In Ellen Carillo’s ” Navigating the Storm” the idea that students who don’t know why something was written and as a result don’t understand why it was written was brought up. I believe that she is right because nowadays, every thing we do for work is graded on a statewide standard. How we answer the question, our vocabulary, overall skills and understanding is graded based on the CCSS (Common Core State Standards). Students believe that all they have to do is submit work following the CCSS rubric to get a high score and feel good about themselves. Just wanting the high grades can make us want to just use our friend google to get quick easy grades on assignments without truly understanding what is being asked, and the true significance on why its being asked. Therefore, I do agree with statements made by Ellen Carillo about the students who don’t really understand the significance behind a text. No lie, I used the internet for an assignment once, but in a whole ‘nother way. Instead of cheating and looking for a quick way out, I looked at how people got to their answers and how I can go about the situation for future texts or assignments.  A difference that I seen was that I began paying more attention to assignments given because there were indeed times where the internet did not help me really and I was left struggling with the work.

Honestly, I believe that having Google-Knowledge and a understanding is a good dual combination. My reasoning behind this is that even if I have a good understanding of the text, I can get lost because at the end of the day I am human and I will forget. That’s where google comes in for assistance. Now, in no way am I saying be lazy and cheat, but use it as a reference to what you already know. But at the same time, people who rely on google or the internet for everything will only depend on that for answers and not use basic skill of English in order to combine ideas, explain ideas, and elaborate on them. Also, If you let the internet think for you all the time, there is gonna be times with no internet and you will be lost. Therefore, I believe that having balance between the two can be helpful but you must either grow your understanding or build on what you know already

Since I’ve been in Middle School, one concept or strategy that helped me become a better reader overall is annotating. This method is effective because you literally break down the text and it helps you gain a better understanding. If your struggling with understanding the meaning of a certain word, circle it and do research in order to add that newly found word into your language, broadening your vocabulary. Also the  CCSS now grades annotation heavily so getting into that flow would be great for readers who doesn’t have an understanding of whatever they are reading.