“Reading like a writer” is not an entirely new concept to me. During my junior year in high school my American Literature teacher asked us to do a never-ending report on the book Into Thin Air. As part of this report my classmates and I were required to annotate ten passages from the book and then write on them. In the midst of the project, we complained endlessly to our teacher claiming that annotating was too difficult and the subject matter too simple to write about.
Looking back now, I am grateful for the introduction to annotation. I still use the technique today. For example, while researching my topic for the Memory and Research paper, I have read several articles that have extremely similar messages. By using the technique of responsive reading, I am able to pick out specific pieces of information that are unique to that passage, whereas if I was just using a highlighter, the articles may all run together. Before I began exercising this idea of “reading like a writer” I found myself reading and then rereading to remember one bit of information. Now, I write my thoughts on the useful pieces as I read so when I am finished and ready to write my paper or response I already have several helpful ideas written out waiting to be put straight into my work.
Reading Chapter Two of our textbook, “From Reading as a Writer to Writing as a Reader,” helped solidify the idea of annotating as a useful tool for me. Sometimes when I am reading a particularly boring passage, I find annotating tedious. However when I finally convince myself to do it I realize that it helps to make the reading more interesting because I am putting down my own ideas and opinions about the work rather than just listening to someone else drone on and on about a topic that does not interest me.
