What makes a good writer? More importantly; what makes a good reader? It’s the critical examination skills that Vladimir Nabokov pushes for as well as a good imagination. And don’t forget a good dictionary! Nabokov argues that to be a good reader no preconceptions should have been made upon entering into a new text. He feels that it is insulting to the author when readers limit the world created by the author through their prior generalizations. But forming ideas prior to analyzing something is an important skill used in many subject areas; so why not reading? In science, one must form a hypothesis before carrying out an experiment. In sports, it’s important to analyze the opponent and predict what plan of action they make take. And in reading, predicting what may happen in a story forces us to analyze and think about what may happen next based on what elements in the story we have already seen and observed. In fact, one of the most thrilling, refreshing, and eye-opening things about human life is finding a time when you had a generalization that was wrong. So why does Nabokov dis...
When reading someone else's work you need to be certain that you read between the lines. Author's, at times, will attempt to distort information in order to make their beliefs more prominent. In order to avoid this disinformation, you have to learn the difference between denotations and connotations and facts from opinions. Furthermore, you'll have to recognize figurative language, such as similes and metaphors, which can incite specific feelings onto readers.
Writing Well, by Donald Hall, is an amazingly interesting textbook. I cannot remember reading an instructional manual with such brilliant imagery, flowing style, and amazing concepts. This is what education should be – interesting, provocative, and natural. However, in the first eleven pages of the text, I do not agree with two of the three analyses of Hall's examples.
Although the greater picture is that reading is fundamental, the two authors have a few different messages that they seek to communicate to their audiences. “The Joy of Reading and Writing” depicts how reading serves as a mechanism to escape the preconceived notions that constrain several groups of people from establishing themselves and achieving success in their lifetimes. “Reading to Write,” on the other hand, offers a valuable advice to aspiring writers. The author suggests that one has to read, read, and read before he or she can become a writer. Moreover, he holds an interesting opinion concerning mediocre writing. He says, “Every book you pick has its own lesson or lessons, and quite often the bad books have more to teach than the good ones” (p.221). Although these two essays differ in their contents and messages, the authors use the same rhetorical mode to write their essays. Both are process analyses, meaning that they develop their main argument and provide justification for it step by step. By employing this technique, the two authors create essays that are thoughtful, well supported, and easy to understand. In addition, Alexie and King both add a little personal touch to their writings as they include personal anecdotes. This has the effect of providing support for their arguments. Although the two essays have fairly different messages, the authors make use of anecdotes and structure their writing in a somewhat similar
Harold Bloom understands that we read not only to learn of literary composition but also because “we require knowledge, not just of self and others, but of the way things are.” This proves true to essentially all humans for any great work of writing. Furthermore, this “difficult pleasure” is not of entertainment or even frivolous enjoyment as one may initially presume. This difficult pleasure refers to quite the opposite: the necessity of bettering ourselves, broadening our minds, and somehow understanding the world in which we live.
Several people have trouble writing college level essays and believe that they are unable to improve their writing skills. In “the Inspired Writer vs. The Real Writer,” Sarah Allen argues how no one is born naturally good at writing. Sarah Allen also states how even professional writers have trouble with the task of writing. Others, such as Lennie Irvin, agree. In Irvin’s article “What is ‘Academic’ Writing?” states how there are misconceptions about writing. Furthermore, Mike Bunn’s article “How to Read Like a Writer” shows ways on how one can improve their writing skills. Allen, Bunn, and Irvin are correct to say how no one is born naturally good writers. Now that we know this, we should find ways to help improve our writing skills, and
Do you ever wonder how good your writing skills are? Or what it takes to become a good writer? In Cal Newport’s book “How to Become a Straight A Student’’ he discusses in Part 3, Essays and Papers, how to become a college level writer. In this paper I will be comparing the common themes from the movie “Dead Poets Society” and Cal Newport’s Part 3 on what makes a good writer. In order to become a good writer you must be able to find your own voice, craft a powerful story, and get good feedback.
Meyer, Michael, ed. Thinking and Writing About Literature. Second Edition. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2001.
The Story begins on a beach with three young children playing. Violet, 14, inventor; Klaus, 12, amateur researcher; and Sunny, baby, professional biter who has not totally developed speech. When they arrive to the beach it is a cloudy foggy overcast day. Violet is spending her time here skipping rocks, Klaus is studying tide pools and Sunny is just enjoying her time being at the beach with her older siblings. Even though it is not the greatest day in the world, the children are enjoying their time spent here at their favorite place. No other people are here on beach and this gives the children a place to be alone with their imagination. While playing a gentleman is approaching, but with the fog it scares the children because they cannot see who walks beneath the fog. As the figure gets closer they start to figure out who it is. The strange figure that lurked in the fog is Mr. Poe a friend of the family. Mr. Poe comes over to the children playing and explains to the children that their parents have perished in a fire that destroyed their home. Mr. Poe explains to the children that they will have to live with his family temporarily until he can figure out a plan as to where they will go.
As Karolina walked, she was growing increasingly worried about her youngest son Albert when she carried him off of the train. He was unable to get rid of his chest congestion from the ocean voyage from Antwerp and he coughed constantly during the entire trip from New York City. The drafty train cars appeared to make him worse as she had tried to keep him warm as they traveled.
“How to Read Like a Writer” is an article written by Mike Bunn; after reading the entire texts, I found this article was pretty interesting. As before, to my way of thinking, it would be boring and confused because I was not sure how the author will describe this kind of academic idea; however, I changed my mind after reading the first paragraph. Bunn used an interesting way to start this “formal article”- to introduce himself not just the serious explanation of “RLW” or other things; this fancy way made me meet with him as real and listen to him personally even across the paper. As reading continues, Bunn used plant of evidence to improve how to be a better reader as well as a better writer. Numerous new thoughts about the ways to read are
Writing and Reading in the early 2000's seemed like a thing you had to do or you would be looked down by your family by not having neat/perfect handwriting,I was taught to cross my T's and to dot my I's and do it to a point that if I did not do that my teacher would tell me to stay after class and do the whole writing portion over again and again, that taught me that I had to do everything to a perfect standard and it made me think that whatever I wrote did not matter only if it looked good and did not have any spelling mistakes.
If one were to walk into any classroom, whether it be a lowly kindergarten class, or a lecture hall at Stanford, one may ask the instructor “What is the most important trait a student must have to succeed in his or her academic career?”, and the answer will most always be, literacy. However, that is one trait, which I have personally always struggled with. When asked to write a literacy narrative about the origins of my current attitudes of reading and writing, I could only think back to my sophomore year, because of one my first narrative essays.
The two ninjas were barely moving as they ate their dinner. Kakashi sighed. "Looks like those two wore themselves out from using too much chakra. I told you to train, but not train from dawn to dusk. I'm assuming that you managed to learn most of the jutsu from the scrolls?"
In the past decade, the Internet has taken over. Everyone from young children to senior citizens can communicate, send e-mail, or look up any bit of information in seconds. Because of the overwhelming shift to Internet technology and communication, many aspects of writing have been forever changed. Writers often write differently for the Internet than they do for a physical publication. Readers often read differently on the Internet than physically written text. Within the forms of Internet writing exists one unlike the others and that is personal publishing web sites, such as blogger, live journal, diary land—the list goes on. By allowing any individual to publish anything onto the web, the traditional ideas of writing and reading are automatically forfeited to a new generation of writers.
Critical Reading and Writing in the Discipline (FOUN1019) is a yearlong course designed to improve and develop students’ cognitive, analytical and rhetorical skills. It thereby provides students with the requisite skills to truly join the scholarly arena and become academic writers. I enrolled in the FOUN1019 course with the assumption that I would become more proficient in English Language and a more eloquent communicator. I anticipated that this course would be challenging like many other courses ascribe to a first degree in Marketing; however, nothing could have truly prepared me for the arduous work load that it entails. I had to work assidously throughout the duration of FOUN109 to prepare coursework and conduct research which required