Free Choice- Different Kinds of Reading

What kinds of reading have you done in the past and what kinds do you do now? Remember that there are many more kinds of reading than those you’ve done in school. You read at your job and read posts on Facebook and read copious amounts of text messages. What is different about your experience with different kinds of reading?

The kinds of reading I have done in the past was mainly reading easy accelerated reader books for high school, or reading chapters in different classes to know the information more, and be prepared for the tests. It seemed like I didn’t have to read as much in high school compared to reading in college. The kinds of reading I do now are normally longer and have much harder words to understand. In my English 111 class, we had to read chapters of argument writing, and argument articles. The words in that book are harder for me to read since I didn’t learn a big vocabulary at my high school. Few semesters ago in my READ 102 class, we had to read autobiographies of famous people; they were so long and hard to understand. But noticing after taking these classes with all the reading, I felt more confident in understanding what was read. Any class you take in college, you will have to read at any point or another. If you don’t read the material the teacher will assign, you will have no idea what they will cover in class the next day. I had some past experiences of that and pretty sure everybody has because some people may not like reading. I am the type of person that dislikes reading and would put reading off any day because I think it’s boring. You need to be interested in what you’re going to read. If the teacher assigns you to read something that seems boring, obviously you’re going to think it’s pointless, but you need to read it anyways because it’s your benefit of succeeding. What’s different about my experience with different kinds of reading is that I didn’t care much of reading in the past but once going to college and having more reading to do in each class; I realized I need to step it up and care more. I will still think reading is not my first priority, but will eventually feel the need to read it sooner or later.

GR- Praise and Criticism In The Main Characters

The main character in the book JERK, California is Sam Carrier. In the book, I’m trying to figure out why the author changed the main characters name to Jack Keegan. I think Sam was praised and criticized by the other characters in the book, for example, his mom Lydia, his stepdad Old Bill, his real dad’s friend George the Coot, and his crush Naomi.
It seemed like Sam’s mom cared about him in the beginning of the book, because she was worried about him having tourette’s, but now after marrying Old Bill it seems like she doesn’t care much of him because she takes his side on everything. She praised him then would criticize him for not doing what Old Bill said to do.
His stepdad Old Bill shows no praise to Sam at all in the book so far because he teases him and treats him like he’s no good. He blames the tourette’s on everything and it’s not Sam’s fault that he has this syndrome. He will show criticism towards Sam because he is not his real son. Old Bill shows he loves his biological son Lane, because there is nothing wrong with him. I feel it’s not right for him to degrade Sam down like he does because it makes him feel even more down on himself. I feel that Old Bill won’t change in the book because he will keep criticizing Sam for his own being. I also feel that the tourettes is getting worse because of his stepdad.
His real dad’s friend George the Coot has showed praise and criticism to Sam because he offered Sam to live with him, has Sam help him with the gardening, wants him to know more about his real dad. He showed a lot of criticism towards Sam by him doing cruel things with him behind the truck, is making him change is name to Jack, because his father wanted it to be that. In the 2nd part of the book is when it’s going to talk more about “Jack”. I feel that he shouldn’t have been pressured to change his name because nobody needs to change their name if they don’t want to. It must be something to do with the headstone that Coot showed him on the bulldozer blade because that’s where it all started.
His crush Naomi has showed praise and criticism to Sam by her keep popping into his life when he is doing things for others. Sam thinks that she likes him because she keeps coming back. Well it seems like she does and doesn’t because her friends think he’s a freak, and she thinks he is and sometimes isn’t. There were instances in the book that she thought he would be a freak and then some she seemed like she was starting to like him more as person. She shows criticism by being two-faced to him because as she steps into his life each time he sees her, his heart sinks, and she doesn’t realize that he is deeply in love with her. I need to keep reading and see what happens if she ends up popping up into his life more or if she’ll ignore him completely.
I’m hoping that Sam doesn’t give up on loving Naomi because it seems like that’s all he needs in his life. As I keep reading, hopefully things start to happen more and keep getting more interesting, because it seemed like I was getting lost in the beginning, but as I keep reading I noticed its getting a little easier to get the idea of the situations.

Problems, stuck points, and breakthroughs. What’s hardest for you or what gets in the way most?

I noticed in the past and now I had some problems, stuck points, and breakthroughs while reading. The hardest obstacle for me while reading something is trying to understand the situation of the text. I noticed while reading JERK I was getting confused because the book had a weird introduction. It threw me off when I read it then I tried to understand it while I kept reading on. I have to re-read paragraphs over just to understand the material. Every time I read something for any class; I have to block out any noise and try to understand what’s going on. If there is any slight of discussion from people or anything that makes a noise, I will not understand what I am reading. I would rather read in a quite place so I can take each page slowly and know the context. That’s what gets in the way when I am trying to read anything that is in my importance. I will get frustrated because everybody else can’t get their reading accomplished with distractions. Everybody is different because other’s can read with the distractions. I just don’t understand how they can read something; comprehend it, and not block the distraction. What really gets in the way most is trying to get the reading done while you have other classes that have assignments for you to do as well. I noticed that I haven’t got very far in the book JERK because I have other classes that stop me. I thought the reading plan would have helped me since we got to choose how much we wanted to read per week, but I guess since it’s at the end of the semester, every other class has pushed me away from it. It being the end of the semester, the professors have a lot of material we need to learn, so I need to take each assignment at a time, and squeeze the reading in between the available time.