Close reading

Close reading can be difficult for many students to grasp. The article from Harvard had many good suggestions for students to follow to help them understand the concept of close reading. Annotating is a term that means underline or highlight. When you underline or highlight things that think are important it will help when your done with the passage. Then you can go back and try to decipher what you think the important text means.  Also looking for patterns will help understand the text. If the writer mentions something a few times then it is mostly likely and important part he is trying to portray to the reader. And finally you have to ask questions about the writing. You then look back into the text and try to find answers to your questions. I believe that these tips will help readers learn how to close read. They have helped me understand the concept more.

A day in the life of you in 1943

My alarm went off at 5:00 am. I hope out of bed and am on my way to practices. Country music is blaring in my car to keep me awake well I frantically drive to practice. I dive into the freezing cold water and being my workout. Two hours later I am pulling myself out of the pool. Then off to school I go. Class goes by way to fast and next thing you know I am in the pool again for work out number two. I noticed the lines on the bottom of the pool were going by extremely slow this afternoon. This made them appear fatter and darker. But once again practice flew by too fast. On my way home I saw a sign for a hospital on the expressway. It made me think about my mom. The time she took me too the doctor because they thought I had ADHD. My mom stuck up for me and told them that I as just bored and then told then about my love for swimming. The doctor took my own symptoms into consideration and told my mom to get me involved in a swim team. It was the best thing she could have ever done for me. I pulled into the drive way and walked in to see my mom waiting for me at the dinner table with dinner all ready. I walked over to her and hugged her. When she asked what it was for I said, " For everything you do for me."

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What would the 21st century Emerson have to say

In my opinion Emerson would be disappointed in how we are today. The majority of people don't think of us as all one and connected somehow. People today are selfish and only car about one thing, themselves and their families. Most people don't stop by the homeless person thats asking for money on the street. Or care to do community service to help others out. I believe that Emerson thought that everyone is connected to each other and that they should all help each other out. Do work that you should do to help yourself and others. I got this idea from this paragraph,
"Help must come from the bosom alone. The scholar is that man who must take up into himself all the ability of the time, all the contributions of the past, all the hopes of the future. He must be an university of knowledges. If there be one lesson more than another, which should pierce his ear, it is, The world is nothing, the man is all; in yourself is the law of all nature, and you know not yet how a globule of sap ascends; in yourself slumbers the whole of Reason; it is for you to know all, it is for you to dare all."
To me it meant that we need to help others out to ensure a better future and country. And today we are not doing that. Which is why I think Emerson would be very disappointed with how our country is today.

The American Scholar

I found most of the reading to be difficult. After rereading passages it seemed to make more sense. But I kept rereading one passage that i couldn't seem to understand. It was the following text
              "Our age is bewailed as the age of Introversion. Must that needs be evil? We, it seems, are critical; we are embarrassed with second thoughts; we cannot enjoy any thing for hankering to know whereof the pleasure consists; we are lined with eyes; we see with our feet; the time is infected with Hamlet's unhappiness,--"Sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought. Is it so bad then? Sight is the last thing to be pitied. Would we be blind? Do we fear lest we should outsee nature and God, and drink truth dry? I look upon the discontent of the literary class, as a mere announcement of the fact, that they find themselves not in the state of mind of their fathers, and regret the coming state as untried; as a boy dreads the water before he has learned that he can swim. If there is any period one would desire to be born in,-- is it not the age of Revolution; when the old and the new stand side by side, and admit of being compared; when the energies of all men are searched by fear and by hope; when the historic glories of the old, can be compensated by the rich possibilities of the new era? This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it."


I think this confused me by the way he was talking about fear. He was describing evil and fear of the people. It seemed like a dark atmosphere that he was describing but then at the end he said it was a very good era. I wasn't sure why he would say that an evil and scary era is a good one. But then when I read the last part of the sentence when it said " if we know but what to do with it." was very interesting. He made it seem as if we knew what ti do with evil it would make it good. But that confused me as well.