My Attitude Towards Reading And Writing

At this time in my life, I often find myself in an interesting place regarding my attitude towards reading and writing. When I was little, I loved to read books and I thought it was something I’d love to do forever. Now, I find myself being more interested in things have no true meaning to me like books did. These include things such as posts on Instagram, Snapchat, or even an article expressing one’s opinion on a topic I find intriguing. Deep down I still love to read but I rarely find myself doing it in my free time unless it is something I am very interested by. Many people say “You can feed the mind as much as you want and it will never get old,” but unfortunately, I feel that does not apply to me. So in my attitude essay I'll share about my views on reading and writing.

Attitude towards writing and reading

My attitude towards writing is very different from my attitude towards reading. Writing is something that I love to do and I always have and due to this, I feel it is one of my strong suits in school. Students often say they do not like writing based off of a given topic but they prefer free writing because they feel they have more to talk about. I feel this does not apply to me because I feel I am able to write about most anything given to me and have several ideas. In sixth grade, I had to write an eight page paper on spiders. At first, the paper was not fun because it was based off of the movie Charlotte’s Web so, I felt there wasn’t a lot to say especially for it having to be eight pages long. This paper made me realize my passion in school for writing because of how you had to engage in your own ideas to come up with eight pages worth of writing. I was nervous about writing this paper because I had never done anything like it. In the end, all my brainstorming came together and I received the highest grade in my grade and got an award at the end of the year because of it.

This paper was a learning experience that I’m glad I had the opportunity to write because it taught me so many things about writing that I still use as a freshman today. For example, citing sources was something I had never done before sixth grade and is the most useful thing I learned from this paper. In fourth or fifth grade I could not write more than two pages without going off topic because I thought it did not flow anymore or, I ran out of ideas. This assignment completely changed my mood about writing and made me realize there was hope for me to enjoy reading again.

I remember being a little kid and having my grandmother read stories to me. As she would read these stories to me, I would paint multiple pictures in my head to help me dig deeper into what was actually happening in the story. I often find myself doing this today when I read because it helps me see the bigger picture.

Poems are one of the main pieces of literature I often find myself doing this to because of the figurative language that is used that can often be confusing. Poems are very intriguing to me because of how they say one thing that has a totally different meaning and just by one word choice, this can be done. I never thought much about reading and writing until I enrolled into Wayne School of Engineering and took Mrs. Brannan’s class. In my opinion, she does an excellent job in breaking texts down to better understand them and their language and that has exceedingly benefited me. The first book that I actually finished and enjoyed was in third grade when I started reading the Junie B. Jones series. These books allowed me to open up about reading and made me realize that there are so many genres of books and you just have to find the one that interests you. This series made me realize fiction books with a setting and background that I can relate to is my favorite type of book. These books were about a girl in elementary school and all the challenges and experiences she faced. I realized that I related to a lot of these experiences and made me want to find more books to read. This book also made me realize that I like reading series because of how the story continues and flows together so perfectly. If I wouldn’t have read this series in third grade, I doubt I would have ever enjoyed reading.

One of my all-time favorite books is NEED by Joelle Charbonneau. This book is a teen fiction about a girl named Kaylee that needs to find a kidney for her brother and when she sees a new website designed for her school called NEED where you state a need and with just one task your wish is fulfilled, everything starts to go wrong. The plot in this book had me captivated until the very last page because of how suspenseful and thrilling it was. Before reading this book I had never been attached to a book like I was with this one. It showed me that I may enjoy reading more than I think, I just have to be more open to it. I was always someone who would much rather hangout with my friends or play outside than read a book or write. To this day, I feel like my attitude towards this has changed because I do enjoy it a lot more. I feel like this is because since I am much more mature and I have a much better understanding of a lot of things, it has allowed me to be interested in things I thought I never would be. Most children books all have a similar plot and as you start reading, you can pretty much plan out the rest of the story. Now, I can read adult books and not have a clue where the plot is going to go. Another reason I feel my attitude has changed is because I enjoy reading books that follow by a movie because I like to see just how much they relate or differ.

Conclusion

Overall, I can strongly say that my passion for reading and writing has grown. Growing up, it was my favorite thing to do but as I grew up I lost interest. Many of my experiences, challenges, and phases I have faced throughout school have changed my attitude and opinion towards reading and writing. Reading is one of the biggest ways to learn understanding and writing is where you can apply it. Without either of these key components to English, communication and the World all together would be very different.

References

1. Applebee, A. N. (1977). The child's concept of story. The Child's Concept of Story: Ages Two to Seventeen.
2. Baker, L., & Wigfield, A. (1999). Dimensions of children's motivation for reading and their relations to reading activity and reading achievement. Reading Research Quarterly, 34(4), 452-477.
3. Hidi, S., & Boscolo, P. (2006). Motivation and writing. Handbook of Writing Research, 141-153.
4. Kintsch, W., & van Dijk, T. A. (1978). Toward a model of text comprehension and production. Psychological Review, 85(5), 363-394.
5. Schunk, D. H., & Pajares, F. (2009). Self-efficacy theory. Handbook of Motivation at School, 35-54.
6. Stanovich, K. E. (1986). Matthew effects in reading: Some consequences of individual differences in the acquisition of literacy. Reading Research Quarterly, 21(4), 360-407.
7. Zimmerman, B. J. (2000). Self-efficacy: An essential motive to learn. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25(1), 82-91.