Think of your own reading experience and write a paragraph of 150 – 200 words. Use the following questions to guide you. 1. What
books or texts did you read when you were in high school? 2. How did you read them? Did you read them all in similar ways? Did you use different ways of reading? If different, what were the ways? 3. Do you think your reading in the past was effective? Why or why not? 4. Do you think you will need to change the way you read for your university study? Explain. ___________________________________________________________________________
In high school, I’ve read ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ ‘Fahrenheit 451,’ ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ ‘The Merchant of Venice,’ ‘Frankenstein,’ ‘Their Eyes Were Watching God,’ and more. Reading throughout my freshman year, I would just go through the pages, getting the main idea of what I was reading, but forgetting any details as I read. However, it was different during my sophomore year: our teacher implemented active reading. She divided each book we were covering into four weeks. Whenever a new week begun, she would post an assignment due Friday, which we had to complete while reading the book (ex: identify 7 conflicts in Frankenstein and analyze them). We also had a vocabulary list to get familiar with, and during the 4 weeks we’d have two quizzes, a depiction and an essay. That way, she made sure we were a 100% involved with what we were reading. She successfully prepared us for the IB next year, and I will definitely keep using active reading throughout my studies.