“Micro-Activity # 2: Responding to Bunn”

My reading habits are what I would consider pretty okay, I am not very good at reading an article online because I am someone who likes to annotate the text. I like to read things that can educate me whether it’s about global warming, what’s going on in different countries, books that have to do with romance, and bibliography would be things that I can read until I lose track of time. For writing I am someone who usually takes a while to write something because I tend to get stuck on how I should phrase sentences or what are the most important things to include on the paper. I tend to get distracted with writing a lot and it does take me a while for me to find my pace, not to mention that my grammar isn’t that well. Comparing my reading and writing skills I am able to ignore the phone, sort of, because if I am in a noisy place then I usually put some music so I can be able to concentrate. I listened to music while reading the Bunn essay and I didn’t pay attention to other things unless it was something loud or that required my attention.

The specific moment in Bunn’s essay that I want to try out as a reader is when Bunn gives the two questions on page 77 and then follows up with it. ” When I read fiction or creative nonfiction, I look for how the author inserts
dialogue or character sketches within narration or environmental observation.” This is something I want to try out as a reader because I am used to looking for foreshadowing, irony and other literary elements which depending  on what you are reading you have to pay close attention to the text. Especially when you have to interpret what the author is trying to say, you sort of have to read the text word for word to get somewhat of an exact interpretation.  When Bunn gave this piece of advice in a way it made me think that sometimes you don’t have to analyze the text much into dept because the simple things like the way the author words something can tell you a lot. The way that Bunn says we are used to reading everything word for word didn’t make sense until he broke it down with this example, for me at least.

In the beginning of page 71, Bunn starts off by giving somewhat of background information about the time period that he is talking about how his reading skills were before he learned how to Read like a Writer. Bunn might have chosen to start off this way because he does mention later on in the essay that many professor won’t teach their students how to properly read they go straight to teaching them how to write. It does make sense for Bunn to start off like that because at one point we have all been in that position where we are in a aclass with a professor who expects us to know to hwo read a certain way and we migth not know how to. Bunn gives the example of  reading something outside in public and we have to reread it again because we get distracted. Bunn does try to connect with the reading in saying that he also had to adjust to this new way of reading.  Some questions that Bunn suggests we think about as we are reading are:

-What are the techniques being used by the author? Is the author’s purpose in the writing? Who is the intended audience?

With Morrison there are two different ways that someone can read and that can be being able to read as a “skill” or a an “art”. When Morrison says that people can read as an art and others can read as a skill it does tie to the relationship that someone has with literature and how they interpret it. “My own reading skills were enhanced in schools, but my pleasure in, my passion for the art of reading came long before. It came in childhood and it began with listening.” Morrison says that her passion for reading came way before her skills were enhanced in school which for some people can be the other way around or they can just have their skills enhanced but no passion. When Morrison changes the decription of reading as “an art” it changes the meaning of the activity of reading by saying that now it’s not just about answering the answers that you are supposed to read for it’s about noticing the little things as well. Like when an artist is painting a picture they have the outline of what they are doing but they also have to pay attention to the smallest details.