Author: Obed Pen-Ogbolu (Page 10 of 11)

It’s the third grade and we are preparing for the state tests. There are students surrounding me in almost every direction, all of them with notebooks and pecils out. The teacher is going of the structure of the state test and what things we should work on first. The smell of coffee filled the room. While I wasn’t a big fan of it, it did remind me of pancakes for some reason. The lighs on the ceiling flickered sometimes. My desk would screech across the floor when I moved even slightly. The sun shined brightly through the window near me, so I remember it being hard to see my paper. All these different things bothered me little by little, but the thing that upset me the most was the state test. The state test seemed like the only thing on everyone’s mind, even the teacher’s. Everything we learned was just thrown out the window just for this one test. Even the other subjects like science and social studies were paused in favor of state test prep. Seeing as science was my favorite subject at the time, that really pissed me off.

The enjoyment of my school life diminished as school shifted its focus to the State Test. All the fun activited that we used to do were replaced with concentrated study on test structure. I never enjoyed learning how to take a test. I would rather just learn about the material on it. It’s not like I don’t get it. Tests scores are important for schools, but it’s a different story if you are more concerned with that then the student’s education themselves. Being forced to take countless practice tests while reading and writing everyday fueled my hate for the English subject. I will never forget the stress I felt while preparing for the state tests, asit is stress that I felt every other school year after that. I know all schools don’t do this, but if it is a school that does, then you are going to burn out your students faster than the tests will, especially at a young age. If you want better test scores, then actually teach the children subjects.

“How to read like a writer” can be a very important tool to college students when it comes to reading and writing. Writing isn’t everyone’s forte, but it is something we all need to improve on as students. It the text on page 75, Bunn says a line that not everyone will understand, “You are already an author.” When Bunn says “You are already an author,” he doesn’t mean we write books for a living or anything along those lines. To him, being an author means we write, in any form. It may not be any literary works, but we are writers. Things like texting or typing are forms of writing. Even verbal communication could count as some sort of writing, even if it’s not physical. Anytime we use words, we are technically writing. Since this is something we already do, improving upon it is something beneficial to everyone. That is why Bunn wants us to learn how to read like a writer, because doing so will improve all types of writing that we do. College consists of reading and writing, and improving it will make us stronger students.

When I read, I don’t really focus a lot on the words. It’s like I read the words half-heartedly so I can just take away the jist of it. It maybe a long process of getting used to, but something I do want to try is reading each word one by one. It sounds strange, because it is something we already do when we read, but I never really focus on the word itself when I read it, I just focus on the sentence. In reading every word, I can try and grasp why the author used this word instead of another, or how that word impacts the bigger picture. These are things that could be of great use to improving my reading and writing skills. Even just rereading a sentence once or twice could make me see it a different way each time. These choices are choices I should learn to make when writing.