What if I told you the ability to read and write weren’t just skills, but instead are the foundation of how we think, grow, and communicate our opinions? Going into college, I was led by the misconception that writing was merely just a response to reading. We were only meant to integrate readings or personal experience into a piece when writing about said reading or experience. As the past three weeks have progressed, I had the opportunity to use readings such as “The Hawk” by Brian Doyle and “The Limits of Friendship” by Maria Konnikova, alongside the book “They Say, I Say” by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstien to intertwine and develop my reading and writing skills.
Writing has never been my strong suit as I never felt as if I could fully be comfortable producing a good quality writing assignment. I was always left unsatisfied in my writing, feeling like there was always something missing. Whilst reading the book “They Say, I Say,” I was introduced to the key concepts of source integration, summarization, paraphrasing, etc. All these key components are part of what make a writing piece that much more in depth and intriguing. In a writing exercise I participated in during class, we were tasked with creating a statement using a quote from the reading “The Limits of Friendship” and use the “quote sandwich” template from the book to create a well-developed source integration paragraph. I was able to use the “quote sandwich” template along with a quote introduction template, “X states, _____” (Graff and Birkenstein 56) to create a well-developed and thoughtful paragraph. In my response I was able to compile a multitude of different templates and techniques into a cohesive paragraph that helped justify my understanding of Konnikova’s story.
When it came to previewing, I was a bit nervous as it is a technique that I had little previous experience with. In high school no previewing was ever encouraged so this was new territory for me. I found as I was able to learn a little bit of background information about the authors of these pieces, it was easier for me to see how they came to their conclusions. It was also nice to see if my predictions based on the cover, the title, date published, etc., were correct. Previewing was an easy way to make connections to a piece, even without providing much information.
Preview from “Is Empathy Overrated” by Paul Bloom. We were tasked to write down ideas or predictions based on the cover photo and title of Bloom’s piece.
This then leads into annotations. I had used my previous teachings on annotations to guide me throughout the reading “The Hawk” by Brian Doyle. In a response, on annotations, for a previous assignment, I had mentioned the way I was taught to annotate. “This method was highlighting things I found important to a prompt or to my understanding and then putting my thoughts in the margins” (Carsetti). I had always thought this method to be affective as I was jotting down thoughts that sparked my mind as I read. But little did I know that there was a more in-depth way of going about annotating. It wasn’t until Konnikova’s piece that I learned that annotating is more than just a note in the margins. We used “A Brief Guide To Marking Texts/Annotating” by Michael Cripps to do just that. This guide is made up of developed thoughts that can be in the form of a question (Q), understanding (U), extension of an idea (EXT), rhetorical (RH), etc. I felt that I had understood the piece more than I did using my previous method and was able to get a better idea of what the text was getting at by using Cripps guide. I could use my own ideas and notes, while also doing research to back up claims she made that I may have been confused about prior.
Annotations from page 4 of “The Limits of Friendship” by Maria Konnikova, using “A Brief Guide To Marking Texts/Annotating” by Michael Cripps to make many different types of annotations. Extending (EXT) and rhetorical (RH) are the ones that I used in this photo.
“There’s no forcing mechanism that makes us have to learn” (Konnikova 7). This quote may not have been intended to talk about using new techniques in writing, but I figured it is a good representation of what I aspire to achieve as I move forward as a writer. I want to embrace the new techniques and templates I am being introduced to each class. I want to be able to review and take criticism from my peers. I want to be able to take quotes and integrate them into my writing along with my personal experience. I want to evaluate writings and be able to comprehend them better. I want to be a better writer. That is the forcing mechanism that makes me want to learn. That is the mechanism that will let me grow as a writer, annotator, previewer, and integrator.
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