How I stay active when reading is by annotating. While I read, I underline or highlight things that may seem important to the story or any argument that I am trying to make from whatever it is I am reading. I do not know how to explain my process behind choosing what to annotate. I usually just start reading and whatever sticks out to me, something that seems extraordinarily important, I will highlight AND underline it. If something seems important, but a little less than extraordinary, I will highlight it. If something sticks out or backs up an idea I have already highlighted, I will underline it. If something confuses me or excites me or I can relate to or I have practiced such preaching statements before, I will underline or circle it and mark it with a question mark or an exclamation point.

This ENG110 course has made me extremely proficient in the following learning outcome: “Employ techniques of active reading, critical reading, and informal reading response for inquiry, learning, and thinking.” Reading materials and having to annotate them so often from this course has strengthened my techniques for this learning outcome. I do actively think intensively while I read assignments and so on from start to finish. Annotating allows me to feel like I am sort of having a conversation with the author(s). I feel as though creating an outline of a reading material helps guide me in seeing the structure of the argument being made. Being able to summarize and analyze different text after different text allows me to fully comprehend the text, which is helpful for discussions and writing papers.

Informal Reading Response Example:

In “Consider the Lobster,” David Foster Wallace goes into detail about the different ways of preparing a lobster and which way is most commonly used. “As an a la carte entree, lobster can be baked, broiled, steamed, grilled, sautéed, grilled, stir-fried, or microwaved. The most common method, though, is boiling. If you’re someone who enjoys having lobster at home, this is probably the way you do it, since boiling is so easy.” This explains all the different ways to cook lobster, which is useful for this piece because he later goes into the ethics of boiling lobster alive. People claim that boiling lobsters alive is okay because they don’t feel pain, “The nervous system of a lobster is very simple… There is no cerebral cortex, which in humans is the area of the brain that gives the experience of pain.” This means that they assume that since lobster’s don’t have the cerebral cortex, then they must not feel pain. But DFW contradicts this claim, “The human cerebral cortex is the brain-part that deals with higher faculties like reason, metaphysical self-awareness, language, etc. Pain reception is known to be part of a much older and more primitive system of nociceptors and prostaglandins that are managed by the brainstem and thalamus.” This explains that the cerebral cortex actually isn’t the part of the brain that senses pain, so the fact that lobsters don’t have it is meaningless. 

I don’t believe it’s morally okay to boil lobsters alive, neither do I think it’s okay to slaughter animals. However, this won’t stop me from eating these animals. I have never had lobster, so I can say that I have never boiled a lobster alive. But I eat and very much enjoy meat… Does that make the slaughtering okay? No. But I do believe in the fact of not seeing it helps with coping. I refuse to watch any videos that show the truth behind slaughterhouses or anything like that, because I enjoy meat. If I was to watch them, I would feel different about eating meat. 

I did not like his footnotes. The short ones were okay, because they were short, sweet, to the point and connected well with text. However, the long paragraph and a half length ones were wordy, confusing, and seemed irrelevant to me. 

The similarities I noticed between this reading and “This is Water,” was the confusing wording and run-on sentences. Other than that, the two texts were nothing alike. The messages were completely different, this text was more boring.

Annotation Examples: