Author: Ra (Page 3 of 3)

After reading and annotating “Maybe I Could Save Myself By Writing”,  “Mexican American Disambiguation”, and “The Caged Bird Prevails”, two things that were in common with each writer was both of them found inspiration from books of other authors. José Olivarez wrote ” I needed to read books by Latinx authors. I needed to read about the Chicano Movement and the Young Lords and anti-gentrification organizers. Those authors and those stories weren’t a part of the curriculum.” he found his inspiration within the books of Latinx authors who he could relate to. Also, Stephon Hobson wrote ” I began utilizing what I had learned in school: using context clues, summarizing main ideas, and writing down words that were peculiar to me. These newly-developed skills helped me find characteristics in books that I started applying to myself. Books like Man Child in the Promised Land by Claude Brown helped me understand the environment I was living in and how to extricate myself from it. ” Stephen used his skills to analyze the words of the author and understood its meaning. Once he understood the meaning he could then relate to protagonist who suffered through poverty and violence as he did and seen how its possible to improve upon himself and his current situation.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Some important ideas I found while reading the text is if you have an ambition or goal you wish to achieve you can find books or articles about people in a similar environment as you. Those same people could’ve went through the same hardships and experiences as you and could give you some foresight on how to go about the path you wish to choose. Even if that may be an author’s fictional character it could still affect a person’s mindset or perception on how to view their life. The authors’ illustrated their point by explaining their background and experiences and how they found other author’s or other inspiration that they could relate to and how it altered their life for the better.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

After reading and annotating how to Mike Bunn’s “Read like a Writer” and Toni Morrison’s “The Reader as Artist”. I found that to read just to read isn’t the same as to read as like a writer. To read like a writer means to understand the message the author is trying to convey while also trying to understand why the author chose this way to convey that message. To understand how to read like a writer you have to understand no two stories are the same. Even if they are talking about the same event, place, thing, idea, or person, its how the author choses to deliver that story that changes the way the reader perceives it. For example, states, “The words on the page are only half the story, says Toni Morrison. The rest is what you bring to the party.” this is an important idea in the article because I feel as though Me and Toni Morrison are explaining the close to the same thing. However, her writing style lets the reader interpret what she meant without having to go into extreme detail to explain herself. Toni Morrison tells the reader that her passion for writing came long before her time in school, but instead came in her earlier years of listening. I believe this is also important to understand because listening is key to understanding and understanding is a major part of writing. Anyone can hear a sentence and write it down word for word without understanding what they just wrote. It takes someone willing enough to listen to those words and understand the meaning behind them, not so they can just copy and replicate the words but to write them in their own words built from their own understanding.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

A quote I found really interesting was a quote in “Read like a Writer” it states,

“When we read like writers we understand and participate in the writing. We see the choices the writer has made, and we see how the writer has coped with the consequences of those choices . . . We “see” what the writer is doing because we read as writers; we see because we have written ourselves and know the territory, know the feel of it, know some of the moves ourselves.”

I found this quote interesting because even if you are a novice or experienced writer you may read a piece of writing and be able to relate to the context of the story. Or, you could read a piece of writing a relate to the way the author chose to introduce or support the context of their writing. It could be maybe their use of quotations, or commas, or their use of alliteration or hyperbole that maybe the reader found intriguing or familiar.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________