Week 2 Reflection

One thing I did over the past two weeks is learn how to approach an unfamiliar text. This connects to the course objective of practicing metacognitive reading of a variety of texts, both public discourse and academic discourse by developing habits for engaged reading. When annotating the Hass and Trapedo essay I had to follow the steps which helped me realize how to understand what a longer text is trying to communicate. I used engaged reading habits such as asking questions, finding main ideas, and connecting what the author is saying to an aspect of my life. Below is an image from the essay I annotated with a highlight of something I asked a question about.

The sentence I highlighted was stating Disney has become a “staple of our cultural consciousness”(Haas & Trapdeo). The question I had was about how that came to be because the essay says Disney wasn’t the first to use classic fairy tales yet somehow he succeeded and others didn’t. I questioned this because I thought it might have something to do with the course question and be related to gender roles.

From this assignment I learned that it’s very important to have a system when presented with a text otherwise there’s a greater possibility I'll become lost or frazzled when reading it. Previously I had known to find main ideas and annotate but this assignment showed me more specific ways that would make me more successful in the future. I now know to ask questions about anything because any inquiry could make my understanding better. I also learned that after highlighting the main ideas I should look for ways or reasons or points the author makes about those ideas so I can look back and understand a bit more detailed of the point the author was making. Another thing I learned that wasn’t necessarily part of the assignment was to have a key for highlighting, and write it down. I like highlighting because it shows me things I thought were important but I usually have the same system that usually words for math and science classes. With reading, it’s a bit different for me because I think the meanings of the colors change form text to text because they likely aren’t talking about the same subject.