinking about or questioning certain ideas that authors bring up within their works.
