Chapter 4: Reading to Write

I was really interested in Hirvela's chapter 4 on Reading to Write. I strongly believe the way I read and the variety of literature I read influence the way that I write. When I was younger, I would read all kinds of humorous adventure stories from the children's section of our Free Library. At some point, my mother began showing me how to use her typewriter (because I thought it was interesting) and I began typing up one-two page adventure stories of my own. The style that I used to write my stories was reflective of the style shown by the authors I had been reading. My stories were pretty funny and engaging, but they usually ended in "to be continued..." as I was still learning about writing and keeping a focus and developing all these other aspects that go into creating a prolonged narrative. I would definitely consider my experience under the term "reading for writing" as described by Carson(1993).

I especially love the quote by Kroll(1993)that, "one can read a text not only to 'learn' its content but to 'learn' choices that writers have made in producing it" (113).I would actually love be able to give first year students a book list to have read before the start of class. I do not think that many beginning students read enough...to be fair, I don't think most people in general read enough. I'm not quite sure why summer reading is required in high school (at least my high school) and not in college for undergraduates. Students often complain about class readings, fail to complete readings, or have trouble understanding readings because they do not read much outside of the classroom. Reading on a regular basis would probably make it a less jarring experience during the semester.