Post 1: Why I Read

        Many people read for many different reasons. They read for pleasure, for adventure, or just because they have to read for a school assignment. Different people read different books for different reasons. One reason that I read is to clear my mind. Reading gets things off my mind and makes me less stressed. It opens up my mind to a new imagination, a new adventure. Each book I read is different and I love going on adventures with the characters, running into problems, and finding solutions. I love that each book carries you in a different way. Each book opens up your mind to a different possibility. And each book makes you feel different. I love to read because it makes you so much smarter. Instead of watching T.V, why not grab a book and learn some new things. Reading helps improve my vocabulary and makes me a better writer. Some books are even more intense that T.V shows. They take you on a thrill ride and you don’t have to wait a week for the next episode to come on because the next chapter of the book is in your hands. I read because I can put myself in a different world and not care what anybody thinks. I imagine myself with the characters, going on the journey that they are on. I experience the thrill of the chase and I can be myself. Everybody should love to read because books can make you so much happier.

 

Blog Reflection

        The quality of my writing has improved greatly over the trimester. Not only have I made my posts longer and more in depth, but I added specific details and quotes to explain concepts to the people reading my blog. I also think that some of my newer posts helped people understand a novel or short story that they were reading too. One way I made my posts better was by including textual evidence in my posts to support what I was thinking. Providing textual evidence would help people understand what was happening and image things in their head. In my old post I just stated that the character in my novel was sad and lonely but I didn’t provide any evidence for people to imagine things. In my new post I provided textual evidence to show examples of imagery in my short story. By providing this quote I helped give people a vivid image of what was happening. I also improved by showing what I think in my posts. In my old post I just wrote what the author said but in the new one I had a paragraph of what I thought and how I felt.

         One thing I struggled with was finding something to blog about. It was really hard to read enough to find something to blog about that was on my rubric. I overcame this by realizing that if I just read any article I could blog about it and that it didn’t have to be a book. Also, they changed the rules so that you didn’t have to blog about things on the rubric. This gave relief in a sense that I didn’t have to finish all of those by the end of the trimester. Knowing this, I just read whatever I could get my hands on and even if I didn’t finish the book, I would still blog about it. A strength that I had with blogging was getting down my ideas and making predictions. I would start a book and make some predictions. Then I would explain those predictions and some people would comment on whether or not they agree or disagree with my predictions. I set my reading goal to seven books and I didn’t meet it. I think this was because in the past years I didn’t keep track of how many books I read every trimester so I didn’t know what to set it to. I read four books this trimester but I think that seven was a good number and I will try for that next trimester. I didn’t really use goodreads.com that much but I did like how you would get recommended books for you. I think if we would’ve talked about it more I would’ve used it but I sort of forgot about it though it could be really useful. Over the course of the trimester I think I have become a better reader. When I read, I know go more in depth of the reading to understand the whole context of the text. Usually I just skip over the stuff I don’t understand but now I have learned that I need to read the entire thing. I think that becoming a better reader also made me a better writer this trimester.