Reading

This year, I have not read an abundance of books out of class, but I have read many in-class. In one of my blog posts, I mention how I want to read more books to strengthen my vocabulary. Books and I am an interesting combination. I love books, but it is just hard to find books that are fit for me and books that I want to read. This year got me out of my comfort zone because my class read a variety of styles of books. I read The Lord of the Flies, Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Purple Hibiscus, and Macbeth. As one could tell, none of these books have the same genre. However, each book strengthened me as a reader. I did not like reading Lord of the Flies too much, mainly because it had such a long start, and I felt that some scenes were repetitive. Also, I heavily annotated, so it took a longer time to read. However, the benefits to reading this book were massive. I developed a deep understanding of the book from annotating. It was from there that I realized that books have such a deeper reading if readers annotate. I almost feel as if this was an eye-awakening experience because from here, I annotated many more books. I also grew in my annotating skills because before I would just write down facts, but now I write down either key plot points or a deeper understanding of the context. Here, I wrote a blog post when we were reading Lord the Flies just about one sentence from the book, and what my results were when I broke that sentence down and annotated: I think that a critical scene from Lord of the Flies that everyone needs to understand was when Ralph was running for his life (literally), and encountered the pig's skull on the stick. This was in chapter 12 and the conch was mentioned again even though it has been shattered by now. It said, “He walked slowly into the middle of the clearing and looked steadily at the skull that gleamed as white as ever the conch had done and seemed to jeer him cynically.”

After the discussion in class, the conch is also a symbolic object in that line. It used to be pink, but it eventually wore away and faded into white. When the boys arrived, they were rational humans, but as time passed, they could care less about being rescued and the pink “wore away”. The pig’s skull is symbolic to the conch. The pig used to be pink, and now it’s white. When I read that line for the first time, I did not read it that deeply and didn’t see its symbolism. Now I see its symbolism and that is why this line is an important line for everyone to know. 

Lastly, I grew in my reading time. Before, I used to take a while to read chapters because it took longer for me to process. My teacher gave us readings that required you to read fast, because otherwise, you would spend an hour and a half reading. And believe me, I learned this the hard way. Since we read many books in class, I did not have a long span to read my own books from beginning to end without starting a class novel in the middle. I am currently reading The Girl on the Train and I have read The Heir, and I was almost done, but then we started reading a class book. I had to read a profusely great amount each night, so by the time we were done, I had to re-read The Heir because I forgot what was happening. For Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, it was an easy read because it was written like a journal and it was a teenage boy that narrates it. I thought that this was going to be an easy read, which it was, but it had such a deeper meaning to it. Readers learn what it was like to be an Indian, and how they regarded themselves: In Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Junior (the narrator) shows his audience what it is like to be an Indian. This first person narrative book emphasizes on how little Indians feel sometimes. He is stuck in a reservation where there is no hope left. However, Junior is the last person with hope. He quickly makes the decision to change schools and hopes to get a better education. 

What really caught my eye was when Junior said at one point, “I almost felt like a human.” This made me so disappointed that people treated Indians like non-human beings. Junior tells the audience how poor they are treated, but he tries to brush it aside. I like how he is trying to stay positive, but I think that at one point in the book he will break down from all the negativity around him. 

Each books that we read were almost polar opposites, but each one strengthened me as a reader.