Journal 10

I do agree that google is making us stupid. Although people do still read and write on their own, the majority of people do not do it by choice. They prefer to simply use technologies such as the Internet to make the process faster to find whatever they are looking for. Most of us are no longer forced to open books, read, and write. Therefore we now see that a lot of people are no longer spending time doing just that. I feel that the Internet is a shortcut to almost everything—its like taking the easy way out. There is so much information out there, so much we can learn from books and other things that are not technology related.

Journal 2

A close reading is not simply reading a text. A close reading is an analysis of a text that allows the reader to focus on every little detail and to look beyond the pages and find underlying themes or meanings. The purpose of a close reading is to allow readers to become more involved with a text so that they may pick out the small details, find the underlying themes, and find deeper meanings. While some texts may have the same little details and the same underlying themes, each text holds different meanings for each person. I’ve found that through close readings I’ve been able to look at texts differently and thus write better because of it. Even in Inquiry 1, I was able to take a text that isn’t in the form of a book and analyze it closely, pick out minute details, and form my own meaning based on my findings.